₦airaland Forum

Exams do hold on Saturdays. Please Coordinators, I will appreciate if OAU can have her fixture for Friday. Preferrably, very late in the evening. Thanks.

Good Morning Friends. I can see some debaters complaining about the topics to debate on in the next round. Personally, I don't see anything wrong with those topics. It depends on what the debaters make out of it. For instance, consider what happened between LAUTECH & NU in the preliminary stage, thesame topic they could not make fun out of, was what UNIBEN & OAU debated on and a lot of people tag that contest as the best so far. So what I am opining is that, our different attitudes toward those topics speak volume.

By the way, the coordinators should please help us decode those fixtures as soon as possible. Thanks!

I think everyone is trying to be security concious

Hmmm... so one person con tanda for there dey snap am abi?? ;-\ Una no sabi lie jor

I think N20 & N50 notes.

Seun: You need to have as much RAM as possible so your system won't slow down when running IDE, browser, Apache, MySQL, etc at once.

Like what RAM? 4GB?

With those important features you have mentioned, could you please recommend a couple of model of laptops having them. Preferrably an HP laptop. Also within the price range the OP wrote.

It actually depends on what your defination of abroad is, but i want to believe you mean schools in 'better' continents like America and Europe.

Let me first say an individual student determines to a very large extent the success he or she records anywhere in the world both home and abroad. That been said, there is no doubt that schools abroad are better than our present day institutions here due to so many factors ranging from poor funding, bad management, quality of lecturers, archaic curriculums and so on. Hence, the products of our own schools tend to be of low quality to what we have over there.

However, the resilient nature of our own students atimes gives us an edge over the ones there.

Many Nigerian students to me are no dull brains, we are only limited by the non-working system we find ourselves.

glamrocka: God bless Africa indeed.

I share some of your sentiments, but i fear things have changed too much for this to happen. well this might sound so cliche' but i always say it starts from every individual, unless there is individual reflection and change , any struggle to change collectively will eventually be hampered by the very same individuals.

I totally agree with you.

Hi Everyone! Happy Sunday.

@Coordinators, Could you please spell out the fixtures lucidly with the school names and also pin-point the side each citadel will be taking.


Regards

Ile Oluwa

Hmmmm... photosupermarket of life

E con be like say dem put calabash for belle...lol

Thanks to everyone for this wonderful debate! I learnt so much from my opponents today. You guys rock.

To my partner, Miracy, she did a great job! I am happy to have debated alongside you damsel.

My sincere appreciation goes to the Judges too for taking their time to scrutinize our works. I say I am really impressed and delighted. I accept the criticisms in good fate and I promise to try my best to improve in subsequent essays.

I was shocked to see we were still considered to progress to the next round, there is no end-of-the-year gift that would have made me happier than this. Thank you so much coordinators. I pray our good God will preserve our lifes to see the coming new year in good health and wealth. See you friends in the next round!

Shalom

The Last Nazgûl: It does,but in a heterogenous society, such a heinous 'crime' is more often than not perpetuated against members of other tribes.

Thanks for the bolded admittance. That is to tell you it can happen both in a homogeneous setting and a heterogeneous one.

The height of it in any of the settings largely depends on the fertile ground given to it to thrive.

Omolola1: Could you possibly be a mind reader to know whose interest they had or didn't av @ heart?

LOL

Omolola1: Finally,
This goes to both sides...
Should Nigeria spend a trillion naira to bring out dance troupes and masquerades next year to celebrate the centenary of an amalgamation, which to all intent and purpose could be a legal infamy? If yes, why? If no, why?

Celebrating the centenary of our amalgamation is worthwhile but extravagance should never be put into it, as we have too numerous challenges that could be maintained or solved with such huge amount of money. Thanks!

Omolola1: i mean now

Alright. If you say now, it actually depends on the content of the agreement made far back in 1914.

There are rumours everywhere that our amalgamation is due to expire January 1, 2014. If the veracity of this claim is real, then interested goups or individuals can challenge the unification of Nigeria after her expiration. Nevertheless, Nigerians now have the opportunity to take a second look at the legal basis for the existence of Nigeria as a corporate entity during the proposed National Dialogue.

The Last Nazgûl: ...The Nigerian hoi polloi who can't get a job because his potential employer would rather hand the job to his undeserving tribesman?

Kindly permit me to come in here. Don't the quoted happen within a tribe?

Omolola1: @ opposing side
When Lugard actually delivered the “amalgamation speech” on the “amalgamation day of January 1st 1914”. He boldly announced to the world, based on his agreement with the secretary of state the previous year, his ‘desire as  briefly as possible to describe to his audience, and through them to the official and unofficial community of Nigeria the basis on which the Amalgamation is to be carried out..’  The basis, of course, was to facilitate the continued exploitation of the people and their natural resources. Let’s not forget, this was done as World War 1 was just breaking out, Parliamentary process was thus dispensed with. Do you agree that Committed eminent Nigerian lawyers could, if they choose to, seek a judicial review of the decision to amalgamate as soon as it is practicable to do so and that a declaration that the decision is null and void could usher in an immediate convocation of a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) to give Nigerians the long awaited say on this most vexed of all issues? If no, why

There was no way the amalgamation could be challenged then because the British were smart as to keep the colonial ordinance of amalgamation away from the nationalists to avoid a possible legal challenge and confrontation.

Omolola1: From those halcyon days of British political ingenuity of 1914 to the present turbulent period of Boko Haram insurgency in the North, kidnapping and armed robberies in the South and deepening poverty all over the country, events have changed dramatically leaving vestiges of political bitterness, ethnic terrorism and religious intolerance.
Can't the amalgamation really be said to be a mistake? @opposing side

My co-debater, Miracy said it all! In addition, the fact that all what you have mentioned still exist in almost-homogeneous nations of the world, it is an affirmation to another fact that our own problem has nothing to do with our unification.

Omolola1: Since the 1950s and even after Independence in 1960, the North (taken as one entity) had benefitted immensely from the Amalgamation of 1914 in terms of political power and the share of the national cake. According to a British writer John Pender in his book, `AHMADU BELLO – Sadauna of Sokoto, `the problems facing the NPC government of Tafawa Balewa were many.
In 1961, only 400 out of the 41,000 Federal Civil servants were Northerners (with about 30 in senior posts); only two of the Northerners were in the Department of Customs and Excise; in the Army, there was a large number in the lower ranks but about ten (10) were commissioned officers
@Opposing side, how do you defend this?

Thank you. The North benefitting from the almagamated Nigeria is one of the many goodies they are entitled to as part of Nigeria. The North were far behind before now, so the need to bridge the gap is needed to have a balanced nation. So, it will not be too fair if we now look at this as a mechanism to favour the North above the South. Moreso, the South too has been a beneficiary of the merging. Taking a look at the region at the helm of administration lately(1999-2013), you will agree with me the South has got a upper representation to rule the Nation comprising both the old northern and southern protectorates.

@Quatermaine & The Last Nazgûl,

Do you think disintegration should be the next thing for Nigeria?

Quatermaine: Yes, not just lugard alone, th british too who were behind him. if there was no amalgation, ''who know who'', tribalism would have not emerged.

There you get it wrong dear, how come 'who know who' even exist among a particular tribe? For example, A yoruba man who heads a company will prefer his brother to take up a job with the company at the expense of another more qualified Yoruba man. Do you still blame amalgamation for this?

The Last Nazgûl: do you for the sake of acknowledging Nigeria's progress ignore our plethora of problems? Or you feel those you have lost their lives to these plagues are cannon fodder, expendable humans, sacrificial lambs for our progressive baby steps? Do you feel such a loss is sufficient i.e death is a small price to pay, and is sufficiently counterbalanced by our progressive baby steps ?

I do acknowledge our challenges of course!

Kindly read the later part of my essay for answers to these questions. I emphatically wrote there that there is the need for us to understand our differences in order to take advantage of it rather than it taking advantage of us.

Quatermaine: why then are we not better than that of Isreal and U.S.A?, davo, our Manpower is good but do no owe it to the fact that it made up of many ethnic groups because the manopower has more Northeners than southerners, They are not at par equal..

Our mentality and our leaders have been a problem to our success story. That been said, our military still maintain a top spot in the peace keeping missions both here in Africa and the world as a whole.

Take for example N.D.A where admission is based on ''who knows who''...

This is also one of the problems of Nigeria... Can we also blame Lord Lugard for the 'Who know who' mentality? No.

The Last Nazgûl: I willingly admit that the hypothetical baby is not a mistake. However, we cannot ignore the stifling conditions the baby is born into, conditions which threaten the baby's rate of growth. Can you unflinchingly say the Nigerian baby has grown.( In my opinion, it's retarded,no offense). Can you safely say the Nigerian nation is a baby friendly environment given the fractious situation with peace a scarce commodity in many climes no thanks to ethno-religious misdeeds?

Thank you for agreeing with me that the baby is not a mistake.

Now to your question, the answer still lies in my article. Truly, there are challenges as a very ethnically-diverse country but we have failed to put in place necessary measures to make us co-exist peacefully but rather, we still blame Lord Lugard for bringing us together. Do you think we can abound well with such mentality?

However, Nigeria as a nation has experienced significant progress and success since its amalgamation.

Quatermaine: very correct.

So what do you think is the root cause for the problems in which we find ourselves today?

Like I stated in my essay, our past and present leaders have much of blames to take.

Read this vv

Davo93: I still find it very difficult to dissuade my thinking faculty from allowing me point accusing fingers at some of our past and present leaders who have told us nothing but falsehood and continued reasons why a country called Nigeria should not exist without even feeding us with the benefits we stand to enjoy as a united nation.

Do you agree with me here?

Quatermaine: i beg to disagree. It was not peaceful, both parties never agreed.. The northerners did not want the christainity and education of the south whereas the southerners never agreed to accept the legislative structure of the North ( sharia law for example)..

You said wars, but who was fighting who??

You didn't get that too well friend. I mean there was no violent reactions in most part of the new Nigeria after the amalgation was done or when it was in progress to avoid it.

As for annexation that went through wars before it was successful, take a look at New Mexico that was captured by the U.S. Army in August 1846 and then administered separately from Texas. Mexico acknowledged the loss of territory in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848. This was not a peaceful process.

Reference:

United States territorial acquisitions
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_territorial_acquisitions

Quatermaine: Nice concept..

at times the baby could be a mistake.. Cases as when both couples did not plan to have a baby, I consider it a mistake because the couples had their own interest at heart at the expense of that of the baby's by virtue of coming into the world.

If you had sex with a lady and she becomes pregnant, what will be your first reaction?

Yes, I may not want a baby in the first place, so also according to your proposition, there was no clear interests from the two protectorates to merge. So, if i did not propose to abort the pregnancy that came as a result of it, i believe that has layed credence to the fact that i have decided to have the baby. So after the birth of the baby, do you still call it a mistake? Obviously NO!

Think about this friend.

Still standing on the existing protocol,

The Last Nazgûl: ... It thus goes without saying that 'Nigerians' on both sides of the 'protectorate' divide never sought the unification of the protectorate or in simpler terms, the creation of the Nigerian state. The stakeholders were thus not consulted, rather, an all important decision, one which shaped their destinies was taken by the colonial lords of the Nigerian manor. Thus, Nigeria as we know it today is a colonial contraption , a crige worthy artifact, a colonial Greek gift.

Agreed the amalgamation was forceful but do you also know it is very possible that we have many of the protectorates' members that were happy with it?

How do i mean? There are records that before the invasion by the British, many empires that were within the Nigerian territory had made efforts to unify the various tribes within West Africa. So, do you not see Lugard's action as a catalyst to the reaction?

Quatermaine: Davo, what do you mean by Peaceful?, that both parties agreed to merge?.

Thank you. I said peaceful and i mean peaceful. If you had taken time to study my write-up, you will see where i pointed out that some annexations came up after many wars and violent processes from the stakeholders. So if only signed documents brought Nigeria to existence without bloodshed, can we not say it is peaceful? Yes, it is definately peaceful.

Standing on the existing protocol, kindly permit me to point out some inordinations in my opponents' write-up.

The Last Nazgûl: Almagamation is therefore the process of combining or uniting multiple entities into a single form. Going by this definition, an almagamation is thus not a run of the mill merger, as the almagamating entities moult and divest themselves of their erstwhile pre-almagamation individual independent statuses by taking on the new form of the new union.

Your defination is wrong and moreso, I have not come across such word before in a dictionary or anywhere.

In the year 1914, a geographically demarcated piece of land known as Nigeria came into being, with the merger of the northern and southern protectorates by Lord Lugard. By this infamous action, Lugard waltzed his way into the annals of history. Lord Lugard is, without a shard of doubt, definitely writhing uneasily and frothing furiously in his grave in England, with his state of unrest brought about by his historical faux pas. Lugard was well aware of the incompatibility of the peoples on either side of the protectorate divide, hence he said ' the north and south are like oil and water, they cannot mix.' It is common knowledge that immiscible substances are best kept apart, yet Lugard who was obviously aware of the ominous consequences that would ensue from such a joinder, chose to foolhardily damn the consequences.

Do you realize there was no problem immediately the amalgamation was done and politically and economically, things appeared normal until the introduction of the Legislative Council which brought together representatives from the north and the southern parts of the country. So alledging Lugard purposely brought problem is unfounded as you claim.