₦airaland Forum

awodman: According to him, the Lagos to the Sagamu interchange end of the road will be expanded to three lanes on either side, while the portion from the interchange to Ibadan will have the existing two lanes reconstructed.

Reconstructing the road is a good development but continuing a 2 lane road from Sagamu to Ibadan after 14 years of waiting and 7 years before vision 2020 speaks of lack of vision.

Capnd143: “Most of the remaining prisoners are concentrated inthe Asia – Pacific region and agood number of them are on death row.
“We are concluding Prisoners’ Transfer Agreement (PTA) with all thosecountries, such as United Kingdom, Thailand, Japan, China, Indonesia, Switzerland,South Africa, Mozambique, Angola and Hong Kong, so that we can bring home these Nigerians to complete their prison terms.

Will Nigerian prisoners abroad really like this? Considering how we treat our prisoners when they are in prison and even when they come out.

The chart below displays the contributions of Diaspora Nigerians to the Nigerian economy in 2012.
Full analysis available at www.ohnigeria.com

This is a good promotional video. It will help sell Lagos if well circulated. Lagos also has potential to make money from tourism, please keep it up.

Six Islamic extremists who plotted a murderous attack on an English Defence League rally were today jailed for a total of nearly 110 years. A judge said the plotters were inspired by “freely available extremist material” as he sentenced the gang at the Old Bailey. The six had travelled to the rally in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, in June last year armed with an arsenal of weapons including two shotguns, swords, knives, a nail bomb and a partially-assembled pipe bomb. The gang’s plan only failed because the event finished earlier than expected - they arrived at around 4pm when it was over shortly after 2pm. Two of the men, Khan and Uddin, were stopped by chance as they travelled back to Birmingham from Dewsbury. A police officer pulled their Renault Laguna over because it looked old, and the car was flagged up as uninsured because the gang had entered the registration number incorrectly on an online form by one digit. The car was taken to a pound near Sheffield and it was two days later that staff there discovered the plotters’ deadly arsenal. Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC told the men: “How was it that you became involved in a crime of this gravity? At least part of the answer to that question must come in the tide of apparently freely available extremist material in which most of you had immersed yourselves.” Jewel Uddin, 27, Omar Mohammed Khan, 31, Mohammed Hasseen, 24, Anzal Hussain, 25, Mohammed Saud, 23, and Zohaib Ahmed, 22, who are all from the West Midlands, admitted planning the attack at a hearing on April 30. Khan, Uddin and Ahmed were jailed for 19-and-a-half years with an extended licence period of five years, and the other three were given jail terms of 18 years and nine months and an extended licence period of five years. EDL leader Tommy Robinson and his deputy Kevin Carroll called out “God save the Queen” from the public gallery as sentence was passed. Sobs could be heard from other observers, and shouts of “Allahu Akbar”. The judge said the extremist material was “not difficult either to obtain or share”. He said: “In this case, it can only have served to reinforce the defendants’ resolve to behave in the hideous way that was planned”.
source
http://www.ohnigeria.com/2013/06/islamist-gang-is-jailed-for-at-least-18.html

She could walk before but lost it in a home accident that fractured her spine in five different places when she fell from a window. This condemmed her to the wheelchair; never to walk again. One day, she went to the hospital and was playing with a plastic toy car at the playing ground. She got hooked inside the toy car. She struggled to free herslef from the toy car and in the process her back twinged and she started feeling her legs again. Several physiotherapy sessions followed and she started walking again, although with the aid of a set of crutches. Yesterday, without the aid of crutches, she completed a 6km run.

Source: Pictures available
http://www.ohnigeria.com/2013/06/walking-paralysed-running.html

We want to expand our business by supplying children wares to interested, enterprising, and accountable married women with verifiable addresses in Nigeria.

Single ladies can also apply, but they will have to pay in full for wares supplied.

If interested please send you phone number to ola@wirenigeria.com and I will call you.

If you stay in Lagos or Ibadan, you can contact me through
ola@wirenigeria.com

Hello, when next you have need either ways pounds or naira contact me at
ola@wirenigeria.com

Can we have this developmental stride on the front page please?

WITH preparations in top gear, and barring any last minute hitches, by February 2013, which is barely three months from now, the Aba Independent Power Plant (IPP) will come on stream with additional 140 megawatts of energy to give the decadent Aba a lifeline towards rejuvenation. The plant, which is the first of its kind in Nigeria, is coming at a time when the country is in the throes of epileptic power supply and darkness, occasioned by the failure of government to redeem the collapsed power sector after more than twelve years of wishy-washy policy somersaults.

The Aba plant is a trailblazer in the sense that it is wholly owned by a private indigenous company - Geometric Power Limited. From conception to design, funding and implementation, there is practically no government involvement, which is an essential requirement for independent power plant operation. That makes the plant a truly independent power plant. I have said it before that independent power plant, as the name implies, should be devoid of government involvement for it to work. It is important at this stage that Geometric and its partners in this very important project spare nothing to ensure that the objectives of this power plant are fully realised.

The history of the Aba power plant dates back to 2004 following the visit of James Wolfenshon, who was then the president of the World Bank. Sir Wolfenshon visited Aba as part of the bank’s programme for Development Assistance to Africa. After assessing the industrial potential of Aba, he reportedly recommended the setting up of a power plant to boost the industrial potential of Aba. That was an excellent recommendation.

It is amazing, however, that whereas the then Olusegun Obasanjo administration accepted the recommendation; he instead decided to site the power plant in Abeokuta, which has no industrial potential like Aba. Obasanjo’s misconceived and unpatriotic decision left Aba to its fate. But as fate would have it, that was when Professor Bart Nnaji, the immediate past Minister of Power and former Presidential Adviser on Power came to the rescue.

Mrs. Ngozi-Okonjo Iweala, a Minister of Finance under Obasanjo and immediate past managing director of the World Bank, who accompanied Wolfenshon to the visit, was reportedly heart-broken to see that the debilitating power crisis in the country has paralysed the large army of small-scale manufacturers at the Ariaria Industrial Market, Aba, where assorted high quality shoes, handbags, belts, clothes and other items were produced and labeled “Made in Italy”, “Made in France”, as if nothing good could come from Nigeria! It is a spat on Nigeria. The manufacturers do that because they’re on their own without any form of official support or assistance or policy directive.

According to Okonjo-Iweala: “I informed Mr. Wolfenshon of a globally respected Nigerian professor of robotics in the United States, Bart Nnaji, who could build a power plant in this city to solve this severe problem”. She revealed that initially, Geometric wanted to build a power plant for only manufacturing firms who were experiencing acute shortage of electricity in Aba, famous for indigenous technology, but decided to include all categories of electricity users in Aba following the visit of Wolfenshon. That was the genesis of the Aba Power Plant.

Fired by a desire to revitalise the hitherto industrial city that could qualify as “The Taiwan of Nigeria”, Nnaji came to the scene with his Geometric Power Company, which he founded to generate and distribute electricity in Nigeria to international standards. The uniqueness of the company, apart from being the first indigenous power company in Nigeria, is its capacity to combine electricity generation with distribution. So far, Geometric has developed a 22-megawatt capacity power plant in Abuja, which has boosted electricity supply in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The Aba Power Plant is a 1,000-megawatt capacity plant, strategically sited to re-energise the industrial city. The plant will deliver regular and affordable electricity directly to consumers. That would transform Aba industrially, economically and create massive employment to millions of idle hands.

Raising the funds needed to put up the power plant is not easy. With many Nigerian banks passing through hard times, sourcing the funds locally presents a problem. The financial outlay of about $500 million (about N78.5 billion) needed to execute the project would entail external borrowing. Foreign creditors need to support the project without wavering because there is no doubt that electricity is badly needed in Nigeria. Unfortunately, the policy inconsistency of government may create doubts in the minds of potential creditors.

For instance, the uncertainty over the much-touted power reform programme of the Goodluck Jonathan administration and the controversies over the sale of the successor companies of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) paint negative picture of the power reform agenda of the government. Everyone is wondering what the government is up to. Is it really serious with the electricity programme? Notwithstanding all this, the Aba Power Plant is on a different pathway outside government’s interference. And, that is why it is making progress irrespective of the foot-dragging in government power programme.

Over the decades, Aba has remained, perhaps, the most vibrant industrial city in Nigeria, where thousands of small to medium scale industrial enterprises using indigenous technology thrived. Before independence in 1960, Aba was the cynosure of Eastern Nigeria, a centre of industrial manufacturing. Millions of people flocked to Aba and the city boomed in prosperity. Not even the Civil War affected Aba’s industrial capability. As a matter of fact, the industrial manufacturing thrived throughout the period of the Civil War.

At the end of the war, Aba returned to its full industrial activity. Things remained stable to the late 1980s when the situation took a dramatic downturn and the city began to wane under the failure of successive administrations. The final death nail came with the present political dispensation that began in 2000 that paid lip-service to governance. The collapse of the electricity sub-sector and the decay of roads and other infrastructure that the Abia State government neglected threw Aba into the morass total decay. Thus, Aba fell from grace to grass. What would have served as a bastion of industrial development went into oblivion. Whether or not Aba will rise again is a matter of conjecture except with the inroad being made by Geometric to bring life back to the city.

The power plant may be one good thing that has happened to Aba since the end of the Civil War in 1970. Ever since then, every other thing in that city had been on a decline to the present day. According to the proprietors of the power plant, the plant was strategically located in Aba to serve as the first of such industry-centred independent power. “This is an integrated power project because it has a power plant and distribution network with sub-stations, power line, as well as gas pipeline all embedded in the project. Phase one of the project has 140 megawatts; phase two is 540 megawatts, which is to serve as additional unit to existing one while phase three is 100 megawatts, which will come later”. There is no doubt that with a functional power plant in place devoid of the unhealthy politics that shackles electricity in the country, Aba will have new life injected into it.

I want to stress that electricity is just one aspect of the infrastructure failure in Aba. The deplorable state of the roads is lamentable. It is an indictment on the two Orji administrations that have presided over Aba, indeed, the entire Abia State since 1999. Now that the electricity issue is being addressed, it is incumbent on the Abia State government to come up with a plan to rehabilitate Aba roads. This is to ensure a smooth movement of goods and services in the city. The industrial activities and commerce will be seriously hampered if there are no motorable roads in Aba.

Author of this article: By Luke Onyekakeyah
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=105941%3Athe-revolutionary-aba-power-plant&catid=38%3Acolumnists&Itemid=615

What we need to change is not perception but the real thing.

Transparency international consistently ranks Pakistan as being more corrupt than Nigeria.
So what will they be training Nigerian soldiers on?

CFCfan: The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved contracts for the construction of the terminal building, control tower and power house at the Bayelsa Airport in Yenagoa, the state capital for the sum of N13.912 billion.

The road sector got once again attracted plenty of attention with contracts awarded for the Okene-Benin, Abuja-Lokoja and the Kano-Maiduguri expressway.

Abuja-Lokoja again? The road was once awarded with contract divided among some companies. Can anybody help us with facts if you are able to confirm this?

If we perfect this, we should start planing for e-voting too.

According to a FAO sourced World Bank data, Rice planted on Nigerian soil has a harvest capacity of up to 1413 Kg per Hectre (2010 data). It can be more; depending on grain type and other farming methods employed.

Conservatively, this farm is capable of producing:
706,500kg per annum or 14,130 bags(50kg) of rice. This is a good start.

Ideally, I would have said government have not business in business, but according to El-rufai's 2012 budget analysis, Lagos is the only Nigerian state running like a successful business entity. Implying whatever it invests in it manages and profits from. I am hoping for a situation where this expertise can be exported to other willing Nigerian states gradually weakening our over dependent on oil.

To the two governors I say congratulations.

Prof. Achebe should know that

1)If you think your father has the largest farm, you may need to re-examine the extent of your neighbours' farm boundaries.
2)If you are sure your neighbour has only 9 fingers, it will be insensitive to start counting yours to his face.
3)If your yam farm brought better harvest than your neighbour's, it will be insensitive to insist on building a yam barn in front of his house.

Prof., despite his personal opinion, should also know that

1)It is not every cloth, no matter how wet, that you spread in the sun.
2)The oldest among the drum maker's dogs should not be the one to eat the leather that is meant for drum making.
3)There will be chaos where the chief hunter in his bid to run from a wild animal, chooses the direction of the market square.

finally,
Prof. should give us a legacy that will make love to spread among us and not hatred. My brothers and sisters can we forget about this division and embrace love? forget about who or what is right or wrong.

Prof. Achebe should know that

1)If you think your father has the largest farm, you may need to re-examine the extent of your neighbours' farm boundaries.
2)If you are sure your neighbour has only 9 fingers, it will be insensitive to start counting yours to his face.
3)If your yam farm brought better harvest than your neighbour's, it will be insensitive to insist on building a yam barn in front of his house.

Prof., despite his personal opinion, should also know that

1)It is not every cloth, no matter how wet, that you spread in the sun.
2)The oldest among the drum maker's dogs should not be the one to eat the leather that is meant for drum making.
3)There will be chaos where the chief hunter in his bid to run from a wild animal, chooses the direction of the market square.

finally,
Prof. should give us a legacy that will make love to spread among us and not hatred. My brothers and sisters can we forget about this division and embrace love? forget about who or what is right or wrong.

"It was also learnt that the outcome of the planned confab would be handed over to the National Assembly"

Did you guys see this part of the statement?

You mean oil money! there is no tax system in the North.

ogbeche77: The most painful part is that most of them were all sponsored by the pilgrimage board from the native state.. Thats fukcing taxpayers money going down the drain, how I wish it was from there own purse
But come to think of it, if I have offended my God and want forgiveness shouldn't I pay from my own pocket? Why must the govt pay? Since Nigeria is a secular state.. This should not be happening..
Those worshipping other deities should also have access to pilgrimage funds.. Equation balance

Please what was the offence of those taken to Anambra?

Dudu_Negro: I like your response. Diversity is crucial, but you want inclusion of people who value the benefits of diversity. Wont you agree?

Can somebody please bring me up to page here!
Who are those taken to Anambra? are they criminals? or disabled?
Is this the first time this is being done?

My brother, how many wives your papa get?

Mr.President, under your watch trillions of Naira was fraudulently paid as subsidy
and you turn around to insult those whose action prompted a reaction that led to this discovery.
When is your government going to punish those found culpable? Ain't you just stage managing a none existing anti-corruption campaign?

Exactly my thinking. Do our security people imagine we are that very dump?
It is difficult knowing what to believe in Nigeria where lie is fluent.

2mch: He was arrested in Febrary. So he escaped and got re-arrested

Just for the record
1)This Prophet is based in the UK and not Nigeria.
2)The video was uploaded months before it was denied that our first lady is sick.
3)God reveals things to his children, he can reveal information about anything to you, Nigeria inclusive.
4)You cannot know a fake Prophet or Prophecy by being "smart", you can only know through the spirit of discernment, which is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
5)This Prophecy may be true or fake, but I won't say either except I have confirmation from the giver of prophecies.

Mr. Vice President sir,
Somalia needs help on how not to be a failed state and Iraq on how to stop terrorism.
Please let's help them too.

I share your opinion, but you know what? Nigeria cannot be fixed in isolation, it is either we are ready to fix things or not. The corruption the government has refused to fight is fighting it. Offer anybody who works in government certain amount of money, you will get information. That is why everything leak in Nigeria, including classified security information.

taharqa: I honestly think all these 'sources'(if they really exist) purportedly giving info to all manner of ppl behind d backdoor , should be sorted out and charged with High Treason. I mean, am 4 openness in govt and all dat but if d state house is actually 'leaking' dis way, it portends grave danger to national security cos who knows what these 'sources' are telling(or capable of telling) foreign interest....#veryTroubling