₦airaland Forum

That is true. But what choice do we have?

Perhaps with steady patronage they might be pushed to provide better quality.

I’m still using Persil because it washes superbly and doesn’t fade colors of clothes. I still buy Pears transparent soap because the kids have dermatitis and react to alternatives.

It’s everywhere but what can one do.

How many of us here are using made in Nigeria products? Just few or none.

We all have a role to play in growing the naira. Buy Nigerian goods and you grow the naira.

Most of us patronise foreign goods and services and we expect the naira to grow. We are all jokers. Period.

Please in light of the current economic situation, help make a list of Nigerian products from large companies and SMEs in Nigeria that we can purchase in place of the exhorbitant imported alternatives.


Persil — Ariel
Pears transparent soap —
Bounty kitchen paper towel — Bella/Rose Carla
Doritos — Plantain chips
Dove/Rexona anti perspiration —
Mac Studio products — House of Tara
Perfumes — SME oil perfume businesses
Kids clothes?? —


Add yours…

Madam wheredemdey I bought PTA in Abuja this afternoon from firstbank. $4000 at N197.65 with 2% commission. Please stop spreading false info

wheredemdey:
Apologies for the harsh words...

The truth is that this forum has been very helpful to all and sundry and such unsubstantiated information is not good to be disseminated here.

There is a cbn circular halting the sale of PTA...it came into effect since last year.

No bank ...i repeat no bank sells pta...you can put a call to cbn feedback team online and make valid enquiries...pta and bta have been halted same with bdc...




Apologies...no harm intended but you lie my sister....kindly call the bank and branch and put me to shame.....until then...quit disseminating false information....when people that drafted the circular and attend mpc meetings talk you listen.

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Role of English language in Governance in India

Mulayam Singh Yadav whose election manifesto apparently wishes to ban English and Computers from "education and government work" in U.P., excited a reply from none other than Economics Nobel Amartya Sen. While one is filled with admiration of Amartya Sen's balanced view of India and the World, his casual take on the role of Indian languages in the development of India is disappointing.

We do not endorse banning English, but...
To be sure, we do not endorse banning of English anywhere. Banning English and/or computers in education or governance is not a way of progress.
Instead of blocking the source of development, governments and educational institutions and industries must focus on bringing the vast body of knowledge in English to Indian languages, and also make Indian-language computing bug-free and user-friendly. It is only when one assumes that all this is impossible that, pressed with the need to bring about equality, one starts making such mindless statements as Mulayam Singh Yadav's.
Until such time as Indian languages grow to the level where they become the chosen media for education in India, it is wrong to distance education in India from English. While there's no need to ban English in government work, there is no need to believe that English is necessary in this space. Indian languages can replace English overnight in government work without any loss, and indeed with much profit. If, that is, the respective governments are serious enough about governance.

English is not India's "great leveler"
It is wrong to believe that English is a great leveller - one which can reduce or remove the divide between the haves and havenots in India, simply because it's a scientific fact that one learns best in one's own mother tongue. Amartya Sen gets his facts wrong in claiming that English is "widely used" - unless one confines his attention to urban centers alone. Even to this day, more than 80% of Karnataka learns and works using Kannada. In
the Hindi-belt, this percentage is as high as 97% (data based on education statistics published by DISE) It is disheartening to hear Amartya Sen endorse the idea of English as a great leveler. Here's what Amartya Sen had to say in response to Mulayam Singh Yadav's manifesto which, in his view, tries to "exclude" people from learning English:
So rather than being an egalitarian force, the exclusion - if it is carried out - will have exactly the opposite effect: that is to keep the stratification as it is. Because obviously Mulayam Singh Yadav will not be able to prevent people from doing English in India as the language of commerce, industry, rule of law and public use. Surely, Mulayam Singh Yadav will not be able to prevent all that - but irrespective of Mulayam Singh Yadav's capability or incapability to prevent this or that, what is disappointing is that Amartya Sen doesn't even seem to dream about a future where Indian languages are the language of commerce, industry, rule of law and public use.

Sure there is no point in excluding Indians from learning English, but it is wrong to believe that English is necessary for education or for any of the purposes which Sen enlists. English becomes necessary only under the assumption that Indian languages are dying, and that their role is slowly but surely becoming ornamental. That assumption is neither necessary nor illustrated by recent trends of Indian language usage on, for example, the internet. That assumption goes against the very development and equality which Sen is so concerned about.

Tagore's insistence of mother-tongue education
It is surprising too, that Sen, a strong advocate of Rabindranath Tagore's worldview, apparently fails to see the merit in Tagore's insistence of the imporance of mother-tongue education. Perhaps we must redraw the attention of Amartya Sen to Tagore's Shikshar Vahana (The Vehicle of Education), an essay published in 1915 and paraphrased by Narmadeshwar Jha in his biography of Tagore published by UNESCO: The use of English in education hindered assimilation of what was taught, and kept education confined to urban centres and the upper classes. Thus, if the vast rural masses were to benefit, it was absolutely essential to switch over to the use of Bengali in the context of Bengal at all levels of education, including higher education.
Of course, Sen has the right to differ with Tagore. But in differing with Tagore on this point, Sen is differing with reason. It is an established scientific fact that mother-tongue education is crucial for the success of any elementary education programme.

http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/6308033/52932949/name/amartyasen.pdf

2.3 Situation of ethnic groups and languages in Nigeria
2.3.1 Language versus dialect
Nigeria has at least five hundred languages, although the exact number remains unknown since new languages are regularly being recorded for the first time, while others are disappearing (Blench in press, Box 2). Such a statement inevitably begs the question of the definition of a language. It is often casually said that these languages must be ‘dialects’ but this is quite false. Dialect, in particular, is a somewhat
pejorative term suggesting it is merely a local variant of a 'central' language. In linguistic terms, however, dialect is merely a regional, social or occupational variant of another speech-form, with no presupposition as to its importance or otherwise. But languages in Nigeria are distinct from one another and imply cultural and ethnic variation on a massive scale. This diversity is very unevenly distributed. Nigeria shows a striking pattern, mixing regions of extremely high diversity with those where a common language has many millions of speakers (Table 1).

Broadly speaking, this pattern reflects political antecedents; Hausa, Kanuri and Yoruba have spread and assimilated minority populations through military conquest. Acephalous peoples such as the Igbo and Ibibio have powerful cultural and religious systems that tend to adapt and assimilate the systems of neighbouring peoples. It is often the case that high levels of ethnodemographic diversity are associated with inaccessible areas, such as the Niger Delta or the Mandara mountains.

2.3.2 Distribution and use of Second Languages
The use of second languages for communication and in administration was well-established in pre-colonial Nigeria and has further expanded as more diffuse and long-distance migration patterns have required the development of linguae francae. Language was strongly connected with the
extension of political power; as the Hausa city-states consolidated their hegemony, so many ethnic groups were assimilated and
switched to speaking Hausa. In regions where most populations had an acephalous political structure, languages of intercommunication also developed, the most well-known being Efik in the southeast. The colonial era did much to spread specific languages such as Hausa and Yoruba, as it
was necessary to develop regional languages of administration

In the post-Independence era it became necessary to develop specific languages for use in schools and media and the choices made in this arena began the process of politicisation of language issues that continues today. Table 2 shows the major second languages in Nigeria, their location,
media profile and status

Ethnicity and language have some key contrastive features; language exists as it were, autonomously, with characteristics that can be defined and described irrespective of context. Ethnicity, however, only exists within a given context, its features appear when the matrix in which it is embedded is understood.
Nnoli points to the following features of ethnicity;
™ Ethnicity exists a nation-state is characterised by multiple ethnic groups
™ Ethnicity is characterised by an element of common consciousness vis-à-vis other ethnic groups
™ Ethnicity leads to the formation of inclusive/exclusive groups and attitudes
™ This in turn leads to prejudice, discrimination and outright hostility

Ref:Roger Blench and Mallam Dendo, 2003. POSITION PAPER: THE DIMENSIONS OF ETHNICITY, LANGUAGE AND CULTURE IN NIGERIA.Prepared for DFID, Nigeria.p 2-5
[http://www.rogerblench.info/Development/Nigeria/Economic%20development/Ethnicity%20Position%20Paper%20Blench%20short.pdf]

:-x

lol

HMOs only started offering health insurance in Nigeria a few years ago. The Nigerian healthcare system has not advanced to the point where they'd appreciate a consulting service. What kind of healthcare consulting is needed in Nigeria A health-system structure has to be in place before any consulting is needed.
On the other hand I'm sure KPMG and co, will have some opportunities for healthcare consulting.

I'm not surprised. The single-carriage expressway between Enugu and Nsukka is very dangerous. Many have written and pleaded with the government to make it a double-carriage way. 28 lives have just been added to the plea.
Sad!!!

;d

how sad.

true talk.

german007:
Your post is interesting, but a bit contradictory. You say you're being pressured?, but you're also agreeing to the fact that based on the surrounding factors of your relationship, changing your facebook status is normal.

Do you lack the confidence that your relationship won't last, or/and isn't build on a solid rock?.

 

Neither of those. I just feel its our own thing. Like Gamine rightly said its an "intimate" detail of my life. I'm reluctant because I feel its sharing too much of me on the internet. And i figure that since family and close friends already know, it cant hurt not to display the status

Should you display a status change to the world on facebook?

lol

xterra2:
a bit of truth here

yes it is true,
The 19.7% can be believed , Like i said before they may be employed but earning around 5,000 monthly or 6,000 or 7,000 monthly which as a reason it they may still suffer and they may not contribute to our economy in whatsoever but they are employed i-thats what we are debating, Being employed does not mean you being rich,
I think taganga is correct

Can the people u referred to as "employed" who earn 5-7000 monthly support anyone besides themselves.

REAL TRUTH:
To end this discussion and the falacies bedevilling Nigeria,,,Ishall make a quick reference to what an official of Nigeria had said about the unemployment issue in the last 2 years,,Knowing fully well the situation of unemployment have taken worse situation.
Minister for youth and productivity said as at Sunday, 20 Jul 2008  that over 65Million Nigerian youths are unemployed,,,check the link and read   http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art20080720155031

Moreso this is wolrd bank report on Nigeria unemployment,,,

http://changenigeriaproject.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=165:cnps-position-on-youth-sport-and-culture-development&catid=91:CNP+Position

Like someone rightly said above,,a country that does not have accurate census data can not even speculate anything as regards unemployment,,,Some Nigerian officials have publicly stated that Nigeri's population is between 150Million and 160Million for many years,,,,My thinking is that Nigeria is very close to 200Million people,,,,

Thats a good point
If we use govt presumed figures to calculate, Nigeria's population is 150 million (intercensus figures)
Aganga says the entire labour force is just over 50 million people ( abt 33% of the total popln) and these are those aged between 15-64
Average life expectancy in Nigeria as at 2008 is 48 yrs.
So if we assume that 5% of the population are those retired over 64 years.
It goes to follow that the remaining 63% are Nigerian children 14 years and below, disabled individuals, home keepers and the students , about 94.5 million dependent individuals

We have a lot more to worry abt than the employment rate. Nigerian bureau of statistics should get a better hold of their statistics b4 they attempt to give the press insight on the nigerian economic situation

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lol

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@ poster
Western education and technologies have caused individuals to abandon their identity and heritage, and adopt alien cultures and values without even realising it.

One of the many examples
Andy Murray, the No. 4 ranked player in the world of tennis, was dumped by his long-time girlfriend Kim Sears due, in part, to the fact that he spent up to seven hours a day playing video games.


http://sports.yahoo.com/ten/blog/busted_racquet/post/Andy-Murray-gets-dumped-for-playing-too-many-vid?urn=ten,206655

@ edoyad, u are spot on. i wondered why someone would ask such an obviously annoyin question.

Insight ko, insight ni, na una sabi, guys would always defend themselves.

One and only

@ SoJaded pls keep ur opinion about womenfolk. thats not the topic.

@pcguru i am sure u are one of them dudes who when asked what sport they play would call "PES soccer 2009, final fantasy, silent hill and tomb raider" as sports. abeg no vex but carry ur game advert to another page

Alcohol, cigarettes, PS 3 and X-box LIVE, a few of the things that kill the male folk.
as innocent as the games are, I'm starting to wonder if they make guys dumb!

@MrCrackles thumbs up!!!

@ Redhit, no hope in the job market but u can go into business as an IMPORTER/EXPORTER COCO-WATER,