₦airaland Forum

Front page please!

Zimbabwe's David Coltart: 18% Exam Pass Rate Is 'Progress'

Hey guys, please help me unpack this:

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21375351

Highlights

- Nearly 82% of Zimbabwean students failed their O-Level

- The government only had 217 dollars in its public account after paying civil servants.

berem: what has Jonathan done for the southeast since he became president? I mean can someone just point out 3 major achievements? He hasn't done anything for Southsouth where he comes from.Look at the East -West Road! A major road that links 2 geopolitical zones have been abandoned for years.Gully Erosion have been swallowing houses in Anambra.for years and no one has been able to tackle it both State and Federal. If we keep hoping that Jonathan will hand over power to igbos in 2015,then we are joking. It will come as a shocker what is gonna happen by then. Pdp has failed and they must be sent packing come 2015!

Well...

1. The Onitsha Seaport has been progressing so far in its development, and I doubt this would've been the case in a Yar'Adua administration.

2. The development and upgrading of the Enugu Airport to International status (which has been giving a lot of Northern bigots some serious heartache) is taking shape.

3. The development of the Oguta River port in your state of Imo is coming on fine.

4. The construction of the power plant in that same Oguta is taking shape.

All the above mentioned developments are bound to bring about economic benefits to the South-East, and I doubt these would have been achieved with the other options who are neck-deep in their Igbophobia.

And I won't even mention the appointments of Igbo radicals like Oteh and Oduah who have been exposing the rot in the system as well as putting forward policies that would help eradicate them.

tchaik: Bros check the names on that list, virtually all of them had, has or still affliated with PDP! It's very obvious that PDP has BOUGHT apga; maybe Ndi-Igbo will follow #Rochas APGA now!

Bloody sellouts, my people!


*Before the 40 laptops will go for my gonads, Yes, I know Rochas is an Ex- PDP member*

Onye ara! Which PDP members? The fearless Senator Chris Anyanwu? Are you high?

Okorocha's recent act of stupidiity reminds me of May-D's.
Imagine! How long has he been in APGA that he should try to hijack the party like that?

I'm so glad APGA has chosen to stand by its principles as the true party in the interest of the Igbo. He can now go join UPGA if he likes.

Foolish.

Goddex: Watching it right now on AIT. Rochas will definitely regret this wrong hasty move. He should have learnt from Oshiomole.

By the way, when did he join APGA that he now plans to hijack the party from Ojukwu's annointed men? Overambition is bad.

I tell you! The man acts without slowing down to THINK for a second.

Call her MAROON!

The name of a calm, soothing color. Somewhere between cold (blue) and red (warm).

Maroon is a color of mysticism, mystery, elegance and discipline!

ThundrCork: I normally exhaust Etisalat 8g subscrption b4 30days.that's because I watch a lot of stuffs on Youtube I watched Shaka the Zulu from start to finish d last time.

Of all the movies to blow your bandwidth on!

"Bom bom bom bom bom
bom bom
bom bom

Bom bom bom bom bom
bom bom
bom bom"

MTN's 750 MB. Sells for 2,000 Naira.

Fooooorrrrrrrk Addiiiiiiiiccccctttt!
Longest time!

ROSSIKE: You are an ignoramus. It is you who has an inferiority complex. Anti learning, anti history, anti intellectual dunce. Despite efforts made to teach you that blacks once populated north Africa and the middle east in huge numbers, and that there were southward migrations en masse following invasions, all that just goes straight over your head, because as an inferior feeling person, you cannot imagine that blacks could have been anywhere else but where they are presently. It is you who feels inferior by limiting the historical possibilities of the African journey to your hamlet.

Mr Man, stop screaming like a banshee and stop ranting like a motor park thug, you tactless, illbred idiiot.
I initially had a few doubts you were a complete mooroon, but if your crass and tactless bellows on this thread are anything to go by, those doubts are definitely gone.

You talk about blacks once populating North Africa or whatever you call it? That must be the blacks of your stock but definitely not of mine, so you might as well shove your pseudo-intellectual, revisionist clap-trap straight down your gaping asss.

People like you are a disgrace, and you reek of inferiority and very low self esteem. This becomes even more evident when you can't throw your arguments without throwing insults and howling with rage like a truck driver.

Since your low self esteem has eaten you up that badly, why don't you quickly pack your rags, move to Israel, tell them about your 'historical facts' and we'll see if they'll waste any time before castrating you with a pruning knife.
Keep tagging Israel to boost your low self esteem. I guess that'll make your useless life seem a little more worthwhile.

But curse my name and loathe my existence, AFRICA IS WHERE IT BEGAN!
If it offends you, go and die

Seun: Generally, I don't support life imprisonment for any offence except first degree murder, because innocent people can be convicted so easily in Nigeria.

Exactly. For example, a boy fighting with a girl in the bush can also look like rape, especially when she's on the ground.
It's so easy to frame people up like this.

Do these lawmakers even think before making these dumb laws?

What kind of rape though?

Is it Statutory Rape (where you have consentual sex with a rather underage person), or the old Drug-n-Rape kind, or Domestic Rape (yes, a man raping his wife)?

I'm afraid Nigeria's definition of rape, by law, is a bit too vague.

BlueMurder: Good, should make for an interesting final. While they are at it though, they should also overturn that phantom penalty awarded to Zambia in our first round game.

If they overturned the penalty, then that would make us the wnners of that match, plus 3 points.

With the 3 points, that would make us top the group, and end up meeting Togo (and not IVC) instead, with IVC meeting (and probably defeating) Burkina Faso.

After probably beating Togo, that would take us to the Semi-finals, where we meet Ghana... Hmmm....

ridgeman: What's wrong with simply being Igbo, being a Jew doesn't make you special.
Don't trade your heritage and identity...

The most sensible post on this thread!

I swear, there must be something deeply wrong with the black man for him to always feel so lowly of himself.
This is another unique brand of inferiority complex if you all don't know. Why would you want to attach yourself to some nonentities just for the sake of validation of your existence?

Well, as for me, I certainly know where I'm from, and it is West Africa.
Africa is where life began.

You guys are starting to sound like the dumb Ghanaians who already started boasting and gloating before the match was even played.

Better practice humility and self control atleast until we're sure of our victory. Too much noisemaking no good o.

Frontpage please!

Polio Shootings In Kano Kill 12 - BBC

I do have to say though, that if she hasn't had any children, yet is already as big a mammoth, then there's serious fire in the mountain.

victorian: it's not like , am encouraging obesity... But someone that is a natural Orobo... What can we do?.. .. And especially when the bf or spouse, says he loves you like that, but don't become shapeless... We simply relax, be mindful of our diet and enjoy... Like moi... I drink green tea every nite ... It's a must for me... It removes excess toxins and sugar from my bloodstream, but still maintaining my fresh plumpy look.. If Olowo ori, no complain ...why shud I?

Okay, now I understand. Cool.

The only promise I can make you, is that this party will implode and crumble on its weight.
Just dey watch.

Hmmm...

lacasa: Ndigbo will decide what exactly

The outcome of the election or if to break away finally


Pls & pls dnt kid us here,.. The last time ndigbo made any impact in national politics was wen they declared secession.

Unless that's ndigbo's intention, i dnt see what decision µя claiming here

I see you Aboki losers are just too dumb to remember what happened in 2011, when your tin god was thoroughly humiliated at the polls to the point he started blaming MICROSOFT EXCEL for his failure, further exposing his illiteracy.

Your gworo-chewing superstar refused to campaign in the East. But after he took the beating of a lifetime at the polls, he started calling to his fallen disciples to probe the percentages recorded at places like Imo and Anambra like he had any mouth to talk.

I think say back then una talk say una no need Okoro? See how y'all got beaten black and blue back there?

Better start registering more underrage kids and wild horses to come help your worthless assses in 2015. It's not too late.

Olodo!

gratiaeo: APGA must be very careful this time around, in as much as i want strong opposition in our political field, pls you guys must do plus and minus very well before throwing away your identity. I don't have the believe that this so called merging party have what it takes to wrestle power out of PDP because of difference interest group.
Igbos i know ll rather support GEJ pdp than Buhari party.
I really don't support rochas in this move, even if they ll join merger there must be adequate consultation

I'm telling you, Okorocha is on his own.
Or does he think we're Northerners who flock like sheep to wherever their heroes go without checking our history?

outrage: How does this stop mega from wining?


@op so who told you its a sellfish interest thing? Rochas called you on his private line and told you I want to be president hence I am joining the mega party?


This is something monumental? Put you bigots fail to see it, everybody is trying to put their differences aside unite for a single and good cause, fight coruption take down pdp. This is begining of greatness and hisotry is being made.

But trust nigerians naw!



They better accept this and not come play the victim card as they have always done for years and claim they were left out when infact they have been making the wrong decesion.

Please my brother, try and see this for what it is, and not your interest in unseating PDP. This is a lot more than that.

While I very well understand you've had it up to here with PDP, this is wrong on all levels because it really shows Okorocha's lack of honor or common respect for the party he won the people's mandate under.
Hurray, you're glad Okorocha is in this Mega party, but what makes you so sure he won't pull out and disorganize the party when things don't go his way tomorrow?
This man has been in PDP, ANPP, PDP again, APGA, and doesn't look like he plans on stopping anytime soon with his cross-carpetting and inconsistent ethos.
It shows a man who clearly has no honor and DOESN'T CARE how it makes him look when he keeps jumping all over the parties like an Igbo version of Atiku.

And I even recently learned Araraume and the criminal Achike Udenwa are joining the party!

Goodluck with your political utopian shipwreck... You'll need lot's of it.

bedford101: bance settle down wowwo..the guy ugly ;DJeeez

I swear, the guy properly planned his worworsim!

It takes great skill, talent, strength and serious fasting and prayer to be this UGLY!

malc619: Guy abeg make you try to upgrade, you hear?

I don suffer
Alright, you wey dey use iPad 9, try unpack am nah.

Front Page please!

Nigeria's Igbo Jews, The Lost Tribe of Israel? - CNN

The Igbo are one of Nigeria's largest ethnic groups. Among them is a minority of practicing Jews who believe they are descended from the "lost tribes" of Israel. The Igbo are one of Nigeria's largest ethnic groups. Among them is a minority of practicing Jews who believe they are descended from the "lost tribes" of Israel.

Abuja, Nigeria (CNN) -- A Shabbat service is underway at the Ghihon Hebrew Research synagogue in the Jikwoyi suburb of Nigeria's federal capital territory.

Fourteen year-old Kadmiel Izungu Abor heads there with his family. They walk alongside stray goats on a road covered in red dust and potholes, lined with open sewage. They are nearly 20 kilometers away from the modern multi-story office buildings and sprawling mansions in Nigeria's capital city of Abuja.

About 50 people gather in the synagogue. They pray from the Siddur, they read from the Torah and as they chant, Abor's mellow alto begins to rise.

In a country of 162 million people tensions often lead to violent uprisings between Christians and Muslims and being part of the religious minority can be an issue. But Abor wears his kippah and his identity with pride.

"I am a Jewish Igbo," he says.

The Igbo are one of Nigeria's largest ethnic groups with population estimates ranging from 20 to 50 million. Abor is convinced that the Igbo's ancestors were Jews.
Zambia's Jewish settlers

"The son of Yaakov, Jacob, [was] Gad and I learned that he was among those people who went out of Israel to exile," Abor says. "So from there he had a son called Eri and a son gave birth to a son called Aguleri and that's how the Igbo race began."

From generation to generation, some Igbo have passed down various versions of a migration story framed around Jacob, a patriarch of Judaism. A popular version of the narrative holds that Gad, the seventh son of Jacob, had three sons who settled in present-day southeastern Nigeria, which is predominantly inhabited by the Igbo. Those sons, Eri, Arodi and Areli (as mentioned in the book of Genesis), are said to have fathered clans, established kingdoms and founded towns still in existence in southeastern Nigeria today, including Owerri, Umuleri, Arochukwu and Aguleri.

Read More: The forgotten story of Zambia's Jewish settlers

Eze A.E. Chukwuemeka Eri, the king of a community in Aguleri, claims he presides over the throne of Gad's son, Eri.

Wearing a white shirt with the Star of David stitched on the front, King Eri points to a calendar on the wall of his palace that lists the names of his 33 predecessors. He has no doubts that Eri is his ancestor. He has even acquired land to establish an educational center for the study of Jewish culture.

"Israelites and Igbos are brothers," he says with a broad smile.

King Eri, like many, claims that the Igbo are the Jews of West Africa. They believe they are descendants of at least one of Israel's lost tribes. In the eighth century B.C. the Assyrians invaded Israel's northern kingdom forcing 10 tribes into exile. Historians say it is not unlikely that these tribes migrated westward to Africa.
When I grew up I heard, like virtually every Igbo here, that the Igbo people came from Israel.
Remy Llona, Niegrian author and lawyer

Throughout history, large populations of dispersed Jews also became "lost" through forced conversions and cultural assimilation.

"There is evidence that is scientific that the Igbos descended from the people that evolved in Israel," says Remy Ilona. He began investigating the stories from his youth more than a decade ago.

"When I grew up I heard, like virtually every Igbo here, that the Igbo people came from Israel," the Abuja-based lawyer says. His field work in Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Mali led him to conclude that Igbo and Jewish culture are not just similar, but "identical."

In his latest book, Ilona draws parallels between Igbo rituals and customs and those practiced by Jews. Shared traditional practices include circumcising male children eight days after birth, refraining from eating "unclean" or tabooed foods, mourning the dead for seven days, celebrating the New Moon and conducting wedding ceremonies under a canopy. Some historians have noted that the Igbo were practicing these customs before their exposure to the Bible and missionaries.

Daniel Lis, from the Institute for Jewish Studies, University of Basel, Switzerland, is one of the foremost researchers on Jewish identification among the Igbo. He says there has been a clear continuity of Jewish identity among the Igbo. "It's not just something that happened yesterday," he says.
Lagos gets Monopoly edition
Lagos: A city for the 21st century

The Swiss-Israeli anthropologist says that Igbo-Jewish identity can be traced back to the 18th century. Cross-cultural comparisons have been documented by people ranging from George Thomas Basden, the influential Anglican missionary and ethnographer who proposed that the word "Igbo" evolved as a corruption of the word "Hebrew," to Olaudah Equiano, a freed Igbo slave living in 18th century British society.

The oral stories and historic notations of cultural resemblances between the Igbo and the Jews have proven compelling enough to lure a diverse array of people to southeastern Nigeria.

See also: CNN Belief Blog

Michael Freund, an American Jew based in Israel, is planning his first trip to Nigeria to get a first-hand look at the culture of the Igbo.

"I've read about them but of course there is nothing like actually hearing the stories of the people themselves," he says.

Discovering "lost" Jewish communities around the world is what Freund does.

He is the founder and chairman of the independent non-profit organization Shavei Israel. According to its media spokesperson Arik Puder, Shavei Israel is the only organization in Israel that focuses on finding descendants of the legendary lost tribes.

He says the Israeli government does not recognize ethnic communities in various countries claiming to be descendants of lost tribes.
They cannot prove that they have a Jewish grandfather or grandmother, but they do have an interesting story.
Arik Puder, Shavei Israel

"They cannot prove that they have a Jewish grandfather or grandmother," Puder says. "But they do have an interesting story."

Freund says he has received numerous letters and emails from Nigerians trying to connect to Israel. But with a rising number of groups around the world attempting to link their ancestry to the ancient Israelites, he is aware that some of those claims are "wishful thinking." He hopes that the future will yield strong genetic evidence to help the search for the lost tribes.

"As DNA technology improves there will be a growing stock of scientific evidence which can perhaps buttress the claims of an Israeli ancestry," he says.

A 2012 documentary called "Re-Emerging: The Jews of Nigeria" featured the country's Jewish community.

The film featured Rabbi Howard Gorin. He retired from the congressional rabbinate in 2012 after 32 years as the spiritual leader of a Jewish congregation in the U.S. state of Maryland. Gorin has played a significant role in the rise of Judaism in Nigeria since his first trip to the country in 2004.

"I embrace them and support them as brothers and sisters," he says. He ships books on Judaism to synagogues in Nigeria.

Watch video: Lagos megacity

More support comes from groups like Kulanu, a New York-based non-profit group. Kulanu assists emerging Jewish communities around the world, like the one in Nigeria. But most of the Igbo who practice Judaism were not born to a Jewish mother and have not converted according to halakhah, Jewish law, so many Orthodox Jews would not recognize them.

Even among Igbo people, the claim to be Jews elicits strong criticism. One critic, Catherine Acholonu, attributes Jewish identification among the Igbo as a result of Christianity brought by missionaries, since most Igbo people are Christians.
Everybody is excited to say they belong to the people of the Bible because the Bible is reigning -- it's in.
Catherine Acholonu

"Everybody is excited to say they belong to the people of the Bible because the Bible is reigning -- it's in," says Acholonu, a prominent researcher on Igbo history and culture.

In her award-winning book "They Lived Before Adam" Acholonu proposes that Igbo civilization is older than that of the Israelites.

She feels that Igbo people are whitewashing their history and diminishing the value of their own culture by attempting to link their heritage to the Jews.

Peter Agbai, who says he is a "proud Igbo man," strongly disagrees.

He started practicing Judaism in 1991 after leaving the Methodist church. He says that the more he followed the commandments in the Torah, the more he realized that he was doing what his parents had always done as followers of traditional Igbo culture and spirituality.

"I have seen that the traditions of our people are similar to those in the Bible," says the 66-year-old, making references to aspects like ritual bathing and polygamy.

Agbai is one of the founders of the Ghihon synagogue. He plays an important role as a spiritual leader in Abuja's community of Igbo Jews. He attended Abor's bar mitzvah last year, an experience that Abor says made him feel like a man, and feel closer to the Jewish culture.

He wants to go deeper into Orthodox Judaism and take a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

"I want to live in Israel," Abor says. He hopes that there, he will get a better understanding of his forefathers.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/01/world/africa/nigeria-jews-igbo/index.html

lrguru: This Super Eagles are Mali-cious. Burkina Fasos beware, To be 4-1 is to be fore-armed.

But you forget Burkina also gave Ethiopia a spanking.
So they're probably going to try hard to prove their 'efforts shall not all be 4-0'

francis247: Nigeria 1 - 0 Burkina Faso
On penalties Nigeria 3 - 2 Burkina Faso
It shall come to pass.

How can Nigeria lead with a score of 1 - 0 and still go on to play penalities?
Nwannem, go easy on the marijuana nau? Bikozienu?

In the beginning, there was Ghana, and God shouted, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"