₦airaland Forum

Hard work alone is not enough to get first class honors or the equivalent anywhere.

You also have to be much smarter than your peers.

Sam Milla:
@ekt_bear
apparently you are the only person here who thinks like the white scientists. There was a time i took people on about time travel here but of course our people are only interested in laurels and money. I believe science is the future and we humans discover new things everyday.
What the russian scientist said is very possible. Actually it is relatively easy compared to the thoughts i have about what humans can achieve through science,
Just like you said, 1000 years ago, no human believed that we will be flying by now or have mobile phones or go to the moon or even sail. Another strange thing will definitely happen in the next 1000 years.

There are plenty of blacks and Africans with more imagination, let's not sell ourselves completely short or make it look as if it is something the white man has a monopoly on.

Just not enough of us, though.

lastpage:
Build Refineries for us!
Build Power Stations for us!!
Build Hospitals for us!!!
Build Roads for us!!!!

Wetin sef? Na dem born us?
Are we so shameless or are we the "Monkeys" they sometimes call us?

Nothing good comes on a platter of gold.

Our destiny lies in our hands, its our move!

Lastpage!

+1000

The vast majority of responses to this thread have made me depressed about the future of the black man.

Nobody here is even talking about Nigeria building refineries itself. All everyone is saying is, if the white man won't build it for you, then you'll ask the yellow man to

Exchanging one master for another. . . little do these people know how much crueler this particular new master (China) will be.

Something is very wrong with the black man that he doesn't want to do anything himself

texazzpete:
How much of the oil being exported is produced by the Nigerian Government?

I need to correct this. The Nigerian Government doesn't have a stake in SPDC. It has a 55% stake in the joint venture agreement with Shell and a few other operators.
For all intents and purposes sha your statement is pretty close to the truth. The Federal Government does have to pony up its share of the cash.

Thanks for clarifying. So 55% share of the joint venture, with SDPC wholly owned by Shell.

When you allow your minority partner to enslave you due to your laziness, incompetence and greed, then this is what happens.

Wasn't it recently when someone in NNPC or something was saying "we plan on investing $100 billion in exploration over the next 5 years", something to that effect?

Ignoring the lack of plausibility of his statement for a second. . . where the hell is that $100 billion going to come from? Who is the "we"? What he is really saying is that his international partners will spend all the money on exploration.

So what sort of lazy mentality does the Nigerian government have that it says "we" when it is time to brag about what is being spent, "mostly me" when it comes time to share the money, then "you" when someone asks why there are no refineries?

And the worst thing about all of this is that you all encourage and empower them to have this pathetic mentality.

Implicitly here is a lack of faith in the Nigerian government's ability to do anything right.

If Shell says it doesn't want to build refineries, then hope is lost because we know that that is the more competent member of the partnership, despite being the minority one.

The tragedy of low expectations I suppose. . . when a government doesn't perform, then people reduce their expectations of it down to zero and place their hopes in Shell.

ojogbontomoye:
What part of your calculus account for the environmental disaster they leave in their wake? After all, osa ti o ba le gbemi ko fi mi sile bo ti bami

Who is the THEY?

There is no THEY.

SPDC is +50% owned by the Nigerian government. If there is any oil spill settlement, you can be damn sure that a big chunk of that money is going to come out of the Nigerian government's pocket. The FG has more culpability in those oil spills than even Shell does, simply because it has a larger stake.

How again is the 40% partner getting MORE blame than the 60% partner?

Look.

Shell doesn't want to build refineries. It isn't profitable for them. If you want to hold them at gunpoint to do it, I suppose that is an option.

A second option is to bring out your own wallet and write a check for your own refinery.

Or do whatever it was that enticed China to have interest in these new greenfield refineries.

But you cannot force a businessman to invest in something he doesn't want to invest in. He is the muthafuckin minority partner in this, and you want to make HIM build the refinery while you avoid it yourself?

That is messed up.

Aigbofa:
Nigerian government should not be involved in building refineries, that is not part of it's business. If you call yourself a multinational oil company and you are only interested in profiting from our raw materials when it is profitable for you, then it is up to Nigeria to look for other arrangements that are in the interests of Nigeria.

Shell is not interesting in building refineries either. It doesn't want it to be part of its business any more.

Anyway, multinational oil company != refining company. . . just because you do the former doesn't mean you have to do the latter.

Aigbofa:
Same way they want crude oil, they should also look somewhere else for it.

And are they being gifted the crude oil for free?

You signed a contract with them to explore for oil. They put up all the money to do exploration, you put in nothing.

Yet you still make yourself majority shareholder. Afterwards, you want to renege on the original agreement and force the minority guy to again build refineries when:

(a) it wasn't part of the original agreement
(b) you as the majority guy should pony up more of the money for any new ventures.

Who is the "they"?

SPDC is 50%+ owned by the Nigeria government. So if you are pointing fingers at them, then you must also hold the Nigerian government accountable for the lack of refineries, since it is the majority partner.

If what this guy is saying is true and they are selling their refineries abroad and many abroad are losing money, what good reason would they have for chasing refinery?

Who chooses unprofitable businesses to invest in?

Anyway, if you want to compel SPDC to build refineries, then you are asking the majority partner (Nigeria) to also pony up a lot of cash too.

Why is there LESS culpability and blame on the MAJORITY partner here? How and why is the minority stakeholder getting blamed more?

omowolewa:
Shell should leave the crude oil if it can't build refinery. I think government should compel those multinationals to be socially responsibly. We should not wait until MEND or Boko boyz start forcing it on them.

wetin concern building refinery with social responsibility? What the heck is social responsibility anyways? "Build this thing for us that we want, but are too lazy and/or incompetent to build ourselves?"

I mean, shouldn't we be embarrassed that everyone here seems to believe that the only way that there will be refineries in the country is if you ask Shell to build it for you?

Why doesn't Nigeria build refineries itself? Or hire out the task to somebody?

SPDC is already nationalized. Isn't 50%+ of it owned by the Nigerian government?

Anyway, I don't see how you can force them to sink money into a business that they have no interest in.

Nigeria wants refineries. So build it yourself, rather than forcing somebody else to make it for you!

However, it then makes me wonder what China is getting out of these refineries it wants to build in Nigeria.

If this is true, then I am a f[i]o[/i]ol for ever believing in these guys.

Interesting. Makes sense.

The roads are terrible. Fly if you can.

Before 1996 when Dolly was cloned, the only place I would expect to see a whole new animal being grown from a tiny scraping of another is in a Yoruba juju movie

Sounded so impossible to me as a little kid when I first heard it.

But you cannot say what the limits are unless you first establish them.

I dunno anything about physics, but I imagine that if they say things like, "time travel impossible", it is because it would create some sort of contradiction.

But the point is we don't know what the limits are with human beings or animals more generally. How can you say it is impossible to copy brains?

They've done some crazy, crazy things that I almost don't believe are possible despite having read about it.

They cloned a sheep, man. Made an entire sheep out of a cell. No sexual intercourse involved in the creation of that sheep. . . it was made in a laboratory. Basically as if someone scraped a bit of your skin off, took it to a lab and then grew a brand new copy of you from that.

That to me sounds impossible. So does walking on the moon. . . but that happened in the 60s, nearly 20 years before I was born.

So does nuclear weapons. . . like 40+ years before I was born.

All of these things sound impossible to me, but actually happened.

lmao

fstranger again

Well, there is a philosophical point (how do I know that I am me?) and a practical point (technology is improving, and it is too early to rule out that certain things are impossible.)

Human beings are pretty clever, they've figured out lots of cool things.

In general, unless I see something on the level of a mathematical proof that something is impossible, then I'm not convinced that it is.

For example, would anybody be surprised if they figured out how to copy the brains of say an ant? Completely reverse-engineered it, figured out every aspect of how it works?

I'm not into bioengineering at all myself, but if they accomplish this in my lifetime, I would not be surprised.

And if you can figure out an ant within say 100 years, then maybe after that you can figure out more advanced things. . .

ojogbontomoye:
Dont you have to prove the existence of aliens before even entertaining the possibility of the above thoughtless, weed-induced scenario?

Why? I am not saying that they do or don't exist. The example really has nothing to do with aliens. . . perhaps you are confused about the point.

The point is that you have no way of knowing that you are you.

breezy047:
@ EKT_BEAR

Having this knowledge that our own world has its own rules and laws governing our functionality, do you not think its impossible for an extra terrestial to carry out these micshievous activities you mentioned without leaving behing traces and feelings that that person would feel?

Why is this necessarily impossible? We don't know all the rules of the universe. We learn that new things are possible every day.

Becuz in our world actions will always be accompanied by reactions (cause and effect) and no matter how advanced an ET can be as long as it is done here in our world, seen from a relative perspective of that individual there will always be a reaction, a feeling left behind to feel as to the individual that transformation cannever be 100% efficient.

So I will refer to your positions above as a fiction, ridiculous and impossible

Not very convincing. . . your imagination is simply too limited.

A man from 1000 years ago probably thought the possibility of human beings flying in planes, visiting the moon or driving cars was as unlikely as aliens.

Who knows what mankind will discover over the next many years?

Rent office space in Lagos.

There is no reason to buy/build anything there more than what you have now. . . .

Which one is more important:

a) Liason office for Lagos, new governors office
b) or roads?

And I thought that this governor who appointed a commissioner for Lagos affairs and chief comedian was a silly, irresponsible man.

At least a commissioner for Lagos affairs is cheaper than building a new unnecessary building. . .

Provide a link to this article, please.

Why is so much money being spent on a new governors office?

Why a new liaison office in Lagos? What is the point of that?

What was wrong with the old ones?

How can you borrow money to be building these things?

breezy047:
I feel when some dies and his brain is downloaded into a robotic body that particular person's soul is gone.

So the new robotic version of him will have something missing and that is a soul. It will be very much like him and do the same things he can do but it will not have its own freewill. You can't preach morals to it and it can't live a spiritual life, neither can they differentiate between good and bad becuz a soul is nolonger present.

So i feel these robotics will be like smart puppets. They can think and do the things their former owner can do but they will need to be controlled and they will better function in the military or civic settings.

How do you know that last night when you were sleeping, aliens didn't:

1. snatch your body
2. copy your brain
3. make a copy of your body
4. kill you
5. place the copy of brain+body in the bed?

As ridiculous as this may sound, you have absolutely no way of knowing that this didn't happen last night.

What is a soul? What does it mean to be a person? How do you know that you are you?

Jarus unfortunately is basically the equivalent of GenBuhari when it comes to Sanusi.

believe it or not, this is how i think/am when entirely sober and not under the influence of any drugs