₦airaland Forum

SEFAGO:
Ok, lemme break it down slowly and carefully. China no matter its per capita GDP is still infact a country with lots of poor people willing to take risks. These would be more likely to seek business opportunities elsewhere and take tougher working conditions. Also theer country might be better off, but the living condition in Nigeria would not be new to them. I think Ajanle Koko was talking of how Indian cities were dirtier and worse than Nigeria. Transplant an Indian worker from the crowded cities of Mumbai or Pune to Lagos, Nigeria- duh, he is gonna feel right in place. Transplant a German worker to Nigeria is he can cope.

I am starting to wonder if you are responding to someone else, rather than me. Certainly it is true that China, despite being wealthier on average has its fair share of poor people. Many of whom might be inclined to seek green pastures elsewhere. But that is kind of obvious. . . and I don't think anyone in this thread has said otherwise.

My point is that a statement like "Most of these chinese people are from Mainland China anyways which is not much better than Nigeria IMO" is wrong, and paints a different picture. One of migration between two relatively poor countries rather than migration from a larger, comparatively wealthier one to a smaller, comparatively poorer one.

I hope you see why saying "anyways which is not much better than Nigeria IMO" is incorrect, and different from the point you make above.

Actually implicit in the title of your thread and the whole article it self. Some of those conditions are kind of exagerrated.

Nope.

It isn't implicit in the title or article that the conditions mentioned are exaggerated (I assume you mean negative conditions rather than potentials. Even if you mean potentials are exaggerated, again neither the title nor article suggests this.) This is a point made later by AjanleKolo in this thread about Western foreign investors.

Anyway, at a more basic level, no, the article doesn't talk implicitly or explicitly about the perspective of Americans or Euros. It was a survey of businesses in Nigeria, not necessarily specifically Western-owned or run businesses. Granted, it may turn out that of the 3100+ businesses they surveyed in the 26 states they looked at, a good chunk of them are foreign-owned. But it seems a questionable leap to simply assume this.

Lol. I wouldn't eat cat meat, but if it tastes good, more power to you.

strangest:
Such thing happened in the olden days but it wasnt the church, more like shrines like Okija,   running into them to take refuge automatically makes you part of it,

lol. Are they trying to introduce osu into Christianity? 

Logical part of me says no. But I've heard some strange juju stories from my parents that make me think otherwise.

Would be amazing if it actually happened

SEFAGO:
Well touche. Who wan suffer? Also your example is extreme. If in theory a Nigerian business wants something done theoretically they will send a Nigerian executive to go to Sudan. Case in point that most chinese in Africa come for a specific purpose- either they are contracted to build something or run a local part of their business in Nigeria. Entrepreneurs from China do not come to Nigeria to hustle from ground.

The example may be extreme, but it illustrates why I think it is fair to say that Chinese are hardy (and in case it isn't clear from context, I mean mainland Chinese, not Singaporean Chinese or whatever. Not that Chinese of other countries aren't "hardy" as well, but they aren't who I'm discussing.)

However, its just that European and Americans demand more wages than the Chinese or Indians because they feel teh opportunity cost of coming to Nigeria is just too high to take without higher wages and nice perks. The Indian and Chinese who get contracted on the other hand cannot be too picky.

Right, but it is kind of obvious why this is true. Euros and Americans naturally will demand higher wages in part because their countries are much richer than India or China. If you are making $70 or 80k a year for your company in the US, you won't be keen on going to Nigeria w/o earning a salary at a minimum comparable.
Compare

I do agree though that Europeans and Americans tend to exaggerate the business condition of African countries.

I didn't make this point anywhere? So I guess you are agreeing with another poster.

Depends on where you are at with regards to the more Singaporean ve. Chinese. Its just that people from developed and well off countries are less likely to come and stress themselves in another environment when they have all the incentives available to them.

Regarding the first comment, I mean in a Nigerian sort of context. Though now that I think of it, I am not sure if there is any context outside of Singapore and places very nearby where the # of Chinese you meet won't be much higher than the # of Singaporeans.

Regarding the second statement, I don't think anyone will disagree with this.

Well we are not too sure that "your typical chinese" is the one taking the risk to come to Nigeria or fits the bill of the "risk-taking" Expat.

The point is that contrary to your statement, China is a fair bit better off than Nigeria is. So brushing off their willingness to come to Nigeria by saying that their country isn't any better off seems a bit odd to me.

Interesting. The way that article phrases it, I got the impression that the majority of the labor used for each project is Chinese. So indeed a Chinese guy working Saturdays, Sundays, and at night in fact doing brickwork and such.

Perhaps you are right.

^-- I have not actually visited any of these major Chinese construction sites say in Lagos or elsewhere in Nigeria. But from what I've read online, the suspicion I have is that the Chinese are supplying much of the unskilled labor:

Reflecting a growing trend in Africa, the project's infrastructure is being built by a Chinese contractor. Verheijen said: "They're much more competitive and aggressive about doing business. They're working Saturdays, they're working Sundays, they're working at nights. They come here and have big housing estates for their staff and just seem to work like armies. It's very focused and things go up very quickly."

Asked who was benefiting from the construction jobs, he said: "A lot of Chinese, some Nigerians as well. I'm not averse to that.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/14/lagos-railway-change-lives-nigeria

Granted, I may be getting the wrong idea from this article and others I've seen like it. Perhaps they bring in only Chinese higher-level guys and the lower-level guys are locals, as you suggest. But the impression I get is otherwise.

logica:
. . . which is still a Socialist concept - "even" redistribution of resources.

What is your point? I don't think anyone here is saying all socialist ideas are bad. Some of them are good. Others can be good, in the right setting.

FWIW, I am not against the government providing some of these "free" services. I'm believe in free and mandatory primary and secondary education in Nigeria. It might be possible to have some limited healthcare plan too.

But this is pretty close to the limit of free things I think the government should provide to everyone. Almost everything else I think has to justify itself.

Nothing in life is "free." Everything costs money. There is no such thing as free healthcare, free education, free roads, or even free amala or subsidized kerosene. All of these things represent a tradeoff.

"Free" healthcare means the gov't taxes the populace then redistributes the money on healthcare.

logica:
One other point people don't seem to realize is, Nigeria operates at a higher level of Capitalism than even the US. Or how else do you explain a bleeding person taken to the hospital only to be allowed to bleed to death in the lobby because the family could not come up with the 500,000 deposit? That is Capitalism; it is a system closer to our cave-men ancestors. There is little or no empathy in Capitalism. And it is the same system that led to the take over of Australia, Canada, the US, New Zealand etc by the whites, while nearly wiping out the natives of those lands. That is Capitalism.

Wetin concern capitalism with empathy? The point is to make money, not to be a charity.

Regarding the hospital, if they treat everyone regardless of their ability to pay, how long will the hospital be able to stay open? You realize that healthcare costs money, right? And nobody can stay open for long if he sells something (healthcare) for less than it costs?

W/o hospitals being able to recover their costs and make profit, nobody will have any incentive to keep 'em open

SEFAGO:
There are chinese people and there are chinese people.  They are not one monolithic group of people. There are loads of poor chinese people who live in poor conditions and where the Nigerian/African environment is not some sort of novelty. These are the ones who would be quite happy braving the hot weather and mosquitoes to live in such a challenging business behaviour like Nigeria.

Its not about being hardy peope per se, its just like people from a developing country going to work in another developing country. You see Nigerians in faraway place like Siberia too doing business you know.

But how often do you see Nigerians in the bush somewhere in a foreign land? Say in Sudan in the middle of nowhere with no electricity? Doing something like construction? That isn't really the M.O. of your typical Nigerian immigrant.

You find quite a few number of Chinese and Indians in Nigeria but you would rarely see someone from Hong Kong, Taiwan or Singapore (of course you could point out the signficant diffece in population size). Most of these chinese people are from Mainland China anyways which is not much better than Nigeria IMO

Right, just due to demographics it seems unlikely you'll meet a Singaporean before someone from China. Regarding your second comment, why do you say this? China is like 3X wealthier per capita. Unless their society is far, far, more unequal than Nigeria, you'd expect that the lot of your typical guy there is much better than that of your typical Nigerian.

I doubt the chinese workers are unskilled labour. I think what they are trying to say is that most Chinese expats (if you can call them that) are more involved when they come to Nigeria than western expats.

The guys building the roads, actually supplying the labor on most of these construction projects are unskilled, right? I'm not talking about the project managers and such. My point is, why can't Nigerians be substituted in to supply this unskilled labor required for most construction projects? Anyway, I suspect that AjanleKolo would know what the answer to this is. . . and most importantly be able to give an honest answer. He tends not to beat around the bush.

nagoma:
@ekt bear

What is the Nigerian equivalent of the saying, "You can take a n*gga out of the hood, but can't take the hood out of a n*gga?"

You can take the man out of the creeks but you cant take the creeks out of him.

Hehe.

Imagine these guys destroying the equipment that was being used to train them?

Mindboggling.

logica:
So in your opinion, even with some people wealthier than others you don't already see classification? What do you think Upper Class, Middle Class, Lower Class refers to? You actually think capitalist states see people as equal? No where is there a clear distinction of classes than the Court of Law; in a capitalist state, justice is commensurate to how much you can pay for it. You can be very innocent, but not being able to afford a good lawyer could make you very guilty. That is not equality.

There will always be outliers in every country/society. Some very rich guys who can buy themselves excellent lawyers that can change what would otherwise be a "guilty" into an "innocent." Some very poor guys who can only afford a crappy public defendant, and thus get harsher sentences than usual.

But I think in most cases, the justice system works pretty well. I don't think focusing on outliers that are maybe 5% of cases really makes sense. Is the system broken if 95% of the time it gives the right outcome? I don't think so, personally.

@okada_man: I think everyone benefits from the eggs that the top 10% lays. If a guy in the top 10% starts a business, he'll inevitably hire many folks in that bottom 90% to work for him. If his business goes under, not only does this rich man suffer, but so do all of those that he employs.

I am not saying that poor people are all sick or lazy. My point is that there is some fraction of people who no matter what you do, no matter what economic system you run, there will be some people who consume far more from society than they produce.

I'm mostly trying to debunk this idea of everyone being "equal." It isn't really true at all. The guys in the top 10%, almost everyone would want to add them to their country. Otoh, the guys at the bottom 5% are mostly burdens.

hmm

Chinese are rugged people.

It is sort of unfortunate that we cannot use Nigerian/African labor for 90%+ of these construction projects. The Chinese workers doing those projects are essentially peasants, right? Not really specialized or skilled labor. So no real reason unskilled labor here shouldn't be able to compete with them. At least in theory.

AjanleKolo, any thoughts?

logica:
I don't think it is about "people being equal" but rather[b] "people are CONSIDERED equal". Basically what that means is there is no class, and therefore no prejudices or favorites. The leader is on the same class as any peasant.[/b] But of course this is Utopian. This is an idealized concept. But due to the fact that human beings are supposed to make this happen, it cannot happen.

And how does capitalism violate bolded? Nobody is better than anyone else before the eyes of the law where I live. Just some are wealthier than others. No hereditary monarchs, titles, etc.

I think this is a separate issue from deciding on an economic system.

kodewrita is 100% correct.

Terrible idea

lmao @ their names.

What is the Nigerian equivalent of the saying, "You can take a n*gga out of the hood, but can't take the hood out of a n*gga?"

I also don't understand this philosophy of having everyone be equal. Naturally, some human beings are more talented than others. And there are guys at the bottom who no matter what you do, will always be poor (laziness, alcoholism, drug addiction, inability to follow directions, etc.)

Again, if you suppress that top 10% of people too much (folks who probably will account naturally for some huge fraction [say 40 or 50%] of a country's productivity) and remove incentives for them to be productive, your country will suck. You'll have killed the golden goose.

“Nigeria is the only country in Africa still battling with preventable polio virus. The three others countries where polio is still endemic are Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

So even in Niger Republic, Chad, they've defeated polio? So what on earth is wrong with the Nigerian Hausaman? Ya'll need to get your act together. . . fast.

Even Somalia, no polio? Na wa o

Hmm:

Ethnicity

Peckham is one of the most ethnically diverse areas of the UK. These are the statistics for the ethnic groups in the Peckham ward according to the 2001 Census.[2] This ward is about one fifth of the place called Peckham, and not representative of the ethnic and cultural distribution in the other 4 wards.
Black African - 35.67%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peckham#Ethnicity

I've lived before in the suburbs of DC, my guess is that the statistic is like 3% or let's even say 5%. Nowhere comparable to the above.

But yeah, reading the description on wiki, doesn't sound as appealing anymore, lol

pleep:
hows capitalism treating Africa? the top 10% or 5% are most definatley not the best people society has they often don't work hard for their money, but rather steal it through corruption (generalizing).

This is a silly generalization. OK, exclude those in the top 5 or 10% who steal. How much can they even be, .1% or so of the total population of naija? Are the remainder not far more productive than the guys at the bottom 20% or so? Which adds more value, the guy hustling pure water on the street or the civil engineer who is designing an office building?

If you redistribute too much wealth from the civil engineer to the pure water salesman, the civil engineer isn't going to be working as hard. What incentive will he have to go to work if most of his wealth will be taken away from him and redistributed?

And i'm not advocating total communism where everyone must be exactly the same, but rather a liberal version that allows for people in the business field to get ahead and compete.

And where has this been implemented successfully? What does it look like?

So in essence communism will not lessen the economic pie, but rather redistribute it.

There is always this tradeoff in life. More distribution => slower growth. There is no real way to get around it. See the above example I gave with the civil engineer.

Because the Nigerian elite are usually not making their money in ways that contribute to the economy.

I said top 5% or 10%, not the top .1% or so that represents thieving elites. So the guy that has his own construction firm that builds housing estates and employs many people is not making his money in a way that contributes to the economy?

I also want to point out that Nigeria's economy is based on exportation of oil, so the amount of money available in the country  is more dependant on the amount of oil sold than the ingenuity or incentive of the private sector.

Fine, so oil is 30% of Nigeria's GDP. What of the remaining 70%? This is the mentaility that has weakened Nigeria over the past 40 years (which unfortunately I was guilty of too). . . thinking that all of the country is this 30% chunk and neglecting the 70%.

One of my favorite parts about communism its its introverted viewpoint. This is benificial to a country that has everything it needs in abundance like Nigeria, but devastating to countries that do not have resources. If Nigeria was communist the rice and yams would be probably grown on state owned farms, Nigeria is capable of meeting all its food needs in this way. The prices would be set by the government, irrespective of international prices and the produce would not be grown for profit, but at just enough cost to defray the cost of paying the field workers. creating employment and a stable local food supply, two things we do not have now.

So much wrong with this, I dunno where to begin. In essence, if you remove profit, then nobody will have an incentive to get anything done. The day that the gov't starts setting the price of yam and other foodstuffs is the day that Nigerians will be starving to death due to scarcity.

I'm not really sure that there is a point to pickup lines. . . probably a girl decides whether she is interested before you even approach her. If she is, then so long as you don't say/do anything stupid, you'll be fine.

And if she isn't, then nothing you can say or do will help.

Is this mostly right, or am I wrong?

SEFAGO:
Haha you havent been?

Horrible place- mininaija. full of Nigerians man, you can even find one of your lagos bus conductors there. I remember one of my uncles who used to live in central lagos telling me that he met one of the former oga agberos there.

I dont think you wanna move there. Think of compton with Nigerian people  .

Lol @ naija Compton.

No, never been there.

But surely there must be some upscale parts of Peckham? I dunno, the concept appeals to me, but the reality might not be as good. I guess I'll have to visit someday and decide for myself.

Man, I need to move to Peckham. A Yoruba-speaking community in a 1st world country sounds like win to me

interesting

EDIT: wait, nm. only 4 voters

Because it sucks.

Redistributing wealth too much removes incentives for people to work hard.

And if you remove incentives to work hard for that top 10% or 5% of people in society, the economic pie/cake that you want to redistribute gets smaller. Much smaller. . . since those top 10% or 5% generally includes the best people any society has.

The central planning stuff in communism also doesn't allow goods to be available in the right amounts.

Imagine if the FG interfered in the price of pounded yam, rice, etc like it does with oil products? There would be scarcity of that too.

There is nothing really gained by joining some SS development commission. I don't see how it makes any "economic sense" unless money changes hands somehow. In any case, there is nothing preventing Ondo from joining both. Point is to work together on areas of common interest.

@ndu_chucks is very much on point here.

@PointB: A summit is different from a standing, permanent commission. In any case, that others have something similar isn't really the point. BTW, from the name it looks like the intent is to have it apolitical. It isn't like it is the "ACN committee on zonal development."

naijaking1:
No doubt.
From Olusegun Ogbasa-a Njo, to Ebelechukwu Jonathan, to Abuba Aka Atikuchukwu, now to Nnamdi Sambo. All these peopel just dey hide their "Igboness"

Hehe