₦airaland Forum

Unfortunate if true.

I'd prefer regional police anyways. . .

Olumide and co, relax. They cannot even win a LGA in Lagos. If that happens, then imo there should be concern, and measures will have to be taken.

But as things stand, there is no real likelihood of losing political control.

Hehe

He has done zilch in Lagos. The state is the same as he met it in 2007. In fact worse

Lol

In the aggregate though, I suspect that Nigeria loses a lot more talent each year than it gains. So this video kind of paints the wrong picture, imo

Interesting vid.

I wouldn't mind moving back one day, if things change a bit.

BTW, is it me or is this Oyinda chick kind of a good look? Hrm. . .

Owerri and Onitsha? Thanks but no thanks. I'd much rather control Lagos than the entire SE zone, let alone just Owerri and Onitsha.

The odds of this happening are so slim, it is nearly not even worth considering. And I think that there are certain . . . techniques. . . one can use to prevent if from occurring if it ever came to that. But I won't say anything more on this, heh.

Still, I guess people should enjoy their daydreams.

Really is crazy to me how much more important oil is than pretty much any sort of crop one can grow

2 million barrels of oil per day has the same street value as Nigeria's rubber production in a year or 120 days worth of cocoa.

And the margins on oil are far higher. . .

We've got a long way to go in the SW (minus Ondo, I guess)

lmao

Hehe.

Jason123, I commend you for this post. An unfortunate thing about NL and Nigeria in general is that it is quite difficult for the voices of the Eastern minority groups to be heard.

However, Ken Saro Wiwa has spoken, and spoken loudly.

He who has ears, let him hear!

By contrast, rubber production in Nigeria took off in the mid 60s and rubber became very lucrative by the 1970s, although it declined in the mid 70s (as cocoa did as well before the federal government went to great lengths to attempt to keep it alive the early 80s). I will go into detail about this and provide sources, but you might as well know now, that the members of the commission were actually recommending economic doom for the Western region with their strange reasoning about relying on one volatile crop.

Hold on a second here. Where exactly are you getting your data from for rubber?

Here is Table 3.9 on page 35 of Economic Survey of Nigeria, 1960-1975:
https://i56.tinypic.com/34dirlv.png

Rubber had one great year in 1974, but overall I don't think this argument of yours of one crop declining and the other prospering is supported by the data. At least the data from 1960-1974. Here is a plot of the export prices:
https://i56.tinypic.com/16gcq36.png

And here is a plot of amount exported (subject to the caveat that there may be a typo in this source I got it from for 3 years):

https://i52.tinypic.com/2eye06o.png

Taking oil out of the equation (both the Western region (Ondo state) and the Midwest (Edo state and Delta state) have oil in significant commercial quantities), if the Yoruba parts of the Western region had continued to rely mainly on cocoa while the Midwest relied mainly on rubber and timber, rather than either group using oil, then the Midwest would have risen in the coming decade while Yorubaland would have stagnated and been unable to repay its many loans or meet its developmental goals.

(Of course there is rubber and timber in Yorubaland, just as there is cocoa in the Midwest (contrary to the image presented in this report), but I'm talking about what the different regions mainly focus on.)

This argument is NOT supported by the data above. Regarding loans, how much debt did Yorubaland have?

The whole "focus heavily on cocoa" alone approach was senseless. It ruined an already troubled Nkrumah, and if an independent Yorubaland had towed that line, it would have ruined them too.

A wiser government or wiser British advisers would have been screaming "diversify!" at the top of their lungs, knowing that other crops could be used to offset the possible decline in the value of cocoa.

When I compare the efforts Thailand and Malaysia expended to make rubber a viable cash crop for their countries to how Nigeria settled for mediocrity in that area, it's just another reason to be disappointed in the direction that the economy of Nigeria took after oil became the mainstay. 

But to read where people (who don't even seem to have economic backgrounds) are trying to argue that rubber is dismissible because of something as risky as cocoa is just silly.

Thailand is making money and Cote d'Ivoire is making money. Is Cote d'Ivoire jealous of Thailand's dominance in rubber or Thailand envious of Cote d'Ivoire's dominance in cocoa? Of course not, because they're both making a lot of money off of two very profitable resources.

It would be better:

to have the option of exporting tons of rubber when cocoa is low in value or to be able to export tons of cocoa when rubber prices drop (an okay/tolerable scenario),

or to be able to export both rubber and cocoa when both are doing well (the best case scenario),

or to be able to export both in significant amounts when prices drop for both (the worst case scenario; to at least be better able to stay afloat)

than to use one thing alone when you have access to both.

I don't disagree with most of this point. It makes sense to diversify. But as you can see from the above chart, one of the crops was far more economically important than the other. And for all we know, far more profitable than the other (I dunno what the production costs looked like for a ton of cocoa versus a ton of rubber.)

Another interesting claim of the report was that cocoa could not be grown in commercial quantities in the Midwestern region of Nigeria. I have seen this fantastical claim about soil quality and cocoa repeated as though it were actually true in several other places besides this report, yet I have not seen the actual supporting evidence. This claim in particular made me think that the authors of the report had just been fed a line or conjecture by the AG government and went along with it without bothering to see if it was actually true. I don't think anyone is claiming that Edo or Delta state cannot grow large amounts of cocoa today, so I wonder if the soil transformed over a few decades, or whether the people making these claims decided to consider only one or two cities (the peculiar reddish soil of Benin city and its environs may be what they had in mind) to use as a sample to represent whole provinces. Either way, there is some sort of incompetence involved on the part of the authors of the report with this cocoa claim.

I am not sure that this is true. It looks like even as of 1975, "about 95 per cent of the total cocoa output of Nigeria is from the Western State." Similarly, "about 90 per cent of Nigeria's rubber is produced in the Mid-Western State." (see pages 30 and 35 of Economic Survey of, 1960-1975).

Perhaps there is something fundamentally different about the agricultural potential of each region. I'm not any sort of agricultural expert, but I highly doubt that if it were that easy to grow rubber in Yorubaland or cocoa in the Midwest, it wouldn't have been done. Surely the Midwesterners would have invested heavily in cocoa during the boom times of the 40s and 50s if this were the case.

It is very telling that, apart from oil, the only two economic exports of Nigeria that have/had any real significance in modern times are cocoa and rubber. (You can confirm this yourself, look around a bit). Cocoa and rubber remain the largest non-oil exports of Nigeria to this day. Not cocoa alone, but cocoa and rubber. That's just the reality. It's particularly ironic then, that they were arguing for the suppression of additional government focus on Nigeria's rubber center.

But the full response on the economic issue and on the claim of subsidies will come later.

Looks like about 300-350k tons of cocoa exported per year (http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5555947-146/nigerian_cocoa_exports_rise_8.3_in.csp), 60k or so tons of rubber (http://rubbermarketnews.net/2011/03/nigeria-exports-60000-tons-of-natural-rubber-yearly/).

Looks like the price of cocoa has been well above $2k/ton since January 2008, so a $600 million+ market.

Since January 2008, let's say 150+ cents per pound. So $3300/ton or so, so a $198 million market.

Hrm, yeah, I guess it seems likely that these are going to be Nigeria's two largest non-oil exports. Not sure off the top of my head what would be larger.

Hrm, I just noticed what appears to be a typo in that book. For 1965, 67, and 68, amount of cocoa exported and amount produced seems to have been flipped? Or at at least I don't know how otherwise it is possible to export more than you produced. . . unless there is some sort of smuggling going on.

Now, regarding #1:

1. My first response will dwell on some historical/political claims, my next response will be about some more of the political claims, and I will post a response on the economic claims later (two or three days from now). The response on the economic claims is slightly lengthy, however. But since you seem to be particularly interested in that aspect of my retort, rather than only posting the full response days from now, I might as well give away one of the most fundamental objections I have (but definitely not the only objection) now, so as to spare you the wait or suspense.

The basic gist of one of my main objections is that the claims of the report with regard to the economic viability of rubber and cocoa are extremely false.

By condoning the flawed economic approach of the Western region with regard to cocoa, the British advisers from that commission were actually recommending that the Western region follow a very volatile cash crop (cocoa) which had been declining in value as the 60s approached, which would plummet significantly in value on the world market from 1960 to 1965 (Ghana under Nkrumah learned from this the hard way, and it was part of the reason he was overthrown, but Nigeria had oil to keep regions afloat whose crops (groundnut or cocoa or palm oil) were were becoming less and less important) and which declined heavily in production in Nigeria in the 1970s, into a path of economic ruin or stagnation for the Western region.

Having now read a bit about the situation in Ghana (http://countrystudies.us/ghana/63.htm, http://www.nek.lu.se/Publ/mfs/198.pdf and http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/wp9888.pdf), I am starting to see why your concerns are at least in theory plausible. However, from those references, a lot of the problem seems to have:
A) heavy borrowing by the Ghanaian government, thus making them even MORE exposed to fluctuating cocoa prices. What they did is the equivalent of someone taking a 0% equity loan to speculate on real estate in Florida.
B) Poor price controls by the Ghanaian FG that distorted the market (see the example of cocoa smuggling in the second and third link)
C) General economic mismanagement (in second link)

In a nutshell, (A) seems to have been the biggest issue. Now, did the Western region heavily borrow against future cocoa revenues like Ghana did? I don't know off the top of my head, but I doubt it.

Finally, in addition to it not being clear that the Western region was guilty of (A), (B) or (C), even assuming equal levels of leveraging by Ghana and Yorubaland, I think the Western region was less exposed to fluctuations in the cocoa market for the following two reasons:
1) In 1960, Nigeria accounted for 18% of the global cocoa market, while in 1972 it was 16% (see the book Economic Survey of Nigeria, 1960-1975, page 31.) It appears that Ghana otoh was at 35% of the world market in 1960 (see Section II of http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/wp9888.pdf).
2) Of course, the above is not really important unless we also know what share of the GDP cocoa makes up. I doubt cocoa ever made up a quarter of Yorubaland's economy. I don't know what this is for the Western Region, but for Ghana cocoa was 20-25% of GDP (see same reference above.)


Now, so we've dealt I think with the differences between Ghana and Yorubaland, and why Yorubaland is less exposed to fluctuations in the cocoa market, yes?

Well, let us examine some of the historical data for cocoa exports. Fortunately, I recently got the book Economic Survey of Nigeria, 1960-1975, so can post Table 3.5 on page 30 from it:

https://i56.tinypic.com/sxy8eu.png

I've added an additional column (Column D) that describes the average farmer income per ton. At any rate, aside
from the terrible year of 1966, would this cocoa strategy have really been so bad? Notice that prices and farmer incomes
recovered after the terrible year of 1966.

And here is a plot of international cocoa prices from 1970 to present:
https://i51.tinypic.com/sm3ihd.png
(from here: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/commodity/cocoa)

It looks as if 1966 was probably the worst year for cocoa in probably the past 60 or 70 years. But that bad year alone and what happened in Ghana imo doesn't suggest that cocoa is a bad crop to invest in.

Stitching together the data from Economic Survey of Nigeria, 1960-1975 and the above plot, the cocoa business did not that badly from 1960 or so to present.

Nice post.

Yeah, so I'll only respond to #2e, since that is what interests me the most there. So my question for you is this, is it at all plausible that someone like an Oba would explicitly state "We don't want to be in the West because we did this 200 years ago?" Probably not. But it might be the sentiment of the common people.

So I'm not sure that you can rule it out so simply just because nobody prominent came out and said it explicitly. Were I in their positions, I'd have that sentiment but would be hesitant to say it aloud.

Anyway, I don't think it should be ruled out that easily.

The same true federalism Ojukwu rejected for the minorities?

Was he not the one who said that their status would remain the same as it was before Biafra? I.e., no separate states, as they demanded in the 50s and as documented in the Willinks Report?

Which the Eastern Region vigorously fought against until Gowon created them?

I dey laff o

Hehe

Alex101 and Bliss4lyfe running from pillar to post.

Let me repost:

Ojukwu's dishonest formulations and his attempt to kidnap the Ogoni, among others, into his Igbo empire called "biafra."

Face Saro Wiwa's accusation!  

Ken Saro-Wiwa said what should now be obvious to all.

Biafra was nothing more than a scheme to turn a region as poor as the north in 1960 into a wealthy land. . . all on the back of minority groups who'd probably prefer to control their own resources rather than having 'em stolen by the Igbo man.

Is this not the pure truth?

May God save the Eastern minorities from Igbo oppression



[size=4pt]i dey laff o :-) [/size]

[size=15pt]Apart from my revulsion at the needless murders of the innocent, nothing upset me more than Ojukwu's dishonest formulations and his attempt to kidnap the Ogoni, among others, into his Igbo empire called "biafra." I knew that he pinned his hopes of the economic viability of "biafra" on the oil of the Ogoni and the Ijaw. I rebelled. I became Secretary of a small committee which met nights in Port Harcourt and issued a communiqué calling on Gowon to create a Rivers State by decree.[/size]

Poor Eastern minorities

May God continue to preserve and keep them from Igbo oppression

Doesn't look like he was personally corrupt, just heavily blurred the line between state and party. No indication he stole money for himself there.

But the larger point of that analysis is that the entire trial was purely politically motivated. Like, read what I linked to

Coker Commission report on Awolowo appears to have been a shammockery:

http://books.google.com/books?id=3FHvvW1TclIC&pg=PA104&lpg=PA104&dq=coker+commission+of+inquiry&source=bl&ots=RiC1pRYU4O&sig=Lfrj1L6o8h1l-q2nxVBtu76n1FU&hl=en&ei=QT4mTtm4NaTiiAKDzJneCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDYQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=coker%20commission%20of%20inquiry&f=false

henry101:
The collaboration of other parts of Nigeria would be understandable, seeing that by 1964, the Eastern region was already touted as the fastest growing economy in the world by research reports commissioned by the World Bank and by Harvard University in the United States.

Makes sense. Oil was discovered. Before then, Eastern region had the same GDP/capita as the North.

Ghana's economy has grown massively too with the discovery of oil.

Not trying to bash the north, but it would really nice if they held their end of the bargain in this so that humanity can finally defeat this disease. To some extent, they are holding the entire planet back. . . progress of nearly 7 billion humans being slowed

I guess it is probably unrealistic to ever expect polio to be eradicated?

The world was so close. . .

(AFP) – 5 hours ago
KANO, Nigeria — Northern Nigeria has seen signs of a resurgence of polio cases, threatening to erase gains that had led to the near eradication of the disease in the country, UNICEF officials said Tuesday.
"In recent times, we have made some commendable strides in our commitment to kick polio out of Nigeria, ," said deputy head of the UN children's fund for Nigeria, Jacques Boyer.
"However, there are challenges in sustaining the progress made in polio eradication as Nigeria is currently experiencing new polio outbreaks."
Polio cases in Nigeria dropped to 21 in 2010 from a staggering 338 cases in 2009.
But "as at this month, 20 cases of wild polio virus were reported in six states" in the north, Boyer told a gathering of traditional and religious leaders in the northern city of Kano.
"It is clear from the figures that we are beginning to lose some of the grounds covered in our polio eradication efforts."
The World Health Organisation has pledged to stop polio transmission by the end of the year and to stamp out the crippling virus worldwide by 2012.
"We have come too far in our fight against polio to contemplate a relapse. Complacency is probably the biggest danger that might jeopardise success in eradicating polio," Boyer told the community leaders.
The change has been blamed on a decrease in vaccinations for the highly contagious virus, which has been a problem in the past in Nigeria.
Between 2003 and 2004, the Nigerian state of Kano suspended polio immunisation for 13 months following allegations by some Muslim clerics that the virus was laced with substances that could render girls infertile.
They alleged it was part of a US-led Western plot to depopulate Africa, and the resistance to vaccines made Kano the epicentre of the transmission of the crippling wild polio virus.
Such conspiracy theories prompted immunisation and sensitisation campaigns by health officials and international donors in collaboration with local political leaders, traditional chiefs and clerics.
As a result, Kano recorded only one polio case in 2010, with five recorded so far this year, according to Boyer.
Danjuma Al-Mustapha, UNICEF monitoring and evaluation officer, said the apparent current drop off in vaccinations appeared to be due more to a lack of public health facilities than conspiracy theories.
He said parents are also frustrated by government's insistence they immunise their children against polio while drugs for more rampant diseases like malaria and cholera are lacking in government-run hospitals.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hfj1qrZgFsIITHRIfrVIXJzqQdBw?docId=CNG.832a4bd5d343e4861527751b5e0d9c50.491

[quote author=Abu-Maryam link=topic=716693.msg8749791#msg8749791 date=1311117111]The devil is now talking, you allowed it to happen and now you are asking us to tell you our feelings, hiss![/quote]+1

He uses such threads to drive traffic to his site and thus earn revenue, but is now coming out to condemn them

hilarious

Hehe.

Andre Uweh, the resident expert on Yoruba affairs.

Anyway, Akoko Edo in Edo State appears to be a collection of Yoruba language speakers who used to speak some other languages. So that territory, if linguistics is used as the criterion for borders should probably be in Ondo.

Akoko in Ondo is purely Yoruba, though.

lmao

Well, got to give 'em an A for effort, I guess

Don't we need to start first making stuff before we can trade?

By Stanley Oronsaye
July 19, 2011 01:53AM


Only through increased inter-border trade can African countries achieve real and sustainable growth. According to a joint statement by President Goodluck Jonathan and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, it is time for African countries to seek ways to boost trade among them. “An African free trade area could increase GDP across the continent by an estimated $62 billion a year. That’s $20 billion more than the world gives Sub-Saharan Africa in aid,” the statement said. Both leaders called on African countries to invest more in people and infrastructure, sound government and effective tax systems. The statement noted that African countries have not exploited opportunities to trade with one another. More than aids The statement further said that calls in the past for debt forgiveness and increased aid, though still relevant, were not enough to pull the continent out of its current quagmire. It advocated the removal of obstacles to trade and growth, noting that despite recent strong economic growth in Africa, only 12 per cent of African trade is with other African nations. Both leaders believe that with a strong and unified voice in global trade, Africa can deliver a better deal for its citizens.

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5733797-146/africa_needs_more_trade_among_countries.csp

lol

Hehe. Not sure if the title of this thread is true. Interesting to me that we all seem to (implicitly) acknowledge Fashola as the gold standard.