₦airaland Forum

Calculia:
Very soon lagos will be only for the yorubas. That is all they have in the southwest. Thank you!

Hehe. Lagos alone is the 5th largest economy in sub-saharan Africa. That is no small potatoes. Tack on the rest of the SW and we might be 3rd or higher I'm content with what God has given us. It is a pretty quality territory. A bit poor in mineral resources, but otherwise excellent.

I tend to agree with Eziachi and co on this. I don't even see why the FG is the one who determines who gets airports and who doesn't. You'd figure market forces would be who determines that. If the SE zone can afford to have 20 airports and all are profitable, then let them have it. In contrast, if the SW zone can only afford to maintain one airport in Lagos, that let it be content with that.

Right now we have a situation in which there are many airports, but only a few are profitable (Lagos, Kano, Abuja and PH, iirc). All the rest lose money, yet are subsidized by the strong airports and the FG.

BTW, you can get international flights directly into PH (or at least you used to be able to, I dunno what the situation looks like now. . . ) So no real reason to fly into Lagos or Abuja first, unless it is just cheaper.

Tony Akowe, Kaduna on 05/07/2011 01:18:00


News states are likely to be created within the next two years, House of
Representatives Speaker Aminu Tambuwal said yesterday.
Also, a former Federal Permanent Secretary, Dr. Hakeen Baba-Ahmed,
accuse-election violence of laying a ground for another round of crisis in the
country.
He asked the old brigade of Northern leaders to give way for the younger
generation so as to chart a new direction for the region.
Tambuwal spoke at the first Kaduna Nigeria Union of Journalist(NUJ) Chairman
Round Table Discussion. He said the House would reintroduce the bill on internal
party democracy as a way of addressing numerous election petitions at the
various tribunals across the country.
Represented by the member representing Jaba/Zango Kataf Federal constituency,
Hon. Godfrey Gaiya, the Speaker said though theHouse intends to begin work on
the amendment of the 1999 Constitution on time to avoid the pitfalls that
characterised the last amendment.
He said a committee to handle the constitution review has been inaugurated and
will soon begin its assignment, adding that the issue of state creation and
revenue sharing formula will be handled by the committee.
According to him, the house will do its best to ensure that states that are
viable and can stand on their own are created before their midterm report,
saying “of course the sixth Assembly tried their best and were not able to do
anything. Of course this time around, we are starting early and I am sure that
before the middle of our tenure, we will be talking of states that feasible and
states that are not feasible”.
According to the Speaker, the House is determined to ensure that the nation
conducts a free and fair election by giving the parties and INEC the autonomy to
handle electoral matters.
He said even though the controversial bill on internal democracy within the
parties could not scale through the last assembly, the House intends to
reintroduce it, adding that “in the last assembly, we started a bill that talk
about internal democracy and this time around, we are revisiting that bill that
will introduce internal democracy within the set up.
Baba-Ahmed said that the Presidential panel led by Sheikh Ahmed Lemu was going
round giving the people the impression that the federal government was going to
pay compensation to victims of the crisis.
“I want to say that what is going on right now is not in our interest. The
Lemu panel is going about making the people believe that the government is going
to pay them compensation. Because of that, people are being asked to go and cost
churches, mosques and houses and bring to the panel.
“I am afraid that is laying the ground for another round of crisis because
the people are expecting to be compensated and I do not see how the government
is going to pay compensation to anybody. You pay compensation for what you are
responsible for.

http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/index.php/news/11423-new-states-likely-in-2013-says-tambuwal.html

afam4eva:
Abeg make we hear word. How about the lower the minum wage the higher the poverty which can lead to death. So roads are more important to human life.

I've never believed in the concept of minimum wage myself. In part because I don't see why decreasing the minimum wage implies higher poverty rates. In fact, my suspicion is that the opposite is true. . . no minimum wage or a low minimum wage leads to overall lower poverty rates. But I've not read enough public policy and economics literature to know definitively what the answer is.

Anyway, I don't think that is really relevant, in this case the problem is a bit simpler, since the money comes out of Oyo State's pocket. Ajimobi's obligation to Oyo State is clear: spend money as efficiently and frugally as possible. If he wants to build a mile of road, then he shouldn't unnecessarily pay more than he has to.

Same with a month of labor. Hence, better to pay N14k than N18k, if he can get the same amount of work.

Contrast this with Aregbesola, for whom one of his first acts was to create 20,000 fake jobs through this OYES program, and thus bloat the wage bill even further 

Anyway, time will tell with these new ACN governors, but I think Ajimobi and Fayemi are on the right path. Amosun and Aregbesola are question marks, though.

Ajimobi reduces the size of the civil service, Alao-Akala whining that Ajimobi is anti-worker:

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5727125-146/story.csp


This Ajimobi guy gets it. . . a bloated civil service means no development for a state.

Kudos to him!

Here was his rationate earlier:

Governor Abiola Ajimobi had said honouring the new wage agreement with his predecessor would up the monthly wage bill of the government to N4.4 billion, N200 million more than all the monthly takings of the state.

He said the new wage would castrate his government, hinder infrastructural development and make the tarring of a single kilometre of road a difficult task, proposing a salary increase of N13,500 for the least paid worker, instead of N18,000.

After a series of meetings and the intervention of religious and traditional rulers in the state, Governor Ajimobi approved the release of the new wage for the month of May only, while negotiation would continue.

http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/news/24101-minimum-wage-oyo-govt-labour-union-resume-negotiation-this-week

So in a nutshell, higher minimum wage => less miles of road build. So he will resist increasing this minimum wage as much as possible.

Hehe. I am starting to like this Ajimobi guy. Rather than just giving in and paying the N18K wage, he is negotiating to reduce the cost of his workers.

Good move. Maybe he'll be able to settle for N13k or N14k when it is all said and done. . . still cheaper than the N18k.

THE Oyo State workers, on Monday, rejected the N9,400 proposed by the state government as the minimum wage in the state.

The workers, under the auspices of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), at their congress held in Ibadan, said that was not the agreement reached with the state government.

The state NLC chairman, Olanrewaju Bashir, told the Nigerian Tribune in Ibadan that the government had directed that vouchers be raised in line with the last payment.

He said the issue was not discussed with the workers, saying that it was when the congress heard that vouchers were being raised for the payment of N9,400 that they (the workers) challenged them (government).

Bashir said though the workers had concluded when to commence strike over non-implementation of the new minimum wage, they would not hesitate to join the national body when the strike commenced.

He said the workers would meet with the representatives of the government today, to continue negotiation on the implementation of the new minimum wage.

The state NLC chairman said the union would hold another congress tomorrow, to brief the workers on the development on the matter.

http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/news/24547-oyo-workers-reject-n9400-minimum-wage-meet-govt-team-today

Unfortunately, I doubt that they want their own country. They probably want to turn Nigeria into an Islamic Sharia state, not separate. Separating means no cash, and thus poverty

The Fulani have no claim whatsoever to Benue land.

The Tiv should defend their land and continue shedding Fulani blood. Anyway, they vastly outnumber the Fulani in Benue, and so will eventually prevail in a war of attrition so long as no third parties use the military or police to against them.

Just curious, why does Amaechi wear that style of hat? I associate it with Ijaws. Or do Ikwerre also dress like that?

lmao @ seeking to split up an ethnic group (Igala) to satisfy your own ambition

Pukkah:
In that same thread, I noted that the CBN has no business  bailing out an ailing or failing Islamic Bank with public funds.  This condition should be made known to all the bank's depositors that they are taking an additional risk.  It is in the interest of fairness that government should not promote one religion over the other(s).

How does this injure anybody other than the customers? Why not moving on and allow the Islamic Banks to either flounder or flourish instead of making the introduction sound like it's the end of the world? The viability or otherwise of the banks is up to those ready to put their money in it.

The level of bickering between Christian and Muslims in Nigeria is really becoming exasperating.  Are you the only religious groups in the country?

If there are no government bailouts for this Muslim bank, nobody is forced to deposit there, and state governments are not forced to deposit funds there, then I have no real issue with the bank.

Btw FWIW, I'm Christian, but not very religious.

I brought up the Dutch only because dealing with land reclaimed from the sea is their area of expertise. So I'm very curious to hear who these other experts are and what the basis is for what they are saying.

And if you are just saying global warming in general, well then in that case most cities in the world are fvcked, not Lagos alone (since most of the world's major cities are by the coasts.)

Projected by whom? Certainly not the dutch engineers/scientists contracted to do simulations for Eko Atlantic.

Deep Sight:
Quote from Ekt Bear -

You are being absolutely unfair. The Gwari's never acceded to any such thing. A military decree was enacted and embedded in a constitution for the whole of Nigeria and there was never any consultation with the Gwaris. It was made law by fiat. Simplicito.

The natives were relocated by fiat to locations they had no input in determining. How's that for disposession?

So you see, my dear friend, there cannot be one law for the goose and another for the gander.

I'm pretty certain that they were consulted before this happened, however. If I had time I could look more deeply into the matter of how Abuja came into being.

In any case, it is what it is. . . whether anyone likes it or not.

honeric01:
Which chief did Herbert Macaulay follow to the privy council in London?

Hehe, I learned the answer just this weekend. Chief Amodu Tijani, the Oluwa of Lagos.

step1:
I agree and we can all live in peace but the bone of contention here is people should stop calling lagos a no-man's-land. We shoulds acknowledge the indigenes of the state.

If anyone is a true Lagosian then he should stop going to his home town or village during emulation and stay and be counted in Lagos state so we can all benefit from the state. This will reduce the string on the state's money.

We are one and we should leave as one. Whether yoruba or igbo, a lagosian is a Lagosian.

Well said.

If Christian university goes bankrupt, nobody is going to bail it out.

If Islamic bank goes bankrupt, then FG will bail it out.

From some of the excellent posts made here by Katsumoto earlier, these banks aren't very successful even in countries like Pakistan or Iran. So why on earth are we copying failed models from elsewhere?

Is the King of Dubai (a relatively successful Muslim country) implementing Sharia banks as his go-to banking system? No, he is going with the more successful Western banks.

Let's keep things secular, neutral, and avoid sticking in religion unnecessarily.

afam4eva:
Are you a lagosian simply because you're Yoruba? If your answer is yes then you must be high on cheap crack. Many of you that are beating their chest that lagos is your father's property don't even have a property to call your own in this city that you claim so much.

You bandy about insults, but never seem to get the point. Or are sowing red herrings on purpose.

The issue (at least for me) is not whether non-Lagosian Yoruba should be called Lagosians or not.

The point is, Lagos is part of Yorubaland. It is not a no man's land, it doesn't belong to Nigeria in general, it isn't communal property. If naija scatters, that port city is coming with us.

Declaring this fact is not the same as saying that all Yoruba are Lagosians, an Egba man is in fact really a Lagos indigene, etc.

That is another thing that pisses me off. I don't mind folk who want to join Lagos wholeheartedly and honestly (which includes respecting the rights and authority of the indigenes and Yoruba culture more generally.) But people who want to declare it a no man's land? Who want to enjoy their own homeland yet deprive someone else of theirs? Folk like that, their blood should be shed

If you declare yourself a Lagosian, then you'd better resign any allegiances to any other part of Nigeria. This having your cake and eating it angers me.

Deep Sight:
@ OAMJ4, the arguments all touch on the history of Lagos - if you read the posts, you will see that clearly.

Ekt bear -

You have not answered these questions please -


1. What ethnic group does New York belong to?

Ethnic group? In America? What do you mean by "belongs to?" These indigeneity rights stuff don't really exist in the US, for the most part. New York (and the rest of the US) is controlled by whites. But a few hundred years ago, it was controlled by the Native Americans, who were wiped out and genocided.

2. Whilst Lagos was the Federal Capital, did it belong exclusively to the Yoruba?

When Lagos Island was the federal capital, you mean? Imo, all off the SW is Yorubaland, and thus belongs to the Yoruba. That the British and some other Nigerians tried to s.crew us over in the past doesn't mean we should allow them to continue. BTW, before independence Awolowo wanted Lagos Island ceded to the Western Region, and for somewhere else to be chosen as capital. Northern Region and Eastern Region disagreed. British eventually sided with North and East.

So imo, fvck the Brits, and fvck any Nigerians who disagree with Lagos being a Yoruba territory.

3. Does Abuja belong exclusively to the nativegwari tribe indegenous to it?

It did. But the Gwari agreed to cede the land to Nigeria and allow it to become a no man's land, yes? No Yoruba have ever agreed for this regarding Lagos.

4. If Abuja ceases to be the Federal Capital in a hundred years time, would it be right for the Gwari's to then state that it belongs exclusively to them?

I'm not sure. . . they've ceded the rights to it. So I dunno who it would belong to.

And Finally -

5. I was born in Lagos, I have lived my whole life in Lagos, I schooled in Lagos, finished university in Lagos, work in Lagos, pay taxes in Lagos, vote in Lagos elections, and today I am proudly leading capital development projects in Lagos.

Please tell me whether or not I am a Lagosian?

Thanks

It seems to me that you are a Lagosian. However, that you are a Lagosian doesn't make Lagos communal property. It belongs to the Yoruba.

Very evil man, this Aliko Dangote

Man.

Compound interest is like magic, lol. If Nigerians and black people saved and invested more, I think Africa would be a way better place.

Less Maseratis and other useless consumption, more real estate, stocks and bonds.

If you get a high-paying job of this caliber and are relatively frugal you can probably save into your bank account $20k+/year. Over the course of a 30 year career, that is $600k. Let's say $20K saved per year, assume even at 5% inflation-adjusted rate of return. If this little piece of code I wrote is correct, that is a little under $1.4 million over a 30 year career.

Ajimobi easily could have saved more than $20K, might have done better than 5% on his investments, etc, etc.

You are really odd. The historical fact is that Lagos was declared the capital of Nigeria upon amalgamation in 1914. It remained the capital up till 1991. That is 77 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagos

It is strange to imagine that a city that is the legal and commercial capital of a Nation for 77 years can still be claimed to be the exclusive preserve of one of its tribes. That makes no sense sir: and you know it.

So? That was the British's affair. Wasn't as if Nigerians as a whole decided to make it their capital. And nobody asked Lagos indigenes first. At best you can claim independence onwards.

With what resources were the bridges built, and the central infrastructure upon the capital area of Lagos Island and Lagos Mainland?

Taxes from Isale ko, perhaps? Dont even be funny sir.

Let's see #s by region of federal spending. Again, what was built by the FG from independence until IBB left? Provide records of what was built, let's see what the tally is. Not going to accept w/o some sort of evidence.

Regarding the Benin claim. . . it wasn't as if they settled the land. They sent an army to subdue it. By that metric, then Benin has a claim to most of southern Nigeria.

Anyway, by 1800 or so, Lagos was de facto independent of Benin anyways: http://www.jstor.org/stable/181898

step1:
Lastly, to those that think it was oil that built lagos state. That is a big lie. The capital was in Lagos Island and properly the president (Nnamdi) used oil money to develop Lagos Island but certainly places like Idumota, yaba were all under the western protectorate .

If you all think because it was the capital then you are a lagosian then think again so that you all can contain yourselves in lagos island.

Even any claims to Lagos Island will have to be documented with facts. Let's see how much money was spent from independence to IBB leaving. And then let's compare that against port revenues.

I used to accept things people said here before as facts, but lately I've found them out to be lies.

No, I'll need records of exactly how much oil money was spent. Name the federal structures built in Lagos State (that were not built in other states) from independence to 1993, total up the value of them, then subtract it off of money that went to the federal account from the SW zone from 1950 onwards.

Let's get a dollar figure.

We must then subtract from that # the port revenues that accrued to the federation from independence to present.

I suspect that if you do the math, there isn't a good case to be made for Lagos being subsidized by any 3rd parties.

Deep Sight:
The reason is simple: Lagos was the Federal Capital of Nigeria for almost a century

This is false, for several reasons. It was capital at independence until 1976 (or so?) officially, then the early 1990s in fact. So 30 years or so. And not the entire Lagos State, but just a small part of it. That is the most can be claimed belongs to all. And of course, I reject that claim.

Lagos was built and developed within that context and with Federally derived revenues accruing from every part of the country.

This will require documentation for me to believe. The more I look into the tax and financial info of Nigeria shortly after independence, the less I'm willing to accept this as a given.

proO1:
So because you worked for Shell or whatever oil company for 26 years, you should be a multi-millionaire in dollars and a billionaire in naira?

In a nutshell, yes. My older relative recently retired from working at a similar oil company and got a retirement package of several hundred thousand dollars.

And he never reached Ajimobi's level, yet is almost certainly worth $1 million+.

I don't mind this idea of a "capital" for each zone. Less emphasis on Abuja, more on the 6 zones.