₦airaland Forum

Heh. Between the two of us, I wonder who a neutral third party will think is demented.

It is what it is. It might be "essentially zero", but this # hauled in is larger than several other states in the federation.

^-- Heh. Seriously, there is no need to make this a tribal issue.

Just read the words of your co-ethnic on that Biafra website I linked to earlier.

No reason to take my word for it. . . just read the argument on that site and see if you agree or disagree.

jensinmi:
IGR is zero.

False, compares favorably to some other states in naija: https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-300410.0.html

ezeagu:
So you are reading pro-Biafran websites? You are a national threat to security. You need to be locked up, foolish Ojukwu like you.

Heh, alright. I'll leave it be me. I just think naija has enough image problems with fraudulent behavior as is.

But it is a free world, do what you like.

@Calculia: There are plenty of more interesting folks to celebrate who are untainted by fraud/dishonesty.

This Phillip Ihenacho guy (of Seven Energy) seems pretty impressive, at least to me.

Seems a better sort of youngish role model/guy to celebrate and encourage people to emulate.

If you want to find folks involves in science, tech and engineering (rather than business like the above guy), I'm sure you won't have difficulty doing so.

Calculia:
Have you finished celebrating fela kuti. This man contribution is valid and i belief in giving credit to whom credit is due.

http://magazine.biafranigeriaworld.com/cezeilo/2003nov09.html

It makes us look bad to celebrate fakes. There are plenty of genuinely talent achievers, no reason to celebrate fraudsters.

Err. . . .

I don't think it is good to celebrate people like this

This World Bank is a pretty damn good friend of Lagos.

Kudos to this French Development Agency too.

Written by Kunle Awosiyan, Lagos
Friday, 20 May 2011
Lagos State Government has been enjoying over $500 million (N74 billion) loans from multilateral financing organisations and public-private partnership at significantly low rates, the state Commissioner for Finance, Mr Rotimi Oyekan, has said.

He said this at the annual ministerial news conference to mark four years of Governor Babatunde Fashola’s administration on Thursday.

The commissioner noted that the loans had complemented the debt issuance programme and helped deepen the financial resources of the state, especially in social sectors such as education, urban renewal and health.

According to him, the state had obtained $200 million, the largest World Bank direct funding for sub-national government to date for its Metropolitan Development and Governance Project.

The loan, whose payment would span between seven and 10 years, the commissioner said, would assist the government to increase sustainable access to basic urban services through investments in critical infrastructure.

Oyekan stated that the government also obtained $100 million from French Development Agency for the development of an efficient transportation system tagged, “Lagos Urban Transport Project.”

Another $200 million was obtained from the World Bank for the state Development Policy Operation, which the commissioner said would be granted to the state for three consecutive years.

Meanwhile, Lagos State Government has generated over N3 billion on property taxation in the last one year, the state Commissioner for Finance, has revealed.

According to him, the revenue collected under Land Use Charge has impressively increased from about N250 million in 2007 to N500 million in 2008 and N2 billion in 2009 to N3.02 billion in 2010.

http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/news/22261-lagos-procures-n74bn-external-loans-generates-n3bn-on-land-use-charge

about 30 or 40 years late, bro

RenCap sees African growth outpacing Asia
Thu May 19, 2011 10:25am GMT
By Joe Brock

LAGOS (Reuters) - Investment firm Renaissance Group believes African economies can outpace the fastest growing countries in Asia and expects to invest around $2 billion in the continent by 2014, the CEO of the group's investment bank told Reuters.

The Moscow-based investment group, focused on emerging markets, believes countries like Nigeria, Liberia, Ghana and Uganda could emulate the sustained double-digit GDP growth seen in some of the fastest growing emerging economies like India and China.

"I think it is probable that in the coming decades large parts of Africa will outpace the growth enjoyed by Asia," Stephen Jennings, the CEO of investment bank Renaissance Capital told Reuters on Wednesday at its investment conference in Nigeria's commercial-hub Lagos.

"We have expansion plans across the continent. I can easily imagine us investing a couple of billion dollars over the next three years," Jennings said.

Political turmoil in North Africa this year has turned some investors to safer havens but many international banks are looking to raise their exposure in a continent which has rich natural resource reserves and strong trade ties with Asia.

Jennings believes sub-Saharan Africa will be attractive to investors because it has a more stable political outlook than its northern neighbours and some of the booming emerging economies of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) group.

"Not only is political risk coming down quite dramatically and government improving in sub-Saharan Africa but compared with some other quite big emerging markets it is actually in a more advanced democratic stage, there are some BRICs I could name that have to go through phases of (democratic) transition."

NIGERIA

RenCap intends to make Nigeria its main African investment banking hub, a country it says has huge economic growth potential due to its vast population of 150 million people, improved political landscape and reform plans.

Nigeria held elections last month that were considered the fairest Africa's most populous nation has held since the end of military rule in 1999, although they were also some of the bloodiest with post-election violence killing at least 800.

Although its large population attracts investors because of the mass potential consumer base many of the country's inhabitants live on less than $2 a day, while businesses are hampered by poor infrastructure and chronic power shortages.

April's elections and the passing of a sovereign wealth fund bill this week have given some investors confidence that ongoing reform plans for Nigeria's power and energy sectors could succeed where decades of former attempts have failed.

Goodluck Jonathan made ending chronic power outages one of his key campaign commitments before winning the presidential vote and has laid out a roadmap for privatising the sector.

"Power is key. I'm very positive about reform. Reform has been improving in Nigeria for sometime," Jennings said. "I'm very bullish , we see Nigeria as the next Brazil or Russia."

Rencap has around 120 staff across six African offices.

http://af.reuters.com/article/investingNews/idAFJOE74I0DW20110519?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true

Which rascal rulers are being quoted?

Those #s are from an independent research firm, Canback-Dangel

UNDP (or World Bank, cannot remember which report I read it in) has similar #s for its own estimate of how the two regions compare GDP-wise

It is what it is

10:54am EDT
LAGOS, May 19 (Reuters) - A consortium of Niger Delta E&P and Petrolin is in the final stages of talks to buy one of the Nigerian oil blocks Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) has up for sale, the CEO of one of the company's told Reuters on Thursday.
"We are still in talks and we are hopeful," said Layi Fatona, chief executive of the local Nigerian firm Niger Delta Exploration and Production. The company bid in partnership with African-focused energy firm Petrolin for block OML 34 which has oil reserves of around 200 million barrels, Fatona said.
Many of the other oil companies bidding for Shell's Nigerian assets have already been informed that they were unsuccessful. (Reporting by Joe Brock; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/19/shell-nigeria-idUSLDE74I1MS20110519


Shell is really abandoning onshore oil production, eh?

chino11:
Your argument lacks basis and its fact less. How many Yorubas knows where India is? Not to talk Dubai, Japan, China etc.

Do these two sentences make sense, to you? We don't know where India or China is? And I guess the Indians and Chinese don't know where Nigeria is, as well?

So I still insist that if you guys embark port/refinery development it will amount to a very big waste of resources that could be channeled to cocoa plantation and expansion in the SW.

Eh, no.

The last I checked the SE has the lowest poverty rate in Nigeria with Anambra state as the leading state.

Also has the highest outmigration rate.

The SW maybe trailing the NC/NE, but am sure the SW is way far behind the SE.

Poverty rate in Lagos is quite high, but that of SW minus Lagos isn't that much worse than than SE (at least, considering immigration): http://nigeriavillagesquare.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-21642.html

The simple way for a layman to know the poverty rate is: just take a ride into ogun, oson, eketi, ondo where you still have mud houses and people living below 50cents pay day, then travel to the SE states of Anambra, Enugu, Imo, Abia and Ebonyi, you will come out with a report that will shut you up forever.

I'd rather believe trained economists and scientists than you.

If you have ever been to Onitsha for instance, you will be a witness to what that 20 pounds achieved for the Igbos. As I write this piece Onitsha has a functional ultra modern port that will take off next month.

We shall see if it won't be another Tinapa

You go to Nnewi there is the biggest and only vehicle manufacturing plant.

Doesn't manufacture, only assembles Chinese kits

So we are practically on the move to industrialization like the Asian Tigers (Japan, China etc)

Industrialization w/o electricity is about as useful as a tiger without claws

@chino:

1. I thought we've already established that the SW zone minus Lagos still has a higher GDP than the SE zone.
2. Which Igbos are the ones doing shipping? Is it their boats being used to import goods from China to the US? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to import a container.
3. At any rate, while your concern and advice is no doubt valuable, it isn't particularly wanted.

Thanks for the clarification, Lagosboy and Pharoh.

Not too sure how lagos qualfies as "one-eyed man."

Unless the land of the blind in this case is Africa

lots and lots of rated R activities.

What better way to die can there be?

I'm glad the Heat won. Sad that Bosh played like crap and was outshined by Haslem

I'd be kind of bummed if he got traded. His fit with this team is questionable

Hrm, I see.

^-- Is it necessary to have a dedicated BRT lane, though? You figure that since it is a toll road, traffic will move fairly rapidly.

Is this typical of toll roads?

@Deep Sight: So Lagos Port did not come into existence before independence? Why is anyone claiming they "built" an entirely economically self-sustaining entity that predated Nigeria?

It wasn't as if they met virgin bush somewhere and built it from scratch into a major port. It generated a lot of cash since it was colonized by the Brits. . .

If anything, the port has subsidized Nigeria, rather than vice versa.