₦airaland Forum

PPP, no federal funds involved, will create many jobs and is completely viable without any sort of subsidies/propping up.

God bless Fashola, God bless Lagos, God bless the ACN.

These guys make me feel very proud.

on MAY 7, 2011 · in NEWS

By Olasunkanmi Akoni & Monsur Olowoopejo
The Lagos State Government is to spend N102 billion ($ 650 million) on the construction of the Lekki International Airport which is expected to commence operation in May 2012.

The Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, Mr. Adeniyi Oyemade, a Public Private Partnership projector told reporters in Ikeja that the proposed airport would handle 5 million passengers annually.

“The state government has obtained the site approval for the airport from the Federal ministry of Aviation and completed the master plan on the 3500 hectares of land for the project.

The Governor has also approved the conduct of the topographical and geotechnical survey of the 3500 hectares of land allocated for the Airport,” he said. Its construction will engage over 2,000 direct and indirect workers.

Also speaking on the project the Special Adviser to the Governor on Commerce and Industry, Mrs. Olusola Oworu, said “the state government believes that this is an investment that can be run only by the private sector because it is commercially viable to have the second international airport in Lagos state which will be running at maximum capacity.

“What the state government will do for the private companies is to create an enabling environment for the investors. And as we speak today, the state government has appointed a commercial adviser who will assist the state government in putting the data’s that will be sent out to prospective investors who will send in their codes for the project,” she added.

The state government has appointed Mace Group, a United Kingdom based firms International Development Unit (IDU) team as the project manager for the preparation of a master plan for the new Airport which will be built next to the 16,500ha Lekki Free Trade Zone.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/05/lagos-earmarks-n102-bn-to-build-lekki-int%E2%80%99l-airport/

(AP) – 13 hours ago
BAUCHI, Nigeria (AP) — Police say attackers killed at least 16 people and burned down 20 houses in a northern Nigerian town with a history of sectarian violence.
The Bauchi state police chief told The Associated Press on Friday that the attack took place around dawn near Tafawa Balewa town.
Amanam Abakasanga said most of the victims are of the Sayawa ethnic group comprised mainly of Christians.
The Sayawas are in the majority in the town and its surrounding villages, but their traditional rulers have been of the predominantly Muslim Fulani ethnic group.
The Sayawas have demanded a separate traditional ruler, which has led to attacks and counterattacks over the past two decades.
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gJHMdlgvhFU1gfaBpBr0QPB8WfzQ?docId=d4279500ad604d2c91939cbd7b4b0815

SEFAGO:
Awww were you bullied? For being a nerd? Did they make fun of your African accent when you first arrived. Did they give you a list of words to pronounce for them while they laughed at you? Was it like the male version of mean girls? Sucks cannot empathize though  .

So u could not get hammered legally until you graduated and you think it was worth it?  

I came here when I was a little kid. By age 7 or so my accent was almost completely gone. I wasn't bullied. . .my HS was one of the better ones in this country I definitely wasn't one of the "cool kids" though. I only reinvented myself into a badass later in life, at around 19-20.

Who cares about "hammered legally." As if that is relevant for most college students  Started drinking like three days after stepping on campus 

2buff:
I began uni at 16

It's mostly a parental pride thing I think and a very good way to make the child feel very alienated. There are some things I missed out on that I wish I experienced.

I started at 16 too. But I felt alienated in HS, not really in college. . .college was great I'm glad in retrospect that I did it. . . but yeah, there are definitely tradeoffs 

PhysicsMHD:
We just need to adapt to the race and global competition. Like they said, it's like we're being left behind while the world moves past us.

+100.

Others have adapted. There is no reason to think we cannot do the same.

@Gbawe: There must be something very simple I'm missing here. I don't understand why this isn't just a math problem.

OK. So here is what we are pretty sure is true:
A) GDP per capita of Northern Nigeria is $718. GDP of Southern Nigeria is roughly double that (see this: http://www.economist.com/node/18621789)
B) Kano's GDP appears to be on the order of 3-4% of Nigeria's total (see this: http://www.gamji.com/article8000/NEWS8854.htm)
C) I'm calculating Lagos's GDP to be roughly 20% of Nigeria's total. $43 billion for Lagos (http://www.economist.com/node/18652563), let's say $217 billion for Nigeria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)).

And here is where we are making some assumptions that don't have data to back them up, but probably aren't far from the truth:
D) GDP per capita of Kano isn't too far from the average for the region. . . so somewhere around $718. Let's say +/- 100.
E) GDP per capita of Lagos isn't too far for the average for the region . . . so somewhere around $1400. Let's say +/- 100.

Now, if you accept A through E, then it becomes purely math, right? I can simply solve for the relative population of Kano to Lagos?

In fact, using the above #s, and solving, I can bound the relative population of Kano to Lagos to be at most 48.544%, at least 31.785%.

This is kind of the thought process I had in mind.

Now, some of you might think this reasoning is completely off, and entirely crackpot. It probably is crackpot, but I'm not sure why (at least if A through E are roughly true.) If so, please tell me which of assumptions (A) through (E) are invalid.

aletheia:
^With all due respect, I must disagree. A mediocre first year in this instance shows that the next 2-4 years are going to be bad in Osun state. Aregbesola is showing a pattern of behavior: no commissioners after 7 months, 20,000 unsustainable populist jobs, and now a meaningless MOU with a UK borough. It is obvious that he is a weak leader who is all about flash and little substance. In my opinion, it is highly probable that he will turn out to be like Niyi Adebayo of Ekiti state (Fayose's predecessor).

Look, you are probably right; I'm not behaving rationally when I say, "maybe years 2-4 will be OK." But what else can I do but hope? I cannot control the guy, force him to do the right thing. I'm not Tinubu, Fashola, or some important guy in the ACN who can influence him. I'm not even a citizen of Osun State. So what else can I do but hope?

revomind:
Where did you get this from? It is unconstitutional for anybody to have land seized from him without compensation by the Govt. Check S.28-30 of the Land Use Act.

Hrm, I was referring more to communal lands not owned by anyone specifically.

I've not read the land act though specifically, probably now a good time to skim through it:
http://www.nigeria-law.org/Land%20Use%20Act.htm

This is pretty cool.

I guess rather than responding to both of your posts separately, let me just hash out my reasoning. You guys tell me where the holes are.

1) We believe (from The Economist) that the GDP per capita of Northern Nigeria is roughly half of that of the South.
2) We believe (again from The Economist) that the GDP of Lagos is 20%+ of the GDP of Nigeria.
3) We believe (from one of Sanusi's writeups) that the GDP of Kano is like 3-4% of Nigeria.

Let's assume temporarily that all of the above are correct.

You guys are correct in saying that, "Hey, you cannot just say that two countries with the same population should have the same GDP." But if we additionally know that the per capita GDP of Country A is half of that of Country B, then doesn't this tell us a lot about what the relative populations should be?

The "village adding one productive person" example I gave was just to demonstrate to you that there is a correlation between higher population and GDP (makes sense intuitively.) But that there is a correlation doesn't mean other factors are not even more important (are you adding a suya salesman to your village or a lawyer/doctor, both of whom earn more money than the suya guy?)

Are you high as a kite? What is wrong with you? Your arrogance pisses me the hell off.

Yes, we KNOW WHAT A FREE TRADE ZONE IS.

But that doesn't mean Nigerian consumers (specifically, the ajokutamamumi being referred to here) will be able to enter the FTZ and bring anything they like into Nigeria, duty-free.

For all we know, the duty-free only applies to goods EXPORTED from Lekki to outside of the country! Not goods brought from the FTZ to Nigeria.

And of course it depends on the "exact details and implementation". . . I assume that they'd have different policies for different classes of goods.

[quote author=bk.babe97y link=topic=660082.msg8272618#msg8272618 date=1304717560]Is every street in Nigeria a state or wat?

For such a small country yall sure got a whole lotta states. Extra opportunity to siphon off money or wat?[/quote]Well, we have ethnic minorities that don't want to be oppressed by their more numerous neighbors. Groups like that need their own states. But you are right, there are too many states.

All of Yorubaland should be merged into one state, for example.

ezeagu:
[center][img]http://m1.ikiwq.com/img/xl/kK8EYlHqTXNzsfkkg6jaTd.PNG[/img][/center]

In short forget the map above.

Err, what  What are you saying?

Okay, so South western Nigeria has around 35 million people according to you and the south east stays at 24 million, I agree. Now, what is the percentage of south eastern Nigerians in the south west? Specifically, what is the population of south eastern Nigerians in south western states outside Lagos.

I dunno what the answer to these questions are. It is sort of hard to say.

And if less people in an area makes the areas poverty rate drop, why don't areas in Nigeria with lesser populations have a low poverty rate as well?

Eh, I think you are misunderstanding what I'm saying. One zone sees massive emigration out of it. All I'm saying is that that zone should have lower unemployment rates.


Finally, can you post a table of poverty rates via state?

Katsumoto:
Eku_Bear

I don't understand the part in bold; perhaps I am missing something (its Friday afterall). Are you suggesting that there is a relationship between population and GDP?

So there is going to be a basic one. Adding more people to a society can do nothing but increase GDP. If I have a village of 100 people and a new guy comes in and does anything at all useful, my GDP increases, right?

But the more interesting point is. . . if Kano State has the same population as Lagos (roughly 9 million each according to the 2006 census), then why aren't as many businesses flocking there? Why aren't there as many banks in Kano State as there are in Lagos? Etc, etc, etc.

You kind of see what I'm saying? I wouldn't use this by itself as an argument for Kano's pop being inflated. But taken with some of the other things we can figure out about Kano, I think it makes some sense.

Correct me if I'm wrong though; you are an economist, I am not.

SEFAGO:
I differ. Educational Status =/ High Intelligence or even any sort of intelligence. It signifies opportunity especially in the third world. In developed countries like the US where human capital is exploited to the highest, then maybe such a correlation would not seem out of place. Considering the fact that her father and mother grew up in Nigeria, it would be safe to point out that they are a product of opportunity.

Right, so in a 1st world sort of context (like this girl we are discussing), then educational status should correlate pretty highly with intelligence.

I was going to argue more though, but I just noticed that it seems I have been misconstrued (probably my fault). I erroneously equated environment=culture which is really what I wanted to argue. That being immersed in a certain culture drives intelligence and educational achievement. Anyways, my interest lies in how culture can affect perceived intelligence and educational achievement i.e I am not too interested in intelligence differences within groups of the same culture and heritage. More interested in why Yoruba/Igbo/Minorities tend to outperform northerners.

I see. Yeah, so I guess I misunderstood you. . . sort of assumed by nurture you meant how a kid is being raised within one specific culture. Not cross-cultural comparisons.
But I guess it is pretty clear why southern Nigerians outperform Northerners, no? If you are wasting so much talent by marrying girls off at 13-14, and then making your boys spend however many hours a day memorizing the Koran, not much good will come of that. They need to tweak their culture slightly and incorporate some new things into it to be more competitive.

Lol, hope you are not going to pre-screen your wife using IQ . If you buy big koboko and cane your kids sufficiently and make them work hard they will do fine. That's what both Ileke-Idi and I  plan to do for our kids. Beat the shyt out of them.

Nah, no iq test, lol. But you can figure out roughly the same thing using some of these other correlated variables (education being one of them, like I said.) Anyway, it isn't the be-all end-all of life for me. . . just not going to do what other people I know have done. . . marry a very dumb (but very hot) woman.

^-- Fine, we get it, you hate the MNCs and the western world. . . you've yammered on about this for a long time now already.

And regarding taxation, depends on the exact details and implementation.

Man, I'm sure you can round up 10,000 rich afro-Brazilians/Cubans/Panamanians/Venezuelans/etc per year each willing to pay $2000 + accommodations + air fair to visit the sacred city of Ife, the origin of the Yoruba and land of their ancestors for one week. Just need to make it safe, fun, and not too much of a hassle to get there.

That is a business that will gross $20 million/year, create tons of jobs, etc, etc.

Anyway, let me not be overly pessimistic. A mediocre first year doesn't mean years 2, 3 and 4 have to be bad. He just needs to realize very quickly that the current path he is on is not sustainable and won't work.

I'm praying that someone close to him or high up in the ACN is reading this thread and gets in touch with him. And hopefully communicates in a more diplomatic/less harsh manner than I have 

Even the farming idea that he has (http://www.osundefender.org/?p=11027)

What is the point of the 1K hectares in each of the 30 LGAs  

Why not just find the biggest, best plot in the state near a river, and do 30,000 hectares in one location? Lease out 25,000 to some big industrial farmer who will sink lots of money into it, and then another 5000 hectares to local farmers? Kind of like what Saraki did, and what they do all over the middle belt (from what I hear)?

Make sure you take a 10% cut (for example) too of whatever the industrial farmer produces.

Does this not make more sense than 30 farms? Won't that add more value?

Regarding tourism. . . you have the city of Ife in your state! Travel to Brazil, Cuba, Panama and all these afro-latino countries and organize a Yoruba festival twice a year. They have some sort of Yoruba festival in Recife, Brazil every year (I met a chick from that city in summer 2006 who told me about it). . . why not see if you can drum up tourism of that sort to your own state? I dunno, just tossing out ideas here.

Anyway, I hope that something changes. I want Osun State to succeed, I want the ACN to succeed. We cannot pretend as if everything is OK when it is not.

hercules07:
I hope those condemning Aregbesola are aware that Osun is number 33 on the list of states receiving allocations, has a large civil service and is bogged down by debts from oyinlola's administration, he is using his security vote and other monies allocated to governors to pay for the 20,000 people he employed, thereby indirectly pumping some money into the hands of the poor, he is also working on the agricultural sector, it is going to take some time but he will get it right.

OK. So in a situation where you have cash flow problems, a bloated civil service, the solution is to create 20,000 more unproductive government jobs That cost $X per year from government funds, but only returns $Y in value (where Y is MUCH smaller than X) 

You are in year one of office. . . does it really make sense to bloat the government even further rather than trying to shrink it At least wait until year 3 or 4 to do that, if it is necessary to boost your popularity for winning an election.

This is why it is so important to attract investment. . . then rather than paying for 20,000 jobs out of government money, you have someone else (an investor) provide the jobs for you. Then you can spend the money on healthcare, education, etc.

Anyway, I am concerned.

BTW, Osun is NOT 33rd in revenue! https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-300410.0.html#msg8234903

Ebonyi, Ekiti, Kogi, Nassarawa, Plateau, Taraba, Yobe, Zamfara all earn less money.

Is the 40.1 billion naira that Osun received (at least according to the CBN table I linked to for whatever time period that was) too small?

Governors in Nigeria have POWERFUL tools to generate more revenue. Land use act allows them to seize land for free. A creative governor should be able to use that tool and tools like it to raise money. Surely there must be some industrial farmers or real estate developers who he could lease prime land to to raise cash and create jobs. The possibilities are endless for a creative and go-getter governor.

If the loans that Oyinlola took out are so burdensome, perhaps look into having them canceled. Or negotiate some better repayment scheme. Etc, etc.

^-- My brother, don't make this some American/UK spat

By "useless", I mean that most municipalities don't have any money/business/capital to bring or give. I'm not trying to disrespect this borough. . . I'm just saying that there is nothing really they'll be able to offer him.

If he visited Howard County in the State of Maryland (another municipality chock full of Yoruba) and signed a MoU with the County Executive, I'd be similarly skeptical. . . just because I know that Howard County won't have anything really tangible to offer. They cannot gift off $1 million in goods/services. . . simply isn't in their budget.

Anyway, fine. I'm just getting the sense that the Aregbesola guy is more flash than substance. He needs to roll up his sleeves and get to work. . . I don't want to hear about trips abroad unless he is bringing back business/investment with him.

And regarding "other Governors travel abroad fruitlessly 50 times a year". . . well, I cannot afford for my governors in Yorubaland to do what other governors do. If he is just going to do the same things as everyone else, then why should I prefer the ACN to the PDP?

We cannot justify mediocrity just by claiming that someone else is doing the same.

Justcash:
Seriously, you wish to sit back and wait for me to provide an evidence of how good the 1960s were for Nigerians? No worry, siddon dey wait. You go old. Sebi you no sabi type for google? SMH

Right, but everyone knows that the 70s were better than the 80s. I don't believe that the 60s were better than the 70s  You've not provided one bit of evidence to support this hypothesis. . . I've at the very least showed some GDP data that suggests it is wrong. I even took the time to make that plot. Is it too much to ask you to come up with some sort of evidence too to support your questionable hypothesis? 

Justcash:
The North and West were fully in control of the political system in Nigeria. Obasanjo had the chance to change Nigeria during his military rule. What did he do, he continued to dance to the script of his cronies. Handed over to a Northerner who carried on the ruining spree. The head of state got more power to effect changes than any deputy or minors. Atiku and Obasanjo's case vindicates my assertion. Thank God that OBJ did not allow himself to be used the second time. If they had chosen another Western, We'd have been on the same cycle.
The North and West gets the blame fully.

So the West decided to rig out Awolowo to let Shagari and Ekeume lead  

So the West is to blame for Shagaris incompetence, because we rigged in support of Shagari over Awolowo?

lwkmd  

^-- Right, so from what you post, the 70s were better than the 80s. But nothing there says they were worse than the 60s. . .

Justcash:
Aguiyi Ironsi managed the economy well. Mismanagement of the economy started with Gowon.

What concretely did Ironsi do in his 7 months or so or leadership that demonstrate that the economy was managed well? Better than Gowon, for example?

I expect you to know what GDP means. It does not necessarily reflect infrastructural growth, human development index, per capita income etc. An economy may be growing, but the growth is not reflected in development of the country. In the 1960s there were good schools, security, employment, efficient infrastructures, roads etc. These things were supposed to be updated with the growth in GDP. They were abandoned, and life became difficult for Nigerians irrespective of GDP growth.

Right, I know what GDP means. But I find it hard to believe a story in which GDP increases by a factor of 7, population increases by max 4-5% per year (EDIT), and the country gets worse. I dunno if this has ever happened in history before. . .

Can you provide ANY evidence to support that the country deteriorated despite what was on paper a much higher GDP? HDI data? Employment data? # of people enterting university? # of universities? You are saying all of this got worse in the 70s  Please provide some evidence for this, it directly contradicts what people who lived during that time have told me.

Anyway, like I said. . . then the East gets the blame for Shagari's mismanagement, since they supported his bumbling ways over Awolowo. And notice that when Shagari came into power  (79) was when the economy started to fall apart (80s and 90s).

Also, why do the Shagari, Buhari, IBB, Abacha eras count as "the West" running things?

Wasn't Shagari a guy the Igbos supported in large #s? Ya'll sure as hell didn't vote for Awolowo. A guy who would have done a helluva better job navigating through the 80s than Shagari would have (Western Region again was the wealthiest in Nigeria before it was split into West and Midwest, or so I believe from what I've read on JSTOR.) So as far as pure leadership, administrative skills go, you guys choose the wrong leader.

So doesn't "the East" get the blame for that era?

What was the unemployment rate in the 60s versus that in the 70s? Poverty rates? Etc, etc?

If you want to argue that Nigeria was worse off in the 70s than in the 60s, then let us see those secondary statistics to justify your argument.

Like, if you want to say that, "the country started going bad due to military rule and coups", then shouldn't you include Ironsi?

And if you want to say, "the country started getting mismanaged at this point", then why is Ironsi your cutoff point? It seemed to do OK in the 70s. So then the cutoff should be probably 1980-81 or so.

I don't think "the West" can be blamed much for the 80s and 90s. Awolowo was rigged out for Shagari. We didn't execute the coups in the 80s and 90s.

Surely you'll concede that if West had been running the country rather than the North, probably the 80s and 90s would have been pretty decent. . .

Justcash:
I am not talking in terms of Gross domestic product.
Put in simple words, GDP measures the health of a country's economy. There was an oil boom within that period that you see an up trend. So it is natural that the economy will be seen as healthy. But, how did it help real development?
Economy was growing, things were getting worse for the masses. in the 60s life was better for the masses than when oil was discovered.
By "Nigeria was destroyed", I meant Per-capita income, Infrastructures, educational system, standard of living etc experienced a downtrend.

Hold on a second here. Nigeria's GDP increased from 6.63 billion in 1969, to 47 billion in 1979. . . 7X increase. So you are telling me that the country was better off in the 60s than the 70s? 

Like I said, I wasn't alive during that time. But the way older folk tell me, the country started to spoil mostly in the 80s.

What do you mean by "at that point Nigeria started getting destroyed"?

Like, for example, here is a plot of Nigeria's GDP since 1960:
https://i51.tinypic.com/j91qb4.jpg

So from 1967-1980, the country sucked? I wasn't alive during that time, so wouldn't know.