₦airaland Forum

^-- agreed. Dunno what is wrong with em

hmm

OBJ's 8 years were not the best they could possibly be, but the economy really picked up over that time. So I dunno if we should call him a failure.

^- Agreed.

Right; there is no inconsistency between Tinubu's position and that of Oshiomole and Fashola. They are saying the same thing:

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/News/Metro/5696452-147/fashola_wants_a_better_revenue_allocation.csp

How is this thread still going on. If you want to keep the ACN out of the SS and SE, then you are going to need a time machine.

@Gbawe: I think you did the right thing from the beginning. It isn't everyone who deserves to be addressed/interacted with on this site. Some are only worthy of mockery and scorn.

Let us not derail what otherwise would be a great thread.

Surely there is some phone # you can call to report this to?

If a street light goes out in my neighborhood where I live, I'll call the relevant authorities.

Not bring it to their attention through an internet forum

In this particular case, we are fortunate that this governors forum is such a powerful block within our political system. For somewhat obvious reasons, they'll push strongly for this.

And with a weak and hapless president like GEJ, there is a strong possibility of it happening.

I'm glad that this made the NYTimes.

@Gbawe: In some ways, the solutions to some of Nigeria's problems are pretty obvious. Yet for some reason there is so much inertia and love of the status quo. I think people prefer suffering in this country to prove a point rather than progressing.

What right-thinking person with sense in their heads can disagree with this motion?

ayinba1:
I do not believe that the development of Northern Nigeria lies in the hands of FG just as I do not believe that of Oshun lies in the hands of FG. What are the Northern leaders doing with the resources allocated to each state?

This really is the heart of the matter. What ndu_chuks wants to dance around and avoid. Development of states is the responsibility of the leaders of those states. Guys who've pissed away the money they've gotten cannot then turn around and blame someone else for their state's misfortunes. Those northern states have received hefty allocations since 1999. What has happened to them? Where have they gone?

This lack of accountability is appalling.

Or will you claim that these governors were imposed on you by outsiders, ndu_chuks?

Yep. . . cannot really disagree with him. He is correct.

Hrm. The Alpha-Beta money is from IGR, not from federal allocations, no?

So there isn't much room for Tinubu to collect from it.

In any case, while in a perfect world there would be no need for such, since the ACNs political opponents have access to enormous amounts of federal cash I don't think there is any real alternative.

Gotta fight fire with fire.

^-- At some point, you'll have to take responsibility for the mistakes your leaders made. This attitude of "my problems ain't my fault" leads to nothing useful.

Blog post he made is also worth reading: http://blogs.cfr.org/campbell/2011/05/02/nigeria-the-morning-after/

Some quotes:

While this unit opened two hours late on national assembly election day, polling officers easily accredited everyone before voting was scheduled to begin at noon. Notably, for the presidential election the following Saturday, polling officers had their units open by 8:30 a.m. I estimated a 25 to 30 percent turnout of registered voters for the national assembly election and closer to 40 percent for the presidential election.

And

Overall, I was impressed with the conducted of the National Youth Service Corp polling staff. They were committed to their roles and managed to keep voting moving despite logistical difficulties and challenging circumstances. However, there were some problems. I watched as this corper removed stacks of ballots, a common sign of ballot box stuffing, and proceeded to count them. Of the twenty people who decided to stay and watch the counting, no one seemed overly concerned. Turnout at this unit was suspiciously high, around ninety percent, and the number of ballots cast equalled the number of ballots issued, an uncommon occurrence.

Nigeria: The Morning After
By JOHN CAMPBELL
The just-concluded Nigerian elections are being hailed as the most credible since the restoration of civilian governance in 1999. International observers and governments have congratulated the Nigerian people on their conduct and Goodluck Jonathan on his presidential election. They have also expressed satisfaction that Nigeria is resuming its role as the beacon of democracy in Africa.

Not so fast.

The elections have polarized Nigeria and resulted in likely underreported bloodshed in the northern parts of the country. The traditional northern Islamic establishment, which might have moderated the religious and sectarian conflict, has come under attack, and the North’s perceived marginalization from national politics could potentially radicalize an Islamic population that already views the United States as a partisan supporter of southern Christian president Goodluck Jonathan.

The predominately Christian South sees the elections as credible. However, many in the North view the presidency and the elections as having been stolen from their region and their candidate, the northern Muslim Muhammadu Buhari. While many northerners believed it would be their “turn to eat” until 2015, Jonathan’s presidential nomination by the governing People’s Democratic Party earlier this year essentially ended the informal powersharing arrangement under which the presidency alternated between the South and the North.

Later, while international and domestic observers signed off on the quality of the elections, many in the North believe the ballot counting was rigged to spare Jonathan a runoff. The subsequent announcement of his victory two days after the election set off widespread violence in the North against those perceived to be supporters of the P.D.P., including Christians. Revenge killings of Muslims and the burning of mosques followed. The bloodshed was greater than that of Nigeria’s three preceding elections, and victims numbered in the hundreds, if not thousands. Fortunately, the pattern of revenge killings has not spread to other parts of the country, though there have been threats from some marginal groups to do so.

Many northerners “on the street” see parts of the northern Islamic establishment, traditionally pro-American, as complicit in the P.D.P.’s theft of the election and the presidency. Hence, they burned the private houses of the sultan of Sokoto (the premier Muslim traditional ruler), the emir of Kano (Nigeria’s second largest city) and the emir of Zaria. All three traditional rulers went into hiding temporarily. Northern popular rage against the P.D.P. establishment, which is widely seen as corrupt and responsible for Nigeria’s poor governance, recalls aspects of the “democratic wave” in parts of the Middle East, though it does not appear to have been as coherent or well organized. Heavy military and police patrols have, for the time being, ended northern rioting.

The North has long feared domination by the more developed South and therefore was not enthusiastic about independence from the British in 1960. Northerners expected their political and religious leaders to prevent southern domination and balance the Christian South’s economic preponderance by controlling the federal government. In fact, during the generation following the 1967-1970 civil war, northerners dominated the string of military dictatorships that ended only in 1998.

With the restoration of civilian government in 1999, elites from around the country developed a form of presidential power-sharing in which the civilian presidency would alternate every eight years between the South and the North. This arrangement — created in part to allay northern anxieties — was informal, and existed only within the governing party, which always won the presidential elections. But since winning the election, Jonathan himself has showed a tin ear to the North’s concerns. His now notorious “Enough is Enough” speech recalling the horrors of the civil war was particularly poorly received, demonstrating his lack of sensitivity to northern concerns.

As measured by polling data, the North is much less sympathetic to the United States than the South. And, whether justified or not, many in the North see Jonathan as the American candidate. Northern rage against the Nigerian political system and the Jonathan presidency may increase hostility toward the United States, providing space for anti-Western movements to gain a foothold. Up to now, extremist groups such as Boko Haram have remained domestically focused and Al Qaeda has had little success in its efforts to penetrate the North. That might change.

It is therefore imperative for the United States and its Western allies to reach out to the North. Speedy opening of the planned U.S. consulate in Kano would be a step in the right direction.

John Campbell, a former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria, is a senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of “Nigeria: Dancing on the Brink.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/opinion/03iht-edcampbell03.html

White outfit + black hat looks quite a bit better. Well done, GEJ.

Man, this Otedola guy. . . well, I guess he'll be getting his (very large) slice of the national cake too

Can't be mad at his game, I guess. . . we'll see him on the Forbes list next to Dangote someday

Lmao

You guys have governed the country for most of its existence. The 80s and the 90s in which Nigeria's economy was destroyed (hurting the northerners the most), we are responsible for that? 

When will you guys take responsibility for your own lack of vision and planning?

If you'd done things properly, by the time 1999 rolled around, the North would be on relatively even footing. Rather than having half the GDP/capita of southern Nigeria ($718 is the northern figure, it seems: http://www.economist.com/node/18621789)

^-- lmao

[quote author=Ileke-IdI link=topic=658863.msg8249431#msg8249431 date=1304402302]If the purpose of development is to increase wealth, then transportation is important.
Education is more rich than wealth itself. With education, people would be more enlightened and more pressed to find solutions to the problem the regions are facing.
Like someone said in another thread, literacy is linked to many issues like mortality rate, fertility race, health status and region's IGR.

I'd like the say that the transportation system (good road) is better in the North than in any Southern state. However, the main question is, what have they done with it? Everything goes not begin or end with agricultural produce, which the north is more familiar with.

What is the point of enormous allocation when they have wicked politicians? With education, they are more smarter with electoral decisions. Most of them don't see beyond religion when voting.[/quote]Man, it is what it is. If you cannot take the money you get and do anything useful with it, then who is under any obligation to help you further?

First utilize your resources fully. Then ask for more.

Anyway, if I'm a northerner, I'd first spend the money I get wisely (on healthcare, education, etc), then ask for better road/rail networks linking north and south.

dayokanu:
He probably used iodine instead of visine and those lips looked as rough as a sidewalk, Effect of weed without rizla I guess. Straight up Kanaku

lwkmd

[quote author=Ileke-IdI link=topic=658863.msg8249382#msg8249382 date=1304401436]Which comes first? The chicken or the egg?

I believe education is the most important thing. With that intact, everything else follows. Give people good transportation network, what is it going to achieve, esp in the north? What will they do with it?[/quote]Buy and sell more cheaply? Whatever you import costs less. Whatever you transport south costs less to transport. Raises the amount of trade and business between the north and the rest of the world, thus increasing wealth.

I don't think the interests of say someone from Ekiti State and that of a northerner differ too much. If both groups think properly, they want better transportation networks linking them with the coast. . . that should be amongst the top items on the priority list (along with electricity.)

Anyway, regarding education. . . they have enormous FG allocations. So it shouldn't be too hard to fix this issue if they face it.

dayokanu:
GEJ famously called SW people rascals yet he has his red bloodshot eyes on the SW votes and human resources.

He is an ethnically bigoted fool, addled by the low IQ and our politics do not coincide

Well said.

https://indepthafrica.com/nigeria/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/AAA5.jpg

Someone get this dude some visine

A pretty underrated part of the whole storyline is that Northern Nigeria is so. . . far away from the rest of the world, in a certain sense.

Poor road/transportation networks linking the North->coast->rest of the world REALLY hurt Northerners.

I remember reading the following quote:

"I understand it costs more money to take a container from Lagos to Abuja [the Nigerian capital] than it does to ship one from China to Lagos. Unbelievable. Rail, hopefully, will change a lot of that."

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

Very amazing quote, no?

Fixing education, etc are all nice things to do. But imo if you don't improve transportation networks, I wonder how much will actually be accomplished.

Minus HIV/AIDS rates, I suppose (https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-646183.160.html#msg8150219) 

But I guess aside from that, the zonal statistics look pretty decent.

Regarding the female literacy rates averaged out over the zones, difference is 1%. 80% for SW, 81% for SE.

Difference may not be statistically significant

^-- Amen to that