₦airaland Forum

Beaf:
What do you think of your countrymen being killed by mercenaries? You think they are political toys?

I think I've made it pretty clear that it disturbs me. And not only by thought, but by actually saying it publicly. Unfortunately, GEJ doesn't seem interested in using his public stature to publicly condemn these killings.

In the US where you live, do you ask what Obama thinks of random shootings in Alabama or Ohio?

^-- I don't have to. Generally when people here are slaughtered or large-scale disaster happens, I don't have to ask Obama to speak out. He'll do so without prompting. He won't ask for Americans to pray that the disaster doesn't happen again, instead he:
A) acts to prevent it from happening again.
B) aids those who were hurt.

If he were the type of leader to instead:
A) Fold his hands as the disaster becomes a weekly occurrence
B) Do/say nothing to help those negatively affected

I doubt he'd be very popular.


Beaf, you should have known better than to compare GEJ to Obama 

wakima:
eku_bear , the statistics jonathan an ijaw man created. that is fake statistics.

Good point. He wants to make Yorubaland look better than it is as an excuse to starve it of resources

In that case . . . 90% of Yoruba youth are jobless!

I made a post on employment here: https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-602652.64.html

https://i54.tinypic.com/211rzew.png

I don't think the Yoruba are doing badly, as far as employment goes. The only below-average state is Ekiti, the laggards of Yorubaland . The rest seem to be doing solidly. Ogun doing spectacularly well, if those #s are taken at face value (I'd take with a lot of salt, though   ).

With that said, there is certainly room for improvement.

I wonder what GEJ thinks of his countrymen being slaughtered by mercenaries.

kalokalo:
The question I want someone to answer is: Do Nigerian doctors always have to work for the Government? Aren't there other professionals in Nigeria like Lawyers, Estate / Quantity Surveyors, Engineers, Pharmacists Chartered accountants etc who pool resources together and form their own practice through partnerships e.g Udo Udoma & Co or Diya Fatimilehin & Co. or Eneli Kuku & Obiora? Why are doctors insisting on working for the Government and going on strike to force a response.

Why cant doctors pool resources together and start HMOs or world class hospitals? Why do they always want to work for the government?   I want to know if all the doctors that run to the west to practice all exclusively work the governments of those nations or work for private health organizations that they could have formed  back home. Go to India and see who really runs their famed health system. It is by the private initiative and enterprise of their doctors. Our own doctors are vision-less.

Something I don't understand either. In the US, government jobs are inferior (for the most part) to the public sector equivalents. This is true on many places in the world, I think. Not sure why Nigeria is different.

What is the fraction of the Yoruba population that is youths? A 30% overall un (under) employment for Nigeria seems reasonable. Likely unemployment for youths is higher, say 40%. So if there are 17-18 million Yoruba youths in this country, then your figure sounds plausible.

Shows like this, if they smell any weakness, they attack. So not sure if it is an anti-African sort of thing. They'll pounce on anyone who'll let them. Gotta be forceful.

Chyz*:
While over 900 houses, huts and several farmland were also destroyed by the rampaging Fulani herdsmen who were alleged to be mercenaries from neighboring Nassarawa State.

Seems to be ominous, no? Who is paying the salary of this military force?

^-- I googled her, she is 50+! 

That is a good look for her age. I'm kind of impressed.

Given her attractiveness, I'll excuse here rude behavior

Shekarau actually did a good job explaining himself, in my opinion.

I mean, how effective will a vaccine be when your citizens (with good reason!) don't trust it? What exactly was he supposed to do? Northerners had a bad experience with a previous vaccine. . . you expect them to just take the next one w/o at least being a bit wary?

The situation isn't as easy as some present it.

That interviewer chick was being a tool though, lol

cold:
The name of Houston-based Nigerian businessman, Kase Lawal, has popped up in the bloody gold-smuggling activities after the police arrested a ring of smugglers two weeks ago in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The Congo has been plagued by a gruesome war in which two weeks ago.

Mr. Lawal’s brother, Mukaila Lawal (a.k.a. Mickey), was listed as a passenger in a jet that was seized after Congolese authorities found $7 million in cash and more than $20 million worth of gold that was heading out of the eastern Congo. “Mickey” Lawal runs Mr. Kase Lawal’s Nigerian operations.

So I guess everyone is joining in on plundering the Congo. Pretty messed up. Money is all that matters, I guess.

lmao @ the skinbleaching jokes

^-- I'm not disagreeing with you. We can and must do better with the funds we have, as limited as they are.

ezeagu:
http://www.monster.co.uk/geo/siteselection/

Find one that pays.

Heh. No comment on the original post? For a scholar of history such as yourself?

Anyway, thanks for your suggestion. . . but I'm fortunate enough to be paid to attend school. No additional side gigs necessary 

Mai Suya:
Oh dear! not another gaff! poor GEJ 

Lol. Dude is gaffe prone. You'd think that he would have better handlers. Beaf is not earning his keep, leading his oga go astray like this 

Beaf if you and your fellow handlers don't do a better job managing GEJ, you'll be replaced.

The low quality of Nigerian factory workers is a bit sad and surprising. I thought once infrastructure was fixed, it'd be relatively smooth sailing. Low worker productivity only further raises costs and lowers efficiency 

They'd have best off merging these two forums, no?

Someone with time should photoshop this:
https://i55.tinypic.com/a1jq0m.jpg

I guess this thing is a bit more painful since it is happening on Africa. But northern Africa has always oriented either north or towards the middle east, as far as I know. They've never really seen themselves as "African." Certainly no real solidarity with black African countries today.

I guess limited interest in this video.

oyb:
i seem to remember that robert e lee surrendered to the union

Robert E. Lee was a man of valor. Impossible not to respect that man. Even we Northerners admire and lionize him today.

There is no point comparing him to Ojukwu. That is a standard to which Ojukwu will clearly come up short.

The Rivers State Government has proposed a budget of N414.100 billion for the 2011 fiscal year to the State House of Assembly for consideration.

Presenting the budgetary estimates tagged “Budget of Transformation” on the floor of the State House of Assembly today, Governor Amaechi said the estimates is N14.9 billion less than the N429 billion budgeted for the out-going year.

http://www.riversstate.gov.ng/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=45:rsg-presents-budget-of-n414100bn-for-2011-less-than-2010-budget&catid=7:pr

So $2.76 billion spread amongst say 7 million people? That is $394 per head.

Give Lagos state an additional $150 for each of its 12 million people, that is an additional $1.8 billion. Trust me, if Fashola has an additional 1.8 billion to spend on education, Lagos State will have one of the best education systems in all of Africa.

Kobojunkie:
Wait a second . . . .  Now you are trying to excuse this in a state that

a) receives allocations from the Federal for Education?

b) happens to be the one state where we have about the most tax payers in the Nation?

c) a State that  receives about N7.358 billion monthly in Allocations


Please stop! If your own kids, brothers, sisters were attending such schools, I submit that you would be here trying to essentially COME UP with a reason for why this school was allowed to decay to this level.  This situation did not come upon people overnight. It has been the condition for well over 20 years. To suddenly submit that money is the issue in ANY state is unacceptable.

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5673063-146/lagos_loosens_the_apron_strings.csp

Lagos State has a $3 billion budget for likely 12 million+ people? That is $250 bucks per person. For everything. The state of Maryland likely spent 20 or 30X that amount per year on my own primary and secondary education.

In any case. . . where is the money for this going to come from? Give Lagos State more cash and you'll get better education.

Otherwise it will remain a pay-as-you-go state.

And yes, if my own brothers and sisters attended such schools, I'd be pissed. But if there is no money, then there is no money.

Kobojunkie:
Our foreign reserve just got renewed with an over 30 Billion Dollars deposit(thanks to the chaos up north) and you open your mouth to post there is NO MONEY? Don't you think it is best to STOP now?

When did any of these monies get distributed to Lagos State?

The focus on basic infrastructure is critical.

Two sources from within the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) have disclosed to SaharaReporters that the voters registration figures recently released by the commission was a scam that would lead to the rigging of the forthcoming April elections.

Also, our investigations revealed that the extension of the commission’s timetable for registration was partly responsible for creating a major fiasco in the process, resulting in the scam of significantly inflated voters registration figures.

“INEC’s so-called display of names of voters at various registration centers was a distortion,” said one of our sources, a member of the technical team at the electoral body. He added, “The displayed figures represented raw registration data that had not been subjected to the mandated system of aggregation and verification known as Automatic Finger Identification System (AFIS).” AFIS is supposed to vet the commission’s roll of voters downloaded from the Direct Data Capture machines. One of our INEC sources said that, if the commission’s officials in the states had conducted the AFIS audit as required by the registration process, each of the states would have come up with three sets of voters register.

1-Valid register—those with proper registration with all biometrics in place
2. AO-Valid—representing cases where fingerprints and other biometrics were not captured
3. An invalid Register—which identifies those with multiple registrations.
Our investigations reveal that INEC officials in Cross Rivers were the only ones who conducted AFIS by last Thursday. “Certain politicians in Cross River tried to pressure Mike Igini, the Resident Electoral Commissioner, to display the raw data of registered voters, but he resisted,” said a source, Olasupo Ojo, on Lagos-based Channels tv.  Mr.  Ojo, of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDHR) stated that Cross Rivers successfully conducted AFIS which took several days to complete. Ojo monitored the Cross Rivers state processing

Our investigations show that, after AFIS was implemented in Cross Rivers, the number of registered voters from the state’s 18 local government areas went down from 1.7 million, which INEC had originally announced in Abuja, to approximately one million valid voters. “The same trend would have been revealed if each state ran the AFIS program,” said a source, adding that inflated numbers “are a kind of raw material for politicians who are determined to rig.” Another INEC source said that “the risk of allowing false voters’ numbers is that politicians with a lot of cash can buy those phantom voters from unscrupulous INEC officials.”

Our sources revealed that many voters registered as many as five times across the country. AFIS is a checks and balances technology to identify and weed those who fraudulently engaged in multiple registrations, said one of our sources.

One source said part of the problem was the commission’s investment of more time in registration. INEC’s voter registration timetable was originally scheduled to end on January 29. But the registration was marred by so many logistical problems that the commission sought and got additional legislative approval to extend the registration by nine days.

The additional days that the commission spent on continued registration “ate into the time INEC was supposed to devote to the aggregation and dis-aggregation of its raw data of registered voters to ensure that its figures are not inflated,” said the source.

One of INEC’s technical experts said the commission’s failure to run AFIS across the states has led it to come up with a bogus number of registered voters. “Apart from Cross River, every other state now boasts incorrect data,” said one source, adding that the data audit was essential in order to close a loophole that rogue politicians would strive to exploit. “If the forthcoming elections are not to be compromised, then let’s get a true picture of the number of voters,” he said.

“It’s a violation of the electoral laws to engage in multiple registrations, underage registration and other fraudulent conduct, yet the case of Cross River proves that hundreds of thousands of voters were duplications.”
Several observers have accused INEC of preparing to resort to the use of manual registers—which include a high percentage of questionable voters, including those induced by politicians to register multiple times.

A political analyst told SaharaReporters that Nigerians would soon wake up to former INEC chairman Maurice Iwu demanding apologies if the current scam scales through. Mr. Iwu was widely berated for presiding over the 2007 elections that shattered records for electoral fraud and manipulation.

http://www.saharareporters.com/print/11256