₦airaland Forum

Really pathetic but true. You won't find a Tiv or Idoma attack or abuse the hausa/fulani even with the herdsmen crises but we in the entire southern region keep bickering and insulting each other over irrelevant issues.

meshinoye:
Ordinary Fulani hersmen you guys cannot fight in your own land o, not to talk of fighting the Nigerian Armforces that comprises the Fulani's Nupe's, Tiv's Gambari's e.t.c.

If you guy studied history, you will recalled that it was just Col Benjamin Adekunle (AKA Black Scorpion) lead troop that finish Ojukwu untrained soldiers at Ore while OBJ later took over from Col. Adekunle(the man his still alive till date).

Just a few airstricks will level the whole SE if such war repeated itself in this jets age.

FOOL

Keneking:
Has he opened a new bank account?
Has he closed his previous account in Zenith?
When is he creating jobs for his constituency?
When is he returning our "Yams"?
When is he travelling to Dubai?

Anyway, I am not interested in looking at his face Mister Minority Opposition Senate Leader

You can
go and hug transformer, if your bubu go gree light enter.

Nobody dey drag him work with am.

Why this one never reach FP since morning?

So this is what you called everyone to come and see.

The story just started, this one go sweet on top nairaland.

Diversifying the economy is best way to go, if it's true that the last administration has invested in agriculture then Buhari should build on what was started.

I also believe we should implement full resource control so every state can start looking inwards, most states are too dependent on Federal allocations.

Op please shut up

UrennaNkoli:
Buhari's actions was for a more justified reason and it was necessary for the benefit of the nation. This of Mr wike is just ridiculous and it is nothing but an epitome of hate, disgust, frustration and revenge.

what are you saying? Your opinion makes no sense. How was buhari justified? How is Wike being hateful? You are simply blinded by sentiments.

Chris is talking

Simply hope whatever they are doing is justified. Nobody is saying govt shouldn't fight corruption but when it turns into harassment and intimidation then we have a problem.

Nigerians can be so subjective when I comes to political and ethnic issues. I may not be a fan of Buhari but people should learn to criticise objectively.

jjcbuthot:
Are you from SS or SE? You be omo ibo?

It pained you well well - sorry, the guy has to say the truth... Tell me another word we can use apart from "useless" especially when SE is the subject.

ur fada and ur entire ancestry useless

Last week they said there was no evidence, so will the 750 new hands get the evidence?

simpleseyi:
The Supreme Court Justices that gave justment against the wishes and aspiration people of Federal Republic of Nigeria should all be arrested and tried for Felony, Treason, Treasonable Felony and Sabotage.

FOOL

LAST week, I presented the position of transport minister, Rotimi Amaechi, on the Nigeria Maritime University in Okerenkoko, Delta State and the counter position by Chief E.K. Clark. Amaechi had said the university should be discontinued, because more than a year after it had been purportedly established and approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and the National Universities Commission (NUC) for operation, the university had not unfolded beyond a mere feasibility report. Chief Clark simply went on location and provided statistics to discharge the minister’s claim.
I am relieved that nothing more has been said about the scrapping of the institution by Amaechi. I can’t say exactly why he is not talking again or what is on his mind. Whatever the situation, Amaechi’s sudden taciturnity on the matter of the maritime university is a very welcome development. For now, Amaechi is the most noticeable politician from the Niger Delta playing the game at the national level.

On that note alone, I will appeal to all aggrieved persons and quarters to choose a weapon other than gun, cutlass, bow and arrow or anything lethal in dealing with Amaechi. In fact, dialogue should remain the only weapon. Agreed, Amaechi is now a national leader of the South-south but that has not made him to become as wise as Solomon. A wise man does not mortgage his entire heritage to punish one recalcitrant son, just as a king does not destroy his crown in a moment of anger.

And so, it should be taken that Amaechi, who is only 51 years old, is still learning the vital secrets of life. His posturing notwithstanding, he is still a son and not a father of the Niger Delta. In fact, in that sense, nobody, including Chief E.K Clark, Dr. Ogbemudia, General David Ejoor, King Diete Spiff is older than the region. Everybody is a son, which means just anybody can be called to order by a collective higher authority. I am suggesting therefore that instead of calling for his head, Amaechi should be invited, preferably to his village, Ubima in Ikwerre Local Council of Rivers State, and properly counseled on how to perform a national assignment in Nigeria.

The counselors should brief him on the many advantages that a university brings to an area. There should be one or two persons old enough to tell Amaechi that if Diete Spiff, as military governor of old Rivers State, had not worked had to bring a university to Choba near Ubima in 1975, which is today erroneously described as University of Port Harcourt, instead of University of Choba, he, Amaechi and many other people, would not have, perhaps, had the advantage of a university education.
Apart from the University of Choba (I want to stay with the proper description for this purpose), there is also the state university called Rivers State University of Science and Technology (RSUST), which has so beautifully complemented the one in Choba to rewrite the sociology of old Rivers State and all its catchment areas. Today, there is hardly any key player in the politics and even the economy of Rivers and Bayelsa States within the age bracket of Amaechi who did not pass through either of these institutions. The list starts with the former President, Goodluck Jonathan, who had all his degrees in Choba. Timipre Sylva, the failed APC’s candidate in the Bayelsa State governorship election, was in Choba too.
The state university has even done much more. Timi Alaibe was there; Dakuku Peterside was there; the late Oronto Douglas was there; Seriake Dickson was there; Nyesom Wike was there; former deputy speaker of the House of Reps, Austin Okpara was there; minister of state for environment, Heneken Lokpobiri was there; Chibuzor Ugwoha, former managing director of Niger Delta Development Company (NDDC) was there and the man who took over from him, Dr. Chris Oboh was there too. You just mention the big names today from that axis and they will be traced to RSUST mainly, and then Choba.

An alumnus of RSUST and a friend who is in the commanding heights of an international oil company confessed that “the story would have been so much different for many of us if RSUST had not remained, so to say, within a walking distance from our homes.” Seriously, what would have been the story today if Chief Melford Okilo had scrapped the former Rivers State College of Science and Technology like Amaechi has done to the Maritime University? Instead, Okilo, who was the Second Republic governor of old Rivers State, had the foresight to upgrade the college, which was established in 1972, to a full-fledged university in 1980. It became the first university of technology in Nigeria and the first state owned university in the Niger Delta region.

The economy that builds around a university is even a much bigger deal. It comes with its own real estate development and ancillary economic activities. Only last month, a ward was set for the Delta State Polytechnic in Otefe, which is a tiny settlement in Oghara clan. He returned with a bill of N100,000 for only accommodation, the type they call self-contained room or bed-seater. I thought he was up to some game because Otefe is not any bigger than my own village where rent payment for whatever quality of accommodation is not yet an entrenched economic concept talk less of paying that whooping sum for a room in one year. When I enquired, I was told that the establishment of the polytechnic by the James Ibori administration has changed things and the once sleepy village has become a destination for knowledge and fortune hunters with all the attendant benefits of a functional multiplier.

We are talking of a region with dysfunctional sociology, because things, including good schools that should make life beautiful, are absent. And here too is a so-called regional leader mounting the roof top to proclaim the obliteration of the little on ground with gusto. This is why I would suggest leadership training for the South-south leaders. Leadership is not a popularity contest neither is it an attention seeking venture. It is an envisioning process that brings tomorrow’s picture to bear on the events of today.

If the issue in the region is youth restiveness occasioned by lack of empowerment initiatives, how does the cancellation of a capacity-building university of maritime help to address that issue? It can be argued, that if universities had been located in the wetland of Ijaw and elsewhere in the mangrove swamp the same time the University of Lagos, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Obafemi Awolowo University Ife and even the second generation universities of Jos, Benin, Calabar and so on were being built, the mass of youths that derailed into militancy in the last two decades would have been arrested by education.

Fortunately, a pilot scheme is now on with the Federal University in Otuoke, Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island both in Bayelsa State and the Federal Maritime University in Okerenkoko, Delta State, which Amaechi is threatening to upturn. This should be allowed to work. In fact, if government can step up this level of direct intervention instead of creating overlapping development agencies to enrich some well connected persons, what is proving so intractable to crack, shall resolve on its own. What Chief Awolowo did with free education in the 50s added up later in life to put the Southwest clearly ahead of other regions in almost all departments of national life.

Instead of seeking to scrap an already established university, Amaechi should drive the East-West coastal rail line to decisively open up the mangrove jungles of the Niger Delta to the rest of the world. He has four years, of which one year is almost gone, to show depth and chart a good course. He may choose to use his entire time to grandstand and seek attention. In the end, he shall stand alone in judgment. A word, they say, is enough for the wise!


http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/2016/01/backlash-still-on-the-maritime-varsity/#

xpac01:
And only you and other selected few are over weighted with this burden of shame. Look, Prophet Isiah, prophet Samuel and host of other prophets were used by God to prophecy whom the kings of Israel will be and they were also used to forewarn them (the leaders e.g Saul) of any imminent dooms. Now I wonder why the fuss about the priest prophecying of the leadership position of his country And from his whole prophecy, you can depict that its a clear voice of God.
I am sure God will also be ashamed of you and others who have same mentality this your article bears. For him complaining about the position of his transfer, the man is merely airing his view which is very clear. A man of God of his calibre should have been accorded some privilege in the position of his transfer. He owns many assests and properties which has been a means of blessings to both catholic church leadership and it's members at large. I
know OP you weren't the author of the

article, now I'll appreciate if you can help tender this reply back to the notice seeking author of the open letter above.

Seems u didn't read the article properly and since you aren't a Catholic you wouldn't know or understand how the church system works. He is a priest like all others, with or without his miracles the church will keep growing, he can't get any special treatment. His actions are indefensible, there is no reason for any protest by him or any other individual on the transfer. There is no big deal about happened.

kekakuz:
Shatap there
You didn't read the part where he said they live in their dusty semi desert with their poverty strikes people spreading polio and begging for food and chanting Sai baba
That is constructive enough
#freeDproff

Still not enough reason for him to be arrested.

The talk in town now is that the ruling APC wants to add the three states of the deep South-south namely Bayelsa, Rivers and Akwa Ibom to its kitty. Even with the emphatic outcome of the governorship election in Bayelsa State, the APC is not relenting. Its candidate, Timipre Sylva is threatening to recover through the courts what he has lost in the polls.
What has happened in Bayelsa signposts the nature of things to come in Rivers and Akwa Ibom States where a re-runs seem imminent following the reversals and voiding of results of the 2015 governorship election in both states at the electoral tribunals and the Appeal Court.
The APC may have to work very hard to realise its dream. For reasons which are not too clear, the APC’s hot message of change is not spreading in the South-south with the same ferocity that it has spread in most of Northern Nigeria.

Maybe it is a problem of strategy and I am here to advise on better strategy. Any approach outside robust engagement with the issues and stakeholders on ground will be counter-productive. I am saying this so that the APC is not erroneously led to anchor its take-over bid on the shoulders of its so-called zonal leaders. For now, the leaders in the South-south manifest more as dealers who are ready to trade the zonal heritage for personal glory.

Only last week, transport minister and former governor of Rivers State Rotimi Amaechi announced on national television network the discontinuation of the Maritime University in Okerenkoko, Delta State citing the inadequacy of take-off infrastructure in spite of the release of huge sums of money by the Federal Government through the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) for that purpose. He said the entire concept of a maritime university in Delta State “is a waste of resources” given that a Maritime Academy already exists in Oron in Akwa Ibom State. He explained to the Senate that there was nothing on ground to push a take-off of the university and that the Chinese company contracted to build part of the physical infrastructure confirmed to him that only the feasibility study was in place.

Amaechi made this weighty proclamation with gusto. He sounded as if he was dishing out the best policy statement to have ever come out of the Ministry of Transport since the start of this democracy in 1999. He also seemed to have told folks from the Niger Delta who might have expressed surprise at his statements that: ‘I don’t give a damn whether or not I am from the region; I must say the truth as a nationalist.’

Meanwhile, alarmed by the signals Amaechi had initiated at the very top, Chief E.K Clark, an acclaimed leader of the Ijaw nation, tried to do something to correct or at least counter the impression already created. He bought newspaper space last Friday to openly communicate the state of affairs at the Maritime University and other burning issues in the Niger Delta including the resumed bombing of oil facilities by militants to President Muhammadu Buhari. He said the university which Amaechi says has not taken off beyond documented feasibility study actually has a temporary campus at an adjoining community called Kurutie which is only five minutes speed-boat ride from Okerenkoko in Warri Southwest local government area of Delta State.

Specifically, the old man added that the N13billion paid by NIMASA was not all sunk in conducting feasibilities but judiciously utilized to create facilities enough for a good take-off of a university of whatever description at the Kurutie site. He reeled out a long list of the functional buildings and their uses and other facilities in Kurutie.
For instance, on ground at Kurutie are guest houses, staff quarters, clinic, block of classrooms and an auditorium that sits 200 people. There are also instructors offices, purpose-built library, two reading halls of approximately 180 square metres each, administrative buildings, cafeteria, mechanical workshop, electrical/ stimulation block and a ceremonial pavilion that can take 800 spectators. Also on ground according to Chief Clark are swimming pool, male and female hostels for approximately 150 students and a generator house.”

Eighty-seven year old Chief Clark who trained as a lawyer and served as federal commissioner of information was not pretending to know so much about estate management or physical mappings. The original listings in the published open letter to President Buhari were not clear cut. They overlapped in certain areas but contained enough to support his claim that Minister Amaechi lied and deceived the Federal Government and indeed Nigerians regarding the state of affairs at the Maritime University, Okerenkoko.

It is a straight contest of integrity between the old man and the young man. There are two things for verification to reach an unbiased assessment. The first is the truth or otherwise of the very demoralizing position of Amaechi that the Maritime University after due approval by the Federal Government and the National Universities Commission (NUC) is still a distant concept that has not manifested beyond a feasibility study. The other, are the huge claims of real take-off by Chief Clark. In fact, the old man added that, administratively, the university has been prepared for operation too. The Governing Council is in place with Prof (Mrs) Viola Onwuliri as Pro-chancellor and Chairman of Council; Prof (Mrs Ongoebi Maureen Otebu , Vice Chancellor and Anho Nathaniel Eseoghene, Registrar.

As I write, close to a brigade of Nigerian soldiers are in and around the location of the Maritime University searching everywhere for the militants that bombed oil and gas pipelines early last week precipitating production shut-ins that is costing the federal Government a whooping N470 million daily according to Works, Power and Housing Minister, Babatunde Fashola. These same soldiers can expand their scope a little and dash briefly to Kurutie to verify the claims of Papa Clark. It is worth the trouble because we cannot, in the words of Amaechi, go on wasting resources on nothing.

APC leaders usually have their ears to the ground. They have a way of picking up, like radio antennae, big stories of fraud in Nigeria narrated especially by foreigners. If it is not Governor Adams Oshiomhole who was told by an American legislator in the US about stolen billions of dollars of Nigeria’s money, it will be Lai Mohammed who has just been reliably informed by foreign sources of how only 55 Nigerians stole about N2 trillion naira from the national treasury.

Now Amaechi has joined claiming that a Chinese contractor told him that the tens of billions of naira provided by the Federal Government to start the Maritime University in Okerenkoko were all used to conduct feasibilities and print the arising report. He should be given the benefit of doubt because you never can tell!
But here, at least, is something outside Dasukigate for the EFCC and DSS to work on. They should get interested in the verifications of all the claims and counter claims regarding the Maritime University. They should get that Chinese contractor to restate his case before a proper court. By the time they are through, it will be easy to know who between the old man and the young man is saying the truth.
Even if it is discovered that Amaechi actually lied, nobody in Port Harcourt or elsewhere in the South-south should propose crucifixion. His sin will not be weightier than the sins of others before him including former President Goodluck Jonathan who spent all the time playing politics of self preservation and forgot that he represented more than himself and his wife in Aso Rock Villa. Amaechi is on the same trajectory hoping that a pan-Nigerian posturing at this early stage of his national sojourn will soften the bargain for him in 2019.

If Amaechi does not know what to do or say, I will guide him. He should start a process of redistributing some of the bureaucracy for maritime management in the country, namely Nigerian Ports Authority, Nigerian Shippers Council and Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency to the Niger Delta where there is more water. He should stop cutting his nose to spite his face. It is only a slave that aspire to impress at all costs.

http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/2016/01/backlash-apc-and-the-south-south/#

OrlandoOwoh:
Keep shut. Femi Falana was a young graduate of Unife, before even going for his NYSC, when he defeated the FG in a case in 1982.

So? I get am b4 no be wealth.

MrALIVE:
what can be done to please you guys..God forbid!

Is it a lie?

Dem don start. FG your response.

Asari has spoken.

Make we hear word.

FORMER President Olusegun Obasanjo has said, given the abysmal performance of Goodluck Jonathan at the Aso Rock Villa, it would be pretty difficult trusting another man from the South-south geo-political zone with the big task of managing the country. It sounds like an arrangement struck in political coven and Obasanjo, who is probably the spokesman, is only conveying the decision of the ‘witches’ and ‘wizards’ of national politics. Notice has been sufficiently served through Obasanjo and it shouldn’t trouble anybody if the South-south is lost on the appointment radar of the incumbent president.

Goodluck Jonathan is an Ijaw from Otueke in Ogbia local government area of Bayelsa State. Obasanjo was rather too general in his prohibition decree. If he had specified Otueke in drafting his Prohibition (of South-south Persons From Presidential Contest) Decree One of 2015, the effect would have been a lot more manageable. But as it is today, it is difficult for the region to produce a presidential participant except the decree is amended to exclude only persons from Otueke or even Bayelsa State. Let’s assume that Otueke being the hometown of Jonathan is the epicenter of misrule in Nigeria. And if impact is measured by distance to the source, it means the impact of bad governance will lessen as one moves farther from the Otueke.

In other words, there is a strong scientific basis for President Buhari to look far beyond Otueke in searching for a national participant in the ongoing dispensation from the South-south geo-political zone. He is also blameless in this matter, because he didn’t establish this basis; Obasanjo, who, we all agree is very patriotic, did.

I want to therefore use this platform to call on all the good people of the South-south to support the national commissioner representing the zone at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). He is Dr. Mohammed Mustafa Lecky, from Auchi, Edo State, which is about 350 kilometres from Otueke. This is far enough and the force of evil from the epicenter in Otueke would completely dissipate before it covers that distance to Auchi. And so Dr. Mustafa Lecky is insulated by distance from the evil of Otuoke.

And talking about INEC, it is too crucial an institution to be left in the hands of evil men to manage. I am happy that for once, the no-nonsense Buhari has lowered his guard and allowed himself to be guided by the good counsel of another wise man called Baba Obasanjo. Going by the same scientific principle of impact and distance and retaining Otueke as the epicenter of evil, the entire area South of Nigeria will have more evil emanating from Otueke than the North will have.

In fact, to be on a safer side, the surveyor-general of Nigeria should be detailed to create the coordinates to establish the distances of all major towns in Nigeria from Otueke. That way, President Buhari will even be better guided to identify areas where evil is concentrated and avoid appointing people from such locations into his government to dilute the agenda of change. In the final analysis, it is better to avoid trouble than to deliberately court it and then search for ways to manage it.

I am saying this because there were grumblings last week, especially across the Southern part of the country following the appointment of one Prof. Mahmood Yakubu who is from Bauchi in the Northeast geo-political zone as the substantive chairman of INEC. Specifically, Mr. Ayo Fayose, the governor of Ekiti State in Southwest Nigeria who, according to some account, sees nothing good in the Buhari administration was on hand again to comment on the appointment of the new INEC chairman. He said the appointment was a vindication of his long held position that Buhari is a sectional leader. He was trying to say that since President Buhari is from the North, it is not in the Nigerian spirit to have the grand umpire of the electoral body from the same North.

I can’t get what Governor is saying. Does he want Buhari to make the mistake of bringing into his government people who have been infested with the virus of bad governance? For goodness sake, the man has prayed to God to deliver him from evil and here is a Fayose pushing him towards evil. The Northeast, which is about 1000 kilometres from Otueke is undoubtedly a much more safe distance than elsewhere in the country to source a man who has not been tainted with the evil of misrule to impeccably run INEC.

Nobody can fault Buhari on that decision and I enjoin him to ignore Governor Fayose, who clearly does not wish him well. This is even one way of looking at the appointment of Prof. Yakubu. There is another way, which also supports the good decision of Buhari. As we all know, Nigeria is a turn-by-turn affair. It rotates on some zonal axis and when it is convenient with some people, the rotation is put on a different axis — the 36 states. I, for one, do not know of any Nigerian spirit that binds the three zones or the 19 states in the North into a political slot.

The Prof in question is first and foremost an indigene of Bauchi State and then Northeast zone before he is an indigene of the North. That is how Nigeria has been structured and that is how Buhari who is far wiser than many think is running his change agenda. Prof Yakubu’s share as a Bauchi or Northeast man does not in any way affect the ration of the man from Katsina or Northwest. It makes excellent political sense and less sensible folks should draw up good lessons instead of sulking.

If in his time as president, Goodluck Jonathan in his magnanimity (or is it cluelessness) decided to equate the tiny South-south with the entire South and allow the North to have all except the presidency in the dispensation of political benefits, it was his business. He would not be re-inventing the wheel if he had pushed the chairmanship of INEC to a Professor from Ondo or Abia State. But he didn’t because he thought Nigeria was a heritage between South on one end and North on the other end.

Ironically, the six-zone structure was the star contribution of Dr. Alex Ekwueme, an Igbo man from the Southeast at the 1995 Constituent Assembly, where much of the content of the operating 1999 Constitution was hammered. It was done in anticipation of a more robust political participation of all sides. That is, to democratize power beyond the hegemonic hold of the Hausa-Fulani.

And so, if power was returning from the North in 1999 after 20 years (since 1979), it was not too much to let it remain in the South for some time so that both the Southeast and South-south geo-political zones could also have a generous taste of eight years each after the Southwest.
It didn’t quite follow that way. Today, power is back to the North and one Senator Saidu Dansadau has reportedly equated this with the conquest of the rest of Nigeria by the North. If it is so, the rest of Nigeria should also note that liberation of a conquered territory takes even greater effort to achieve than its conquest.

In the main, Buhari is doing well to run the zonal structure beyond the rhetoric of Southern politicians, including Obasanjo and Jonathan. After the Northwest, the presidency under the new interpretation of the zonal arrangement can very well move Northeast and North-central before heading South and nothing will happen.

Already, the PDP has said it is zoning its ticket for the 2019 presidential election to the North and nobody has complained. If each of the three zones in the North takes eight years, it will be 24 years beginning from 2015 before the South can open bidding for the presidency of Nigeria and there are no guarantees that it will go Southeast when it manages to return South after the long northern sojourn.
And here was General Yakubu Gowon last week, re-stating the ‘no victor, no vanquished’ proclamation of January 1970 and that the Rising Sun of Biafra remains set forever. General sir, it doesn’t happen that way. What you are saying amounts to spanking a child and also preventing him from crying.

http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/2015/10/backlash-the-epicentre-of-misrule/#

“A man’s manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait,” is a popular quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the German writer and statesman (1749-1872). The mobile revolution is destroying the strong cultural manners we inherited from our forebears, leaving a generation of young people evincing deplorable social skills and behavior.
The growing dependence on text messaging, e-mailing and social networking is eroding our age-old etiquettes of courtesy and face-to-face communication among Nigerian youths. Increasingly, our young people ‘text’, ‘BB’, or ‘Whatsapp’ their parents, “welcome back from work” from the comfort of their bed, instead of going to greet them.
Mobile phones actively encourage rudeness, in my opinion. More and more of our young people are addicted to their mobile phones and hang on calls, SMS messaging, internet browsing, use of various apps, games, video and block their ears with ear pieces so much that they ignore the people and responsibilities around them. They make you feel you are interrupting them anytime you begin any conversation; no matter how important what you have to say. Such curt attitude is noticeable not only at homes but it has crept into the work place.
Adults are also caught in the web of the moral decay with a commonality being misuse of social networking sites, shouting over the phone, use of foul and indecorous language and disregard to other people around when making a call. The mobile phone has become a device aiding immorality – sex and crime lures.
As a user of some social networking sites, the display names, ring tones and comments of some other users immediately offend my sensibilities. Imagine display names like pussyeater, bootyqueen, ndidilicious and ringtones/ringbacktones like head-banging seducer, clitarouser, Hot and other similarly suggestive lines.
What happened to our manners? “Good manners have become so rare that some people mistake it for flirtation. The hardest job kids’ face today is learning good manners without seeing any,” says Fred Astaire, an American entertainer. Will kids learn from undergraduate uncles and aunties who live on their phones ignoring them? Mothers who spend hours gossiping with friends and family? Or dads who return home shouting agitatedly on the phone and ignoring a welcome hug?
“Courtesy is the foundation of good manners,” according to William Riley Brooksher, an American author. So let’s start with simple courtesy to those we talk to on phone and also pay attention to others around while we call. Using decent language, music and entertainment presentations is highly recommended especially when you are interacting with people who have been having a healthy communication with you. Can you also take some time off the mobile phone, please? I consider it rudeness when a colleague or friend is perennially fidgeting with his mobile or blocking his ears with an ear piece, and you have to call out several times to get his attention. Show some respect, please.
Manners cost nothing but they are priceless. If we can get our mobile telephone etiquette right, I believe it will be the foundation of moral regeneration and genuine development in Nigeria.

Joseph F. Udo is a banker, communication specialist and advocate of social change. You can reach him on josephfudo@gmail.com or 08033148158.

leadership.ng/entertainment/life-and-culture/437413/mobile-revolution-aiding-moral-decay

Otr1 is JW, though most of the write up is true but I don't trust their teaching either. How can one claim there is no Hell fire?

Maczeelly:
Opposition everywhere......Una no dey tire niii

una been tire?

Development will only happen in Nigeria when the populace stay on the course of patriotism. There has never been a dearth of clear developmental projects by successive governments since the country’s independence, but personal interests always override national interests; and the country ends up not making progress.
Simply put, development means improved living standards for the general public, while patriotism means love or attachment to one’s country. Many Nigerians interpret patriotism to mean ‘acceptance to serve’ in government institutions, while the other side of the divide feel that well-aimed criticism of government functionaries and policies constitute patriotism.
However, genuine love for our fatherland would put Nigeria’s projects first, ahead of self-interest which leads to over-inflated contracts, embezzlement and illicit outflows. Love for our fatherland would stir our best brains in medicine, engineering, science and technology, sports, arts, entertainment and so on, to apply their world class skills towards national development.
This brings me to the issue of the huge patronage of imported goods at the cost of locally produced items. As a child, I remember the media airwaves being awash with government advocacy for locally produced goods, but the same functionaries of government were the greatest culprits; wearing the classiest imports to public function. An opportunity to visit their residences reveals even more splendour adorned with imported marbles, doors, corrugated roofing sheets, furniture and lots more. These cravings for imported goods have shut the factories of our local small and medium-sized enterprises that are the true catalysts of development.
There are many other analogies and narratives which we see or hear every day, and upon reflection, it is evident that they could have been different if the emotional bond to our fatherland were stronger or even existed. It’s only in Nigeria we hear of soldiers fleeing from terrorists and sabotaging their nation. There are also allegations of some military officers mismanaging funds for personnel and equipment; sometimes even trading off armoury and information to insurgents. The earlier postponement of the general elections elicited public reactions with many wondering if the reasons giving for the shift were tenable enough.
. My greater worry is the phenomena in public and private sectors where merit is sacrificed on the platter of ethnic and religious bigotry.
The popular saying, ‘It’s my turn to eat the national cake,’ must be expunged from our vocabulary for good. It accounts for the somewhat laissez-faire attitude of public workers and ingrained corruption and deceit in our system. Let’s be ‘foolish’ today by working for the common good and reap the wisdom of our ‘folly’ through genuine development tomorrow.
We should find a denominating factor that brings us together as a nation. Leading economies in the world have identified their values and they propagate this through their educational system, media, and entertainment. It has also become a way of life for their people. The United States of America, for example, sees itself as the symbol of democracy and this is evident in their movies, press and diplomacy; which depict the benefits of democracy to include freedom of speech, justice, fairness and equity and capitalism.
In my opinion, a proposition anchored on the common good would be a great selling point that would work for Nigeria. Typically, the average Nigerian has a good heart and wants to help the needy around him, want to be an advocate of justice, wants to prosper and live peacefully, but he or she is afraid of so many things — insecurity, deceit, poverty, irrelevance in the scheme of things, losing his wealth and bearing too much burden which may eventually weigh him or her down. Based on these fears, a Nigerian is forced to take the shortcut in consonance with the popular saying, “If you can’t beat them, join them.” But, a national philosophy which promises wealth for all, fairness and due recognition would encourage people to protect the ‘national cake,’ sacrifice today’s pleasures for tomorrow’s generation and help expose the folly of ineptitude and piling up of ill-gotten wealth. This would help create more decorum in the public sphere. The Federal Government should lead the way for our institutions, especially the media (including entertainment industry, novelists, online and citizen reporters) to shape this new national philosophy by always depicting our government and people as a symbol of the common good for Nigerians and the rest of the world.
Let us sell the common good as a way of life to all Nigerians, so as to build a culture of national development.

JOSEPH UDOH

www.punchng.com/opinion/patriotism-missing-link-to-nigerias-development

By Abdulwahab Abdulah & Bartholomew Madukwe
An explosives expert and researcher, Mr Biedomo Iguniwei, yesterday before a coroner court investigating the collapsed building in the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN), in Ikeja, said the collapse was caused by an infrasonic weapon fired at the church by the aircraft that hovered over the building.
Mr Iguniwe, who argued as baseless the position of the Lagos State government which said structural defect was responsible for the collapse building, maintained that scientific evidence coupled with the CCTV footage of the collapse building, suggested that the building collapsed due to high energy infrasound absorption.
“The Lagos State Government has been pushing the reason for the collapse to be due to foundational/structural defects to poor construction standards used by the church engineers to construct the building, while the church has alluded the collapse to a terror attack/sabotage by explosives and controlled demolition.
“Having looked at all the reasons adduced and personally visited the scene of the collapse and analysed the video footage of the preceding moments before the collapse it was deduced that the collapse resulted from high energy infrasound absorption by the building leading to a high energy resonance of the constituent atoms of the building,” Iguniwei stated.
According to him: “This is even more accurate based on the fact that all other options being put forward were eliminated scientifically, creating what appears to be a mystery (due to limited knowledge) surrounding the collapse of the building.
“The foundation failure option cannot hold scientifically, because upon inspection of the foundation pads of the building, it was observed that the foundation pads are still intact with no stress or cracks on the steel and concrete pillars protruding from the earth.
“And the CCTV footage showed a collapse that is not consistent with other known buildings that have collapsed as a result of structural failure.
“As it is, it can be concluded scientifically that there were no explosives in the building when it collapsed upon the post-blast analysis done. It can also be true to safely say the building didn’t come down as a result of foundational/structural failure.”
“Because its collapse was not consistent with known cases of building collapsing structurally and coupled with the fact that the foundational pillars showed no sign of stress so far, the only reasonable explanation of the cause of collapse is the use of infrasonic weapon on the building.”
Meanwhile, Deputy President of the Nigerian Institute of Engineers and member of the Building Collapse Prevention Guild (BCPG), Oreoluwa Fadayomi, on Friday, said he has no evidence that the church (SCOAN) tampered with the beams of the collapsed guest house.
“I did not say it was the church that tampered with the beams and any other part of the collapsed guest house,” he said.
However, he insisted that remains of the collapsed building had been tampered with to arrive at a more credible report.
When asked if he used a digital camera to take the shot of the collapsed building, Fadayomi said, “I used my IPad to take photo shot when I arrived the scene of the incident.”
It would be recalled that the guest house collapsed on September 12, 2014, killing 166 people.
The matter was adjourned till April 29, 2015 for further hearing.

Vanguardngr.com
www.vanguardngr.com/2015/04/synagogue-collapse-was-caused-by-infrasonic-weapon