₦airaland Forum

waste of time talking about chelsea. no plan only ambition.

I dare say that every service that we subscribe to in Nigeria are all like this. HITV and DSTV comes to mind. When their signal is lost due to no fault of the subscribers, the bill contnues to run, if you have problem with your decoder and while they are trying to fix ir or replace it, your account will not be suspended even after having made official request to that effect.

Need I say more, the bitter truth is they profit more from this chaos and would deliberately prefer these situations to remain as long as we consumers sheepishly continue to donate our life savings to them in the name of subscribing. The regulators have joined forces with thhe operators because there is no distinction between the two. The man in charge of regulation is either s shareholder or a sponsoree of the operators.

NIGERIA WE HAIL THEE, OUR OWN DEAR NATIVE LAND IN BROTHERHOOD MEDIOCRITY WE STAND.

I dare say that every service that we subscribe to in Nigeria are all like this. HITV and DSTV comes to mind. When their signal is lost due to no fault of the subscribers, the bill contnues to run, if you have problem with your decoder and while they are trying to fix ir or replace it, your account will not be suspended even after having made official request to that effect.

Need I say more, the bitter truth is they profit more from this chaos and would deliberately prefer these situations to remain as long as we consumers sheepishly continue to donate our life savings to them in the name of subscribing. The regulators have joined forces with thhe operators because there is no distinction between the two. The man in charge of regulation is either s shareholder or a sponsoree of the operators.

NIGERIA WE HAIL THEE, OUR OWN DEAR NATIVE LAND IN BROTHERHOOD MEDIOCRITY WE STAND.

I dare say that every service that we subscribe to in Nigeria are all like this. HITV and DSTV comes to mind. When their signal is lost due to no fault of the subscribers, the bill contnues to run, if you have problem with your decoder and while they are trying to fix ir or replace it, your account will not be suspended even after having made official request to that effect.

Need I say more, the bitter truth is they profit more from this chaos and would deliberately prefer these situations to remain as long as we consumers sheepishly continue to donate our life savings to them in the name of subscribing. The regulators have joined forces with thhe operators because there is no distinction between the two. The man in charge of regulation is either s shareholder or a sponsoree of the operators.

NIGERIA WE HAIL THEE, OUR OWN DEAR NATIVE LAND IN BROTHERHOOD MEDIOCRITY WE STAND.

Swift Network is crap. If it works for you at all, pray you never any cause to interact with their customer service or need their technical assistance to resolve a problem.

All these networks are just expoiting the failure of regulatory frameworks in Nigeria to fleece us of our hard earned money. None is to be trusted completely. Their effectiveness, reliability, efficiency, capability, stability and costs are never sustainable. Their technological platform is false, they market 1.5G or 2.5G as 3G or 4G respectively. They never maintain their base stations. They start off well and relapse into service mediocrity. My advice is use the one that works best in your areas as long as it works and move on to another one once the mediocrity sets in. Bother less about getting them to rectify anything as that would send you into frustration hell.

Even from various posts I do not need to add my own experience, one this is clear none of the service providers are reliable. What do we really expect, afterall, we have come to accept and live with service mediocrity as a sign of status symbol by showing off with four phones per person. Subscribing to more than one telco like a corporate organisation is a clear indication of our "muguness" in moving about with four mobile phones at the same time.

For all of us internet users, just get as many modems as possible, so that if one networks fumbles like they would, just switch to the next modem. Afterall if your Glo line is not going, you pick your MTN or Starcomms or what ever to make that "impossible" call.

My Dears, just apply the same approach, so that the providers will continue to smile to their respective banks while you drain your own accounts.

THE SHAME OF A NATION AND ITS COMPLACENT PEOPLE WHERE MEDICORITY IS KING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why Does Everybody In Nigeria Want To Travel Out?

This is a very insultive question, unless the poster does not understand the word "everybody"

Nigerians by nature are very inquisitive and have free spirit. They like moving around, that is why within the geopolitical territory of Nigeria, every tribes mingle even before the coming of the Europeans.

Nigeria from time immemorial possess a spirit that is very restless, a spirit that is given flight when they find themselves in unfriendly environment. That is why in Nigeria today, yorubas, populate some cities in the east while the igbos are moving in the other direction to the west and the north. The hausas are everywhere in Nigeria. This is applicable to all tribes in the country.

Inspite this nature, not everybody want to live their want to live their native land. I know may people who refuses to move to Lagos to stay and would rather come to transact business in Lagos and go back to their native land.

This is also what plays out in the diaspora, at the international level. Just like many would prefer and do anything to travel out of the country to work and live, many others actually prefer to travel out for holidays, for business, for studies and for a short stay and then head back home.

There are others who have had the opportunity of living in Europe but prefers to stay back in the country. Nigerians as a people faces many challenges that will ordinarily prompt them to want to ship out but I tell you if Nigeria is as developed as USA many Nigerians would still have preferred to live in other countries.

Nigeria is not as bad as we paint it and it saddens me if we are the people putting down our country. Just like the igbos are moving enmass to other parts of the country to work, trade and live; and other Nigerians are heading to the east to work, trade and live. Many expatriates are working and living in Nigeria, taking up citizenship. They are seeing opportunities in the country that we have all written off and they wonder everyday while we run out of the country.

Labadidi, the chairman of Starcomms and Crown Feeds have lived all his life in Nigera, all his children are born in Nigeria, they all travelled to the US to study and came back to Nigeria to live and work.

Harry Akande has lived most of his life in the US, he has his businesses entirely in the US, all his children lives in the US. He comes home only to participate in politics, he recently decamped to the PDP from ANPP. Is that the democratic tendency he inculcated all his years in US.

The point is most of us living outside Nigeria have lost reality with the country, the environment we live in abroad has blinded us to the opportunities that the expatriates are tapping into and making billions.

Many of us are billionaires in assets in Europe, US, Asia and elsewhere, we are experts in various professions, we are technocrats in various fields, we are scientists, etc but we all still failed to see the good in our country, we are blind to opportunities waiting for us which expatriates are harvesting daily. They live like kings here and many go extra mile to renew their papers. Some are even staying without papers.

Dont tell me they are the ones that can not get jobs in their countries or those that are not well qualified to be reckoned with. The fact is if you are very comfortable where you were, Nigeria or US you would not ship permanently outside.

Many of us living outside Nigeria are in the worse living condition than many living in Nigeria but we will not see it because many of us see good roads, ever stable power supply, and other amenities as the only living condition. Our personal lives in terms of accomplishment are far below what many who stayed back in Nigeria have achieved.

All in all, travelling out or staying put, is a personal decision and not everybody want to travel out. There is more to live than most of us know.

This is a la OUR HUSBAND HAS GONE MAD AGAIN. What a dumbness and idiocy. You claim your wife can not drive or refuse to learn how to drive. What manner of driving? Is it driving on the road or driving on the bed. Did you marry her for her driving skills or abilities. Whatever the driving issues, you are indeed crazy.

Does "driving" makes a home or produce children or give peace or creates happiness. The other lady must be driving you really hard and so fast that you will soon crash irredeemably.

Will you like your wife to drive into another man because you can not drive her financially enough and more than the next man would possibly do. You are indeed crazy. My late boss used to tell me that our wives that we do not value much are been seriously desired by other men.

One of my previous bosses could actually not drive a vehicle because of a phobia that when he was given a official car, a toyota camry, his wife took over the driving. She would drop him with the car in the morning before proceeding to her office, she would come to pick him after close of work. Wherever you would see them, it was the wife driving.

So poster or the stupid friend of the poster should become his wife driver after all that is the major responsibility of husbands - to drive their wives in all respects.

I rest my case.

We are in a lost country, we might as well forget to live.

Everything has now become padi-padi.

Oh my people, expect nothing from this government so that ye shall not be disappointed.

He is an idiot. He speaks without care and mind to the understanding of people.

A man who does not care if people or his audience understands what he says is worse than a hooting animal.

He needs to go back to school and understand what communication is all about and the essence of speech.

@ petaling & okeyxyz. the points are quite noted but not acceptable for keeping a bad system.

In the beginning, Nigeria government built power stations, power lines, distribution lines, transmission lines and all what have you in the today PHCN.

From the days of ECN to NEPA and PHCN, we have all witnessed the rot and fall in the ability and capacity to provide electric power. Yes, the fault lies with federal government. Successive administrations failed to maintain, upgrade, expand and sustain reliable and stable power supply as the technology changes and population/economy grow.

Now the same federal government who in the past allowed the rot and caused the decline have come pot with the option of selling the power business to those who will not allow the rot and disintegration. You people are now coming up with issues that are have no bearing to solving our power problems.

The workers since the days of ECN have been the parasites eating away at the system and growing fat on the carelessness of the owners. Yes, many of the workers have been ingenious in solving some technical problems and have had to die in the process of working in an inconducive environment created by unserious owners.

Is it not a good thing that the workers will have a better life working under new owners who will be more serious and not allow the system to collapse. There is no way those among the present PHCN workers who are technically competent will not command respectable positions in the new arrangement.

The NITEL staff of old are all over calling the shots in various positions in the new telecom industry. Yes, new investors should build their own power stations and not buy over PHCN, but the truth is POWER is not wireless like TELECOM. If NITEL had been wise they would have made a lot of money from cell site co-location since the inception of GSM.

No telecom operator, would have been ready to build sites accross Nigeria landscape if all the towers were to be wire-linked like in the case of power masts. Glo would have rather spent their whole money buying NITEL if they would need to connect each subscriber to their network through cables. So there is no basis of comparison in the technology of POWER and TELECOM.

The only way to go is to unbundle PHCN the way it has been done and sell off to those who have the fund, technology, technical competence and corporate governance to run the succeeding power companies along profit lines.

Enough of sentiments that killed off NITEL and would eventually kill off PHCN.

Power is the most profitable business in the world, greater than telecom. When we get it right many people would drop some of their extra phone lines to pay for power. There is nothing you can do without power. There is no fun without power.

PLEASE LET THERE BE LIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Virgin award indeed!

For who?

Sixteen year olds!!!


Very funny.

Let them organise a serious one for the twenty five year olds and call me when you crown a twenty five year old Miss VIrgin.

Then I will be serious, but now, I DEY LAUGH OOOOOOOoooooooooo

All of ya please visit www.sexinchrist.com to fully understand how crazy and deranged some christians' interpretations of the BIBLE can be.

As for me I have for long signed out of joining issues with people like the poster.


GOD HAVE MERCY!!

It depends on what is status and how you conceptualize it at it relates with your aspiration and life generally. What is marriage and what is status and what are the relationships. These are questions no one can fully answer before tying the knot. Then the issue of compatibility comes in which in many ways than dozens are affected by a lot of factors.

What is status -- -- financial, family, social, educational, professional, religious, ethnic/nationalities, political, personalities, fashion, communication, world-view, sex, health, behavioral, parenting, etc.

If you consider one or some favorable, I bet you others will come to haunt you and if you are not ready to cope with them will crash the marriage,

What is marriage -- -- attraction, love, affinity, desire, passion, emotion, excitement, trust, understanding, care, forgiveness, tolerance, dutifulness, anger, disappointment, fortitude, sharing, giving, support, sacrifice, alliance, partnership, beauty, reflection, apathy, friendship, integration, avarice, complicity, reproduction, intimacy, selflessness, responsibilities, loss of freedom, etc.

If you are not ready for these then it is better you forget marriage.

What are the relationships -- -- compromise. No other words, if you are not ready to and for compromise, it is better you remain single. Status will never help you in any way, the only way status will help you is if you compromise some aspects of your status for another aspects of your would be partner status.

If you marry for money, money will tear you apart;  if you marry for beauty, beauty will fade; if you marry for education, education will be used to repress you, if you marry for opulence, opulence will sicken you; if you marry for religion, you become a bigot; if you marry for sex, sex will tire out; if you marry for politics, political interest/ideology will change; if you marry for family, family will disperse; if you marry for ethnic/nationalities, wars and conflicts will destroy your life and so on and so forth.

So, compatibility comes in and is built on the altar of compromise, it is the only instrument with which the ship of marriage is navigated through the turbulence of marital life. Without this instrument you are only transiting and having fun. Marriage is not about having fun, it is life in itself with all the uncertainties.

To the question by the poster, would you marry someone below your status? YES, that is what marriage is all about and that is what everybody in marriage has simply done. If you are superior or better off in one aspect of statuses than your partner, your partner is also superior or better off in on other aspect of statuses. That is life and that is marriage.

For those who are planning to get marred or dating, this is the truth you must know about marriage if you are to remain in it. The experience you have, good or bad, is a function of how you and your partner handles your relationship.

traveling abroad for many has become an obsession, it is war. in war you die or you conquer but to go to war require right strategies and tactics including appropriate arsenals.

the trouble with my people is that they travel abroad blindly and for the sake of traveling without a specific purpose other than the belief that abroad is better. so they end being conquered rather conquering.

i cant imagine somebody abandoning his job or business to travel to uncertainties abroad, or somebody able to raise 2 -3 million naira only yo use it in processing traveling papers without a specific cause of action or activity once abroad than to go and hustle. if he makes it, good luck, if he wastes away, good luck all the same.

but in reality nothing will stop youths from traveling abroad as long as the believe is that there is far better than here, it is like the saying that, it is better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven. Nigerians will rather go to Europe and America to do demeaning jobs and hide their shame there than to remain in Nigeria and struggle for a living. At least it is like in our local parlance, "I live in Lagos does not reveal who lives under the bridge".

if you must travel abroad, have a purpose and be well prepared, do not believe what you hear or watch in the news or the report of those who live abroad, experience can never be the same. even the person who invites you over will be the first to eject you if you do not quickly begin to earn income. Please dont be fooled. Many have been fooled and are all over here abroad, regretting taking the flight that brought them over, of course life continues for them albeit in a bitterest manner.

the truth is if you are not known for something at home, no matter how poor the reputation is you can hardly be recognised outside. do something worthwhile at home then take it outside for improvement and better sales. europe and america have enough of their own economic problems inspite of the obvious opulence. not everything that shine is diamond, many are just rubies.

jpworld you need not attack makinwa. he was telling us what most of us already know about how our young people have become dissidents and indigents all over europe, america and asia in the so called pursuits of the proverbial golden fleece. there is nothing golden about fleece but the efforts we put to achieve success whereever we are.

many youths have wasted their agile years travelling or attempting yo travel out of the country with the belief that life is more abundant elsewhere. this is not the case as some youths have practically found out.

Most wavemaking musicians in the country today have once being sojourning abroad with the mindset that being in europe or america will brighten their chances and uplift their career. they realised painfully that they took a wrong step and having made the most difficult decision of returning home and put their energies out to task have all become success. The likes of Ikechukwu, D'banj, Banky W and the rest are testimonies.

What all these over 2000 young footballers need to do is take that painful decision and return home and help uplift the local league the way their counterparts in music have done.

in naija today, you can hardly hear foreign songs being played at parties, even or radio and teevees, naija music is all over the place. this becomes the case because our young musicians flocked back home from europe and america and we can all see the result of it for the practitioners and the economy. they did not wait until government through various agencies did something about piracy and other ills before retracting and retracing.

the truth is if you are known for something at home, no matter how poor the reputation is you can hardly be recognised outside.

let them return home and struggle for their football skills in their country or continue their life sentence in obscurity and penury.

THE NATION NEWSPAPER
Home | Editorial | Letters | Tinubu, the real Yoruba leader

Tinubu, the real Yoruba leader

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Our Reporter 13/12/2010 03:41:00

SIR: The battle for political leadership of the Yoruba nation, in my mind, has been fought and won squarely. Chief Obafemi Awolowo unarguably led the Yoruba race successfully to death. Adekunle Ajasin, Bola Ige and Abraham Adesanya at different times held forth and died heroes. Following the demise of Abraham Adesanya, there have been challengers and pretenders who all strove to fill the vacuum. The unwritten feeling among many was the need to have a more youthful but open minded person to lead the Yoruba with the ‘mind and spirit’ of Awolowo.

The challenge lately has been between Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Otunba Gbenga Daniel. The two are reputable gentlemen who have fought different causes either for the public or personal interest. Both of them have made their marks in the political landscape of the Yoruba and would be remembered for their roles. Between the two, depending on individual’s perception, one person triumphs and is qualified by all standards to be called the Yoruba leader.

I must say that certainly, leadership is not an intangible: it’s the ability to convince and inspire people to follow. For eight years as governor of Lagos, Tinubu did not only inspire but also made people to inspire others. There are very few governors today who could have made the wrenching decisions to confront a sitting president like Obasanjo based on ideology and love for the people.

He is the pioneer of modern political pluralism; standard-bearer for social democracy, bulwark against federal oppression, a political agent of change who always acted with good authority, even if it was bound to bring him into conflict with the party he put back on the political map. A role model for those who want to be mentally young; forever sharp and hopeful. A practical politician who still inspires the nation to believe in justice and not thuggrey.

Tinubu’s political victories continue to affirm the necessity of justice that it’s not blind but equal. His calm and calculative political battles have shown that the more equal a society is the more stable it is, and the more efficient. Tinubu is a prominent example of a whole army of social activists without whom this country would be in even worse trouble. Politically, he represents an argument that officialdom perpetually evades.

A true leader wants nothing more than to make people independent, as leaders in their own rights. Instead of trying to inebriate us with his or her rhetoric, a true leader reflects our own light back to us. A leader provides a new direction, inspiring us to abandon our old ways of doing things. When we are imbibed with our self-interests - be they infinitesimal or magnitude - a leader sends out a wake-up call, alerting us to seek the true priorities in life.

These exactly are what Tinubu has done relentlessly for almost two decades. His quest for a united Yoruba nation started in Lagos and has spread to every Yoruba town and village. His political hegemony has been indefatigably stamped on the Yoruba nation. He has increasingly affected the polity for good.

He remains one of the few Nigerian politicians to find courage to step away from mindless inherited party loyalty when he thinks the principles he believes in are being betrayed. The Yoruba leader no doubt should be able to connect with the people and that exactly Bola Tinubu has successfully done in the last two decades. Since the leadership of the Yoruba does not require an election or a nomination as it has always been a product of natural emergence, Bola Tinubu is the leader.

• Tola Osunnuga,

Ago Iwoye, Ogun State

To me personally, as an avid supporter of football not of individual players, no matter how you look at it, Sneider ought to be in the top three.

Last season, no player came close to his form and accomplishment for club and country.

Ballon D'Or Debate: Disgraceful Snub Of Wesley Sneijder Highlights Inherent Flaws In FIFA Award Process
After getting stick last week over award decisions, FIFA are in the firing line again, but Goal.com’s Kris Voakes thinks they’ve really shown themselves up this time.
By Kris Voakes
Dec 7, 2010 7:30:00 AM
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Wesley Sneijder

If you’ll allow me a moment before I get to the crux of my ire this week, I’d like to admit an allegiance in the argument regarding the FIFA Ballon d’Or award. Simply put, I think it’s a complete and utter nonsense.

In a sport which is so intrinsically team-based, why oh why people need to pick the bones out of everything Player X does in comparison to Player Y, heaven only knows. And some – naming no names, Carlo Garganese – like to then break down the merits of footballers over a period of up to half a century and decide that Player Q is actually better than either X or Y. But one of the best things about football is that it generates such a vast array of opinions, and the ‘greatest player in the world’ debate is just another topic for people to get their teeth into, so who am I to stop them?

My opinion on the Ballon d’Or stands though, and this has only been strengthened over the past couple of months as this year’s shortlist was announced and then subsequently reduced to a final three on Monday. Now you may expect me, a confessed Italophile, who lives in Italy and travels the country almost daily to follow the nation’s football, to base an anti-Ballon d’Or argument on the preposterous decision not to include Diego Milito in the final 23 and his Inter team-mate Wesley Sneijder’s mind-bending exclusion from the final three. But while those two omissions were nothing short of disgraceful, they simply bring into focus the inherent problem with the whole system used in order to decide who the world’s greatest player supposedly is.
Sneijder played a huge part in Inter's historic treble


There are far too many questions which are left hanging over such a decision. Until recently, the poll was meant to be reflective of the best player of the previous full season. For instance, Fabio Cannavaro won the 2006 gong for his immense display at the World Cup to follow a title-winning season with Juventus, rather than his shaky start to life at Real Madrid from August onwards. Under the new united FIFA/France Football banner, which has created a mish-mash of the old European and World Football awards, we have to wait until January 10 for a decision, presumably so that any performances on December 31 at a mid-season break in Dubai can still be considered in the final thinking.

Yet how does that work if the original 25-man list is drawn up in October? And why should it be a calendar year vote when all of the bigger games that really sort out the men from the boys are largely played in May, June and July. The Goal.com 50 was widely praised last summer after taking votes from editors and fans all around the world immediately after the World Cup before the overall winner was announced to the public in early August. The winner – Wesley Sneijder was the editors' choice – was therefore not ‘punished’ for having had a poor start to the 2010-11 season as his club began the campaign poorly under a new reign. Instead it was a fair reflection of a player who had peaked at the right time and had delivered the goods.
Previous Ballon d'Or winners since 2000

2000 Luis Figo - Barcelona/Real Madrid
2001 Michael Owen - Liverpool
2002 Ronaldo - Inter/Real Madrid
2003 Pavel Nedved - Juventus
2004 Andriy Shevchenko - Milan
2005 Ronaldinho - Barcelona
2006 Fabio Cannavaro - Juventus/Real Madrid
2007 Kaka - Milan
2008 Cristiano Ronaldo - Manchester United
2009 Lionel Messi (above) - Barcelona


Digging further into the Ballon d’Or ‘planning’, even worse is to come when we look at the list of people who get to vote. The chosen ones are split into two categories; one the coaches and captains of the 208 FIFA-affiliated national teams, and the other over 100 football journalists from 96 countries. It all sounds quite fair and noble until you actually look at the names involved and the less obvious circumstances which should be taken into account.

Taking the national team representatives first, let us use India as an example for many of football’s lesser nations, and a great point forwarded by Goal.com India’s Rahul Bali. “I’m dead sure the Indian captain and coach wouldn’t have voted for Sneijder, simply because their only exposure of him - World Cup aside - is during Champions League matches,” said Rahul. “Even those come when there are games of Arsenal, Manchester United etc. on at the same time, which, due to the TV exposure of such sides, means few people would go out of their way to watch Inter.”

This exact fault can also be said of the journalists who are chosen. Does anyone seriously believe that the Daily Telegraph’s Henry Winter would spend more time than is absolutely necessary watching Wesley Sneijder or Diego Milito playing football. After all, surely it makes his job easier to trip out the old stereotype of Jose Mourinho beating Chelsea all by himself after Sneijder has stamped his mark all over a second leg Champions League victory? And it’s not just him. I myself am in no position to accurately gauge who might be the best player in the world, as my exposure has been just as lop-sided over the past 12 months, just in a different direction, though I would like to think that I’m a little more subjective than the esteemed Mr Winter.

But even then the journalist category needs further inspection. For instance, the Dutch representative is from a newspaper called Eindhovens Dagblad, which is a minor local paper chosen over a number of more renowned nationals. Would you really expect to see reporters from the Wetwang Weekly Gazette or the Corriere di Cosenza being asked to cast a vote on behalf of their whole country? Then there’s the German journalist who is nowadays actually a freelance, working a lot of the time with a certain organisation called FIFA. And surely chief among the many more examples of stupidity in the whole process comes in the Spanish choice, Paco Aguilar of El Mundo Deportivo, the well-known Barcelona-friendly Catalan sports daily.
Past FIFA World Player of the Year winners

2000 Zinedine Zidane (above) - Juventus
2001 Luis Figo - Real Madrid
2002 Ronaldo - Inter/Real Madrid
2003 Zinedine Zidane - Real Madrid
2004 Ronaldinho - Barcelona
2005 Ronaldinho - Barcelona
2006 Fabio Cannavaro - Juventus/Real Madrid
2007 Kaka - Milan
2008 Cristiano Ronaldo - Manchester United
2009 Lionel Messi - Barcelona


All of which means that the actual 25 shortlisted players, the three ‘finalists’ and the eventual winner are all just a by-product of an ill-thought out, badly judged voting system which reflects in no way on what actually goes on on the football field. That Sneijder won the treble with Inter before finishing joint highest scorer at the World Cup – and was one Arjen Robben shot away from having a world-conquering assist to his name to boot – just draws further attention to the flaws which are inherent in such an award’s very existence.

So when one of the all-Barcelona final three of Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Lionel Messi is crowned as the ‘Best Player in the World’ next month, please don’t start taking it to actually mean anything. The real prizes get handed out in the summer.
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Sneijder snub by FIFA is a disgrace

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Updated Dec 7, 2010 4:00 PM ET

FIFA has shortlisted the top three players for the 2010 Ballon d'Or honor.

That isn't a surprise, but what is surprising is that list doesn't have the name of Inter Milan playmaker Wesley Sneijder. Instead, the famous Barcelona trio of Andres Iniesta, Lionel Messi and Xavi Hernandez will fight it out for the prestigious award.


Bleacher Report is where the sports bar meets the press box, the place where fan-journalists create and critique high-quality sports analysis. See for yourself.


Messi, as you would expect, is the front-runner with 34 League goals during 2009/10 season, which saw him pick up the European Golden Shoe.

Xavi played consistently well and just deserves to be on the list, but Iniesta actually wasn't at his best during the first half of last season. However, his match-winning goal in the final of the FIFA World Cup 2010 seems to be just enough to ensure a place on the list, which means Sneijder misses out.

One may ask how on earth Sneijder missed out after his best season in club and International play. That's FIFA for you. The ludicrous FIFA wrapped up in the blanket of corruption.

After denying England the chance to host 2018 World Cup, now FIFA is loath to recognize the contributions of a wonderfully talented player, which is inviting ridicule upon the federation that's supposed to promote and recognize talent instead of turning a blind eye.

Wesley Sneijder was part of Jose Mourinho's treble-winning Inter Milan team -- in fact, he was the lynchpin and shouldered the offensive duties alongside Diego Milito. He played a key role in Inter winning the Serie A, the Coppa Italia and the coveted Champions League.

FOX SPORTS POLLWho is most deserving of the Player of the Year award?
Lionel Messi
Andres Iniesta
Xavi
Wesley Sneijder



He was promptly named the UEFA midfielder of the year, which just serves as a testament to his consistency and effectiveness during the best part of a successful campaign where his individual performance aided the team to a treble.

His exploits don't end there. After guiding his club to glory, Sneijder reprised his world-beating form for the Netherlands in the World Cup. He was the mainstay of an above average Holland side that contested in the final of the World Cup -- to the surprise of many -- which they eventually lost to Spain.

However, Sneijder scored five goals and received four Man of the Match awards and fittingly was named the second best player of the tournament.

The Ballon d'Or is awarded to the player who has been the best performer over a calendar year and not just to a player who has won the World Cup. Barcelona only won La Liga last season, so even in terms of silverware Sneijder has won more than any of the Barcelona players, if individual performance doesn't suffice you to a top three spot.

FIFA's decision to omit Sneijder, arguably the best player in 2009/10 season, from the shortlist for Xavi and Iniesta is a disgrace to football. The game voices for fairplay but ironically the federation in charge is biased toward a club that plays in a league where several teams aren't even as competitive as Serie B sides.

Comparing or contrasting the competitiveness of any league is unnecessary. Let's just appreciate and recognize the contributions of a footballer who has been viciously ignored by the farcical body called FIFA, shall we?

Robin Severo is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report, the open source sports network.

Updated Dec 6, 2010 8:05 PM ET

Money can do strange things to your mind.

It can make you feel invincible, untouchable and it can also lead to you believing that you know how to run a football club.

When Chelsea owner, Russian oligarch and 50th richest man in the world, Roman Abramovich first purchased the Blues from Ken Bates, he was content to watch the matches from his comfortable box and let the football people make the decisions. All he had to do was open up the cash spigot and let it flow.






Over a six-year period, the West Londoners became the toast of football. They made winning look easy and they did it with arrogance. But a funny thing happened on the way up to the stage to collect yet another trophy. The owner started believing he was the man responsible for the team’s success. So he sacked the best manager in the world and brought in his own puppets. Well, it turns out that running a club is not as easy as he thought.

When it’s your toy though, there is always the attraction to want to play manager every now and again. Since his tenure in West London, Abramovich has succumbed to its irresistible temptation on more than one occasion.

The results have usually proven disastrous and on each occasion he’s been forced to scurry back to ‘football people’ that ‘know the game’ in order to repair the situation. Whether he’ll do so this time is the burning question on the minds of all Chelsea fans.

Since the firing of assistant coach, Ray Wilkins, the team has gone into a tailspin of epic proportions. With only one win in their last six Premiership matches, the club has slipped from first to third. With Spurs, Manchester United and Arsenal coming up in a trifecta that would test them at their best, there are legitimate fears that the season that began in glorious sunshine and scintillating fashion will freeze over in December.

In fact, I hope you’ve packed some thermal underwear and a copy of Solzhenitsyn’s 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich' if you want to hang out with Abramovich because I think he’s looking firmly back east to Moscow and that his crush on Chelsea is all but over.

Of course his parting gift will be to sell off any shining baubles that still have value, because he sure doesn’t seem like he wants to spend any more of his easy earned money on a Chelsea team that is aging before my very eyes.

Let’s be clear here. This team, right now, is suffering from a mental fragility and its so obvious that even Carlo Ancelotti is being forced to address it.






"We started to be scared when Everton put pressure on us," he said after yet more dropped points. By the way, this same Everton team had been pummeled 4-1 at Goodison Park by West Bromwich Albion last time out.

Scared and mentally fragile are words that I’ve not heard associated with Chelsea since the infamous meltdown to Marseille in the UEFA Champions League under Claudio Ranieri.

Sure you have the warriors in the form of the ever-mouthy John Terry, the brave and dignified Petr Cech but after that it’s a struggle to name a true Blue. With Frank Lampard still on the sideline, Chelsea is currently missing that heartbeat that defines all clubs.

The likes of Ashley Cole, Nicolas Anelka, Flourent Malouda and Didier Drogba may kiss the badge, but offer them a fat contract elsewhere and they’d be at Heathrow Airport before you could order them a limo.

As for Michael Essien, John Obi Mikel and Jose Bosingwa, they appear to shrivel up when the going gets really tough and the bench, well it is the weakest I’ve seen in years. The intimidation factor that won Chelsea games in the tunnel before the match had even started is not there and you can almost pinpoint to the day when that happened.

On November 7th a very average Liverpool team tore into the defending Premier League champions and stuffed them. That has become a blueprint for the rest of the division.

Ancelotti seemingly has no answers and is beginning to take on the haunted look of a man that knows the axe is being sharpened. Unfortunately for the Italian, the executioner’s knowledge of football could fit on a pinhead but as I like to say, 'it’s the man who pays the piper that calls the tune.'

Watching Roman call FIFA’s tune last week in Zurich, I would imagine his new mission concerns the building trade and developing the many stadiums that Russia will need in eight years time. Given his close relationship with Vladimir Putin, I don’t think too many of those contracts will be going out for tender.

From club football to World Cup football and all it takes is a few hundred million.

Money. It’s a gas.

Nick Webster is a senior writer for FoxSoccer.com covering the Barclay's Premier League and the English national team.

Source: http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccer/premierleague/story/Webster-Blues-chief-ready-to-exit-PL-stage

When there are issues of intelligence people should stop antagonising the person because of dislikes and disagreements. Sanusi raised a very important socio-economic issue and all some people can see is his person.

Lets look at it this way, assuming Sanusi is wrong with his 25% claim and the National Assembly through his spokeperson, Ayogu Eze is right with their claim of 3.5%. The issue is clear, the National Assembly is a drain pipe and one of the leakages in the economy that stalls infrastructural development.

Bankole even said it is 2.5%, so between 2.5% and 3.5% of the National Budget that just 450 people arrogates to themselves, one should then ponder what percentages goes to the critical elements of our National development like:

Education
Housing
Health
Security
Agriculture
Power
Roads, etc.

If National Assembly gets 3.5% of the national budget, that means in effect they get more than that figure when you realise that they still share as citizens in the benefits that accrue from budgetary allocations for education, housing, health, security, agriculture, power, roads, etc. if you extrapolate this you can begin to imagine how much 450 people have deprived the rest of the 150 million Nigerians.

Even if Sanusi lied or is even quoted out of context, he has assisted us to force the truth out of the beneficiaries of this political heist. Before Sanusi spoke most of us are not aware of this fact that our legislators are doing nothing but stealing through legislative recklessness what belongs to all of us.

This is in a country that workers had to down tool to force government to pay N18,000.00 minimum wage. This in a country where government always complain of lack of money for infrastructural development.

Nigerians should learn to begin to look at issues rather than personalities. It is a shame that some can come to the forum to begin to attack Sanusi for helping us to know our real and present enemies.

PUNCH NEWSPAPER TUESDAY 3OTH NOVEMBER 2010
Why Nigerians in America come home to marry
By Sabella Ogbobode Abidde
Tuesday, 30 Nov 2010

The United States Embassy has data indicating the number of Nigerians who come to join their spouses in the US every year. In this instance, no attempt was made to collect such data. However, several trends were deduced from several exchanges that took place with friends and friends-of-friends and acquaintances in several enclaves in the US. Some of the patterns that emerged include the fact that no fewer than 310 folks embark on this voyage – of which eighty per cent are women. Of this, about two-thirds are Christians with post-secondary education; and two-thirds are between the ages of 25 and 37. Of the base number, eighty-five per cent are from the southern region, with eighty-seven per cent appearing to come from financially-disadvantaged homes.


What is true of the US also seems to be true of Canada, the United Kingdom and various European Union nations. What’s more, the percentages of Nigerians who go overseas to join their spouses, fiances and fiancees have increased twenty-five per cent in the last two decades. It is instructive to note that the immigration process can be trying and costly. Frankly, it is a process that demands a lot of resourcefulness, wits and perseverance. It is a process that, more often than not, results in rejection and depression. Even so, many and many more are willing to undertake this mentally and physically-draining exercise.


But why do Nigerians go though this tortuous immigration process? Why do Nigerian women, living in Nigeria, agree to marrying men they, in most cases, hardly know? And why do Nigerian men go home to marry instead of marrying the women they’ve romanced here in the US. After all, most of the women who are already in the US are well-educated, well-read and well-travelled; they are well mannered and have, in most cases, proved their trustworthiness. These are women of two worlds: they know Africa and also understand the Western society. But in spite of their advantages and pluses, the vast majority of these women are likely to lose their boyfriends to women back home.


In significant numbers, Nigerian men would rather go home to marry the “unknown and the greenhorn” rather than marry the proven and the reliable. Granted that a thousand men have a thousand reasons for going home to marry, there are common threads as to why they do what they do: one, because they can; two, most men are under the illusion that women back home are innocent, un-spoilt and virginal; three, it is an ego-boosting exercise; and four, it allows some men to mask their shortcomings since the women who are already in the US can tell where these men stand on the social and economic ladder. Additionally, some men want their women to look up to them since it makes them appear more than what and who they really are. Other men go home to marry because, as some have stated, “Nigerian girls in the US are rotten, too exposed, too independent and/or too aggressive.”


I am reminded of a friend in Washington who once told me that there was nothing he could teach his girlfriend in terms of romance and sex and everyday reality. Sex, for instance, was awe-inspiring and earthshaking. In the end though, he went home to marry a “village girl,” who pretended for a while before proving that “everything a Yankee can do, a Naija woman can also do.” Shortly thereafter, he also realised he was her one-way ticket out of the misery and poverty that have come to characterise Nigeria. In any case, the majority of such marriages start collapsing within 18 months. The American society has a way of Oprahlising girls from Bauchi, Timbuktu and Aba.


And, of course, there are the traditionalists, the purists: men who don’t mind dating and/or cohabitating with girls from other ethnic groups. But when it is time to start a family, they’d rather a girl from their own ethnic groups. In spite of modernity/westernisation, the majority of Nigerian men living in the US prefer women of the same ethnic group. Ethnicity, as it turns out, is a superseding factor when it comes to marriage.


When it is all said and done, the Nigerian male can be perplexing. His life is full of contradictions. In so many ways, he is a wounded animal as a result of his historical past. There was a time when he was the primary breadwinner, head of the household. He was the man who moved mountains. But that was a time long gone. He misses the past; he misses the era when most men were sheriffs. And frankly, the modern era has not been kind to men (particularly those who have refused to assimilate or acculturate). And even though the outside world is depriving him of his manhood, he has found a way to make parts of his world his playground. In this playground, he is the sole captain. Or so he thought! To make his thoughts a reality, he marries a greenhorn.


More often than not, most of these marriages are not based on love or affection. Most are not even like the marriages of yesteryear: a union between two families. On the part of the greenhorns, it is mostly about the need to escape the prevailing poverty and despair that have engulfed the country. Most of these women are seeking a way out of the misery that Nigeria has become. Therefore, when presented with the opportunity to hop, they pack and run! It should be noted here and now that it is not all the women who come to join their husbands fit this profile. A good number come for the right reasons.


In the end, most that came to join their husbands become disillusioned, disappointed and unhappy and are likely to seek divorce within three years. As for the men, well, some will plead with, cajole or trick their wives into going into the nursing profession. The nursing profession, they believe, is a sure avenue for making money and living the good life. Be it in Houston, Seattle, Dallas, Miami, New York and every where in between, African nurses abound. They are everywhere working mostly the night and graveyard shifts, toiling day and night and away from their husbands and children just to make ends meet. With no time to smell the roses or to wonder at the beauties that surround them, they become strangers in the world they live in.


In the end, a simple question becomes germane: if you find a woman you love and respect and can get along with, what is the point returning to the continent to find the inexperienced? If you already have a woman, here in the US, who makes your heart skip beats and you fancy her worldview, what’s the point in abandoning her? And after several years of putting up with your eccentricity, infantile behaviour and messy bedside manners, what’s the point dumping her for the greenhorn?


Abidde writes from Montgomery, Alabama, USA, vide Sabidde@yahoo.com

This is a better version.

You cant give what is not there.These pictures only enhances her ugliness. In Nigeria my country, besides her acting skill and the press hype, she is no where beautiful. She is just there. I like her for being hardworking, independent and tenacious.

She should leave beauty to those who have beauty. She is a success no doubt a reflection of her inner quality not physical attributes.

Most Importantly<>

Don't avoid
(Pls read this mail)

Also pls forward it to all of your contacts
FROM Arvind Khamitkar, I.A.S, Director of Medical & Research Div, Chennai

Dear Friends,

A few weeks ago, in a movie theatre, a person felt something poking from her seat.
When she got up to see what it was, she found a needle sticking out of the seat with a note attached saying:

"You have just been infected by
HIV".

The Disease Control Center (in Paris ) reports many similar events in many other cities recently. All tested needles were HIV Positive.

The Center also reports that needles have been found in cash dispensers at public banking machines. We ask everyone to use extreme caution when faced with this kind of situation.

All public chairs/seats should be inspected with vigilance and caution before use. A careful visual inspection should be enough.
In addition, they ask that each of you pass this message along to all members of your family and your friends of the potential danger.

Recently, one doctor has narrated a somewhat similar instance that happened to one of his patients at the Priya Cinema in Delhi.
A young girl, engaged and about to be married in a couple of months, was pricked while the movie was going on. The tag with the needle had the  message

"Welcome to the World of HIV family".

Though the doctors told her family that it takes about 6 months before the virus grows strong enough to start
damaging the system and a healthy victim could survive about 5 - 6 years, the girl died in 4 months, perhaps more because of the "Shock thought".
We all have to be careful at public places, rest God help! Just think about saving a life byforwarding this message. Please, take a few seconds of your time to pass along.

With Regards, Arvind Khamitkar ,
I.A.S, Director of Medical & Research Div, Chennai.

Rather than forwarding irrelevant mails, kindly pass this to every one.
Probably ur mail can help to save his/her life

Don't avoid
(Pls read this mail)

Also pls forward it to all of your contacts
FROM Arvind Khamitkar, I.A.S, Director of Medical & Research Div, Chennai

Dear Friends,

A few weeks ago, in a movie theatre, a person felt something poking from her seat.
When she got up to see what it was, she found a needle sticking out of the seat with a note attached saying:

"You have just been infected by
HIV".

The Disease Control Center (in Paris ) reports many similar events in many other cities recently. All tested needles were HIV Positive.

The Center also reports that needles have been found in cash dispensers at public banking machines. We ask everyone to use extreme caution when faced with this kind of situation.

All public chairs/seats should be inspected with vigilance and caution before use. A careful visual inspection should be enough.
In addition, they ask that each of you pass this message along to all members of your family and your friends of the potential danger.

Recently, one doctor has narrated a somewhat similar instance that happened to one of his patients at the Priya Cinema in Delhi.
A young girl, engaged and about to be married in a couple of months, was pricked while the movie was going on. The tag with the needle had the message

"Welcome to the World of HIV family".

Though the doctors told her family that it takes about 6 months before the virus grows strong enough to start
damaging the system and a healthy victim could survive about 5 - 6 years, the girl died in 4 months, perhaps more because of the "Shock thought".
We all have to be careful at public places, rest God help! Just think about saving a life byforwarding this message. Please, take a few seconds of your time to pass along.

With Regards, Arvind Khamitkar ,
I.A.S, Director of Medical & Research Div, Chennai.

Rather than forwarding irrelevant mails, kindly pass this to every one.
Probably ur mail can help to save his/her life

When people dont situate issues in proper context and perspectives they make annoying comments. How on earth can any right thinking person blame striking workers for the consequence of government failure. It is because Nigerian as a people has refused to take earth shaking actions that we continue to live in poverty and abject want in the midst of plenty.

The questions are -
Is Nigeria poor,
Is Nigerian Government responsible and responsive
Is Nigerian people lazy
Is Nigeria lacking in resources to grow and develop the economy
Is Nigerian political office holders accountable
Is Nigerian politicians not living ostentatious life
Is Nigerian populace not suffering
Is Nigerian workers not grossly underpaid

If you answer these questions honestly without bias or sentiments, then you will know the pain and anger that an average Nigerian worker be it in public and private sector feels. Since as a people we are not readily violent, Nigerian workers have resorted to subtle approach of using industrial action to press home their demands. These industrial actions hardly succeeds because sadly too, we as a people lack "strike culture", hence our government indifference to peoples' demands.

Is it not ironic that our rulers will demand loyalty and patriotism from us without giving us any privilege as citizens and all they do indicates not national loyalty or patriotism.

In Nigeria, every individual is a government of his/her own in terms of provision of basic amenities, you provide your own house, water, power, health, education, even roads and bridges. The only thing they are sure of getting from government is their salary, even as poor as these salaries are, their regular and consistent payment is not guaranteed.

Let government provide the basic social amenities of water, power, roads, public transport, cheap health services, housing and see if agitations for salary increment or minimum wage will not die a natural death.

Since government has refused to be responsible to their duties, then they can not expect citizens to be dutiful in their respective national services or professional callings.

I think we need more of the medical doctors' kind of uncompromising strikes from every sector of the country to change the attitude of those political office holders for good and force them to be more responsive, responsible and accountable.

It is so easy for these political looters to award jumbo pay and allowances for themselves and care less if I in my primary duty as a teachers, nurse, doctor, cleaner, etc to continue to live from hand to mouth. Imagine N18,000.00 has a minimum wage in a country that one Cecilia Ibru stole over N200b from private organisation, or one Ibori took over N500b from the treasury of a state government.

How can anyone say workers should not strike, thank GOD am not a labour leader, it is either I have brought this country down on its knee through complete and total industrial action. Of course, it will not be possible because there will be sell out amongst the labour leaders once they are shown Ghana-Must-Go.

Workers are their own nemesis because they are fickle and will always go for the crumbs from their masters table depsite the fact that they are the producers of the nation's wealth.

I say let them remain in their poverty line whilst the politicians take home all the juices. To the Doctors, kudos, dont relent until your goal is achieved. If Fashola is not happy he can employ his sisters and brothers as medical doctors and his co-thieving commissioner of health can resume at LASUTH to start work, afterall he threatened sacking all the doctors. Why he could not do that and import new set from Ghana to pay them his pitance beats me.

So much for a so called "PERFOMING GOVERNOR". By their actions we shall know them.

guddsid and aloy+emeka, your knowledge and understanding of yorubaland, its people, history, culture, traditions and religion practices are totally wrong and biased.

Just like the Europeans and Americans see Nigerians as corrupt, fraudulent, 419ers, tricksters, dupes, unreliable, drug-pushers, dishonest; and we all rise to say that is not true. Our reason - just because a few Nigerians commits these atrocities doesnt make all of us bad.

I dont know if you (guddsid/aloy+emeka) live in Europe, am sure you must have witnessed directly or indirectly the maltreatment of Nigerians as a result of this general misconceptions. I call it a misconception because am a Nigerian.

Just like you bring some references and data to buttress your argument on the Yoruba polygamous/divorce issue, so also abound research work and references, information and statistical data that establishes these misconceptions against the people of Nigeria. They never make these assertions right or correct.

Just like what the Europeans and Americans know about Nigerians are not totally true, what you people claim to know about Yorubas are very much misplaced. It is a fact that human being are deficient in their assessment and judgement of others because of prejudices, biases, misconceptions and ignorance. These human failings affect our world view, positions, principles, philosophies and hypotheses.

These human failings are so dominant in our psyche that it influences our decisions and policies. Among the igbos for instance, there are issues that separates them, the Osu caste is an example. Ditto in other national ethnicities in Nigeria.

It is convenient to say that the Yorubas are bad in the way they organise and handle their affairs, family, religion, trade, profession, government, intra-tribal and inter-tribal relationships. It is also convenient to say that Igbos, Hausas, Itshekiris, Ijaws, Fulanis, Ibibios, Efiks, Isokos, Idomas, Junkuns, Tivs, Igalas, Tapas, Kanuris, etc are similarly bad in certain areas that they organise and handle their affairs, family, religion, trade, profession, government, intra-tribal and inter-tribal relationships.

There is no culture that is totally bad and there is no culture that is totally good. That is why social scientist proves that culture is dynamic and will keep evolving. I have many aspects of Yoruba, igbo, Hausa, Itshekiri, Ijaw, Fulani, Ibibio, Efik, Isoko, Idoma, Junkun, Tiv, Igala, Tapa, Kanuri, etc cultures as well of cultures of Europeans, Americans, Chinese, Indians, Malaysians, Arabs, Jews, etc.

How yorubas live now is not the same way they lived hundred years ago and will not live the way they are now a century from now. The problem I have with people like you two is that you use a microcosm as a macrocosm but the world and its people really are a spectrum.

In all how you see and understand a people is a function of the kind of interaction you have with some members of that group of people. I remember being told that Akan people eats human flesh and I was given loads of references and witnesses to convince me not to live amongst them or get too close in relationships with them. How indeed wrong that claim came out to be.

You cannot totally agree with some aspects of other people's culture just like others will not totally agree with your own people's culture. So enough of running other cultures down.

My pain with Nigerian government is that they are never sincere. My concern with Labour Union is that their leaders are always sell outs. At the end of the day, government will have its way, Labour will have its say and Labour leaders will have their 'settlement'.

Labour can only help itself fight what they deserve if their leaders are to remain committed. How can a sensible government be defending the difficulty in paying N18,000 when it can hardly sustain a single adult in a month. If the least paid worker spends an average of:

(a)   N100 per day on transport to and fro work,
(b)   N100 per day on food during office hours,
(c)    N50 per day on recharge cards,
(d)   N500 per month on PHCN,
(e)   N2000 per month on tenement
(f)    N500 per month on LAWMA bill

These will amount to N9250 per month, he is left with N8750 to survive on before the next N18000. So what does he do to survive, he engages in underhand actvities which is the corruption evil we all talk about. Now, imagine if the adult is married with a child at least in public primary school.

What government is saying is this: we can pay minimum wage of N18000, you guys know what you do to survive, just continue doing that.

What I am saying is that Labour needs to fight their cause if they really want to live above poverty line, hence the poverty cycle continues and corruption festers and we remain undeveloped.

The problem is Labour can not fight, they only make noise.

Siasia is right, Mourinho and all succeeding coaches at Stamford Bridge are wrong. But Mikel got what he wanted and we should just leave the way he is. He chose Chelsea over Man United where he would have developed better the way we wanted him.

He love playing for Chelsea that he would have preferred being made a defender. He has now gotten swollen headed at his new position that changing him will be an almost impossible task. He is a talent just wasting away. Makelele and Viera made name because they stamped themselves in matches but our own dear Mikel is yet to do that five years in the colour of Chelsea.

Players who believe in themselves do move to another club when they are not played in their preferred position, this is one of the reasons Diego Forlan left ManU and become a better goal poacher in Spain. He may not likely have achieved that in Old Trafford.

This is not about beefing Mikel is about talking of the pain we feel each time we watch in that absurd position. The recent CAF list for African Footballer does not carry any Nigerian name, even Solomon Kalou is on the list. Mikel should and would have been our brightest star today if he had continued to develop in his playmaker role.

Mikel is a forgotten entity as long as African award is concerned as long as he remain playing in his current role at Chelsea. He will never be the Nigerian star, he will never reach his full potential. He will become a football mistake.

This is what Siasia is saying and for those who know Mikel very well with his football talents, not many who just read about or watch him, he is playing not for glory but for money. Unfortunately, he will not even make the money the way he would have made the money if he had remained in his creative display. Since Mikel turned out for Chelsea, no club has shown serious interest in him, that is how much valued and regarded he is in the transfer market.

It is indeed a big football mistake. He is still young according to the age he claimed, everything depends on him.

what you want in a vehicle should determine your choice but your ability to maintain the vehicle rather than your ability to acquire the vehicle should decide your decision.

Many Nigerians buy vehicles for status statement always, failing to consider the most important factors in vehicle purchase and usage.

Factors to consider when considering a vehicle purchase, particularly in Nigeria:

Fuel consumption
Availability of spare parts
Availability of the brand auto-mechanics
Affordability of spare parts
Rates of wear and tear of parts relative to Nigerian bad roads
Personal ability to conveniently continue to put the vehicle on the road on daily basis
Purpose of buying the vehicle
The likely use to put the vehicle

If you make these factors your cornerstone in your decision, you will know vehicles you can easily acquire but very costly to maintain or those you can not maintain at all.

In answering your question, all the vehicles you mention are upper class and have their unique advantages over the other but if you are not ready or able to Bleep out a minimum of 100k at a go for repair costs then dont go for any of them. But I tell you, if you can conveniently maintain Murano, then with some financial discipline and good care you can manitain an Armada or LR3.

The choice and capability is yours and yours alone

I ponder a lot on issues of relationships and family that I am always careful to castigate other people choices in matters of co-habitation.

Polygamy is a way of life in both its crudest form as practised in some cultures in Asia and Africa and in its semi form as practised in other cultures of Europe and North America.

It is a procreational reality that women are more in population than men, while that is not the reason form institution of polygamy or polyandry (a culture that is still existing today, though many will want to deny it.)

The question is why would women who ordinarily do not subscribed to sharing husband end up marrying married men to become co-wives? If you could answer this poser, then your ache about Mercy's marriage to a married man would disappear.

What many dont realise is that almost all human beings are polygamous at one stage or another of our life. If you understand what polygamous truly is. Polygamous is "having more than one mate at a time; used of relationships and individuals"

Many who are castigating if not all have practised polygamy, either by dating more than one lady or guy at a time or sleeping with more than one mate at a time in this boyfriend-girlfriend relationships.

In the society of western hemisphere, their polygamic practice is about remarring over time in a life time such that a woman or man will be in fifth or tenth marriage having divorced previous ones. This is a loose practice of polygamy (the semi form).

Am sure some nairalanders who are now more europeanised or americanised would not see anything wrong in such re-marriage practice. All they condemn is one Mercy being married to a rich married guy and insinuation that she married him because he is rich. There are many poor polygamous families and even more than rich polygamous ones in Africa and Asia.

What is one man's meat is another's poison. The first wife couldn't have been able to stop the marriage irrespective of her opinions or objections, her only choice is to leave her husband. The painful truth is in matters of polygamy, it is the man who decides not theoly woman.

So if you are to condemn anyone, it has to be the man. Of course, women have choices to accept or not, the painful reality is women always accept. It takes two to tango. Polygamy is part of human being, no matter how it is practised. Once you have children from more than one spouse you are already in polygamy, once you have more than one boyfriend you are practising a lesser form of polygamy, once you are re married you are in semi polygamous relationship.

So hold your hating for the poor lady, I pray she gets her happiness there. Note also that polygamy has nothing to do with religion. Many christian families are polygamous as we have seen in muslim or traditional religious homes.

Please be informed and do not carry your personal sentiments too far.