₦airaland Forum

Stop arguing on everything.

If it is going to be built, it's going to be in the North.

BTW, if Nigerians do not patronize foreign goods and services, why are they popular?

Nobody force them down our throats, they make them attractive, trendy and sexy. Then use "freedom" to grease it down our throats to be known as "civilized".

You guys are something else talking about recent Professors at Harvard.

Check out Professor Adetokunbo Lucas of Global Health at Harvard and many before him.

You guys are funny, no be small.

Where is Federal character in all this. This is not fair o. Marginalization abi.

Nigerians hardly try. We find it easier to buy ready-made.

This is simply another avenue for their usual foreign contracts and of course naïve people will praise them. What is wrong with the suggestion of doing in Nigeria?

One tenth of the contract can be used to start one without cash cow as mentioned below.

Jason007:
the Chinese market just using us as a cash cow. now we reapply to buy new onces

Re: FG To Introduce Solar-Powered Keke And Motorcycles In 2019 by Amuocha: 7:03am

Useless move.

Get existing Keke
Mount solar panel on the top.
Get one inverter of 0.9 KVA
Put one dry cell battery 100 mAH
Connect the following: kick starter, full lamp, sound system and rear lights.
Carry and Go angry

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A country where the poorest follow the poorer and the poor to embolden leeches, looters and vagabonds for no reason other than - it is our money and our son.

Watch as he is welcomed back home with celebration.

Even Bode George had a Church Thanksgiving!

No matter how we look at it, this is an accomplishment no doubt. Is it available to all or those that can afford it.

Nigeria has a large population, even 10 or 20% of folks live better than most countries. It is not a reason to harbor the world poorest in any part of the country or Africa for that matter.

It is not good enough that some small percentage win individually and celebrate. Our shame and callousness is reflected in them

Having said all this, do we we want electricity for all just to become Chinese slaves as in Zambia?

All the money and Western or Arab civilization has only made Africa poorer than ever.

If the place is dirty, adulterated products, goods and chemicals, close it down. Dora Akiyunli did a great job and laid the example others must follow at the risk of her life.

But to close food and drinks manufacturers down base on competion with foreign goods like Snap compared to okokoro in 2019 is regressive.

This was how Ijebu made and Okrika made were given bloody labels so that foreign products could sell.

If it is a matter of expired or unregistered products, flood the place with inpectors to work with them, abeg.

His people are dirt poor yet looks up to his Political masters in France Ndi Ara.

Ivorian king 'upset' by Notre-Dame blaze, vows rebuilding contribution
Abdur Rahman Alfa Shaban
16/04 - 17:00
Ivory Coast

Citing strong links between his kingdom and France, an Ivorian king says he will contribute financially to the rebuilding of the ravaged Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.

King Amon N’Douffou V of Krindjabo, capital of the Sanwi Kingdom, in southeastern Ivory Coast said he was in consultations with his elders over the intended donation.

“I am in full consultation with my elders, we will make a donation for the reconstruction of this monument,” he told the AFP news agency.

The pictures (of the fire) disturbed my sleep and I could not spend the night, because this cathedral represents a strong link between my kingdom and France.


“The pictures (of the fire) disturbed my sleep and I could not spend the night, because this cathedral represents a strong link between my kingdom (the Sanwi, a French protectorate since July 1843) and France,” he added.

The royal oversees the Akan kingdom – large ethnic group that extends from Ivory Coast to Togo. The link he was referring to is of how a prince of the kingdom was in the 1700s taken to France and subsequently baptized in the cathedral.


Then 15-year-old Prince Aniaba was taken to France in 1687 by one Chevalier d’Amon as a pledge of fidelity to Louis XIV. He took the name of his godfather after baptism.

He became Louis Aniaba, before being appointed officer in the Royal Regiment, with the rank of captain.

Louis XIV honoured the prince with the “Order of the Star of Our Lady” and on February 12, 1701, he received the insignia of his order in Notre-Dame Cathedral before returning to Ivory Coast.

I am not sure what they mean by homegrown.

But if it introduces school children to garden farming as part of the curriculum and produce enough food to feed or supplement their meals, great.

The private schools should not wait for government to implement it in their schools.

This is what Tai Solari implemented in his school ages ago. Some schools actually implemented same also.

We must ditch this foreign bread and butter mentality and implement beans, garri, rice for our own cassava bread and akara.

That is carbohydrates and protein to feed our exploding population.

Wake up Africa.

Naijaguy123:
We need to be careful they don’t end up in Lagos under our bridges.

Best practices:

Advice - don't bet on it.

They are already loading on their way to Lagos, everyday nonstop. Go West Young man Go West!

When they leave Northwest, Northeast and Northcentral, where do they go? Lagos o!

Shey na today dem start?

Obi did worse, they called it best practices.

Fashola rehabilitated many in different homes in Lagos and reallocated the rest North and South. Only those brothers shouted murder after doing worse to their neighbors.

Here they go again.

Crooks striking out cases of crooks.

Oshodi, are your hands clean or you dey fear say you be next.

Even if it takes a devil to do it, Nigeria must be cleaned.

Always depend on mystical figures to deliver them when they can help themselves.

Heaven help those who help themselves.

Shango ko Abraham ni.

Until Police start arresting some of these pastors for fraud, desperate people looking for miracles will be taken advantage of.

In our desperate moment we are willing to part with anything for a cure.

None of these pastors have been able to cure Nigeria of it's malady.

Rhuwand has a cure for pastors.

No matter where you are in this world, nobody wants to shift battles to their motherland.

If you do not want it on your land, do not expect others to enjoy it.

Fair is fair battle on your own turf. Live or Leave my land in peace.

My problem is not Innoson. But he does not have what it takes to swallow his lender by hook or crook.


What I cannot understand is why Nigeria is still importing vehicles when Innoson and other local manufacturers have not run out of capacity.

We are just shooting ourselves left right and center. This is why other local industries cannot grow.

Nicholas Said, 1836-1882
The Autobiography of Nicholas Said, A Native of Bournou, Eastern Soudan, Central Africa
Memphis: Shotwell & Co., Publishers, 1873.
Summary

Despite being enslaved or indentured for much of his life, Mohammed Ali ben Said (later renamed Nicholas Said) traveled to five continents, learned to speak seven languages, served princes and diplomats, fought in the Union Army, and recorded the story of his life in his own words. Said was born in northern Africa, the thirteenth of his mother's nineteen children, and the son of a general in the Bornou army. When he was 12 or 13 years old, Said's father and three of his brothers were killed by an invading army from Bagirmey, and he went to live with Malam Katory, who taught him to write and speak Arabic. Approximately two years later, Said was enslaved by a "marauding tribe" and transported by horseback across the desert. From that day on, he served a series of masters, including Arabs, Turks, Russians, and a married couple from Dutch Guiana (now Suriname). After traveling the world for over twenty years, Said settled in St. Stephens, Alabama, where his narrative ends. His Autobiography was published in 1873, and according to one scholar, he died in 1882.

At 224 pages, Said's Autobiography is the longest extant slave narrative by an enslaved African Muslim. It is also the only North American slave narrative to describe travels on five continents. However, certainly facts about Said's birth and childhood have been contested by scholars. Although he claims he was born in "about the year 1836" (p. 9), historians Allan D. Austin and Tabish Khair estimate Said's actual birth date as 1831 or 1833. Said also states that he was born in "Kouka, the capital of the Kingdom of Bornou, in Soudan" (p. 9), but contemporary maps suggest that the capital city he describes as being "30 miles southward of the great lake Tzad" was probably located up to 1800 miles northeast of present-day Lake Chad, within what is now southeastern Libya (p. 26). An 1867 Atlantic Monthly article (cited by Allan Austin) claimed that Said served in a "colored [Union Army] regiment" from 1863-1865 and that he later "fell captive to woman [and] married at the South," although the version of Said's autobiography reproduced here omits those events. Indeed, for much of Said's life story we must rely solely on his account. This text clearly reflects a voracious intellect, a passion for travel and cultural interchange, and a dedication, as Said concludes his final chapter, to "do as much good as possible to [one's] fellow-man in this world" (p. 213).

Though some historians believe Said remained a practicing Muslim for most of his life, he begins his narrative by bemoaning the influence of "Mohammedanism," as well as the "desolation and ruin" he says it brought to Africa (p. 15). Said describes his childhood as being adversely influenced by a number of Muslim-led invasions and political intrigues. After his father and brothers' deaths, Said is captured by a group of Kindills (also known as Tuaregs), who sell him to an African Arab named Abd-El-Kader. He describes the torturous journey across the Sahara, during which he "suffered very much from heat and thirst" (p. 46). The "Sahara must be seen and felt to be realized," writes Said (p. 52).

After learning that Said is the son of a general, Abd-El-Kader treats him well, and at Said's request, he is sold to Abdy-Aga, a young officer in the Turkish "Pacha's army" (p. 55). The Turkish officer is a kind master, as is his father, Hadji Daoud, whom Said accompanies on his fourth pilgrimage to Mecca. Together they journey from Tripoli to Alexandria, to Cairo, to Khartoum, across Abysinnia (Ethiopia) to port cities in modern-day Eritrea and Somalia, and finally to (Saudi) Arabia. Observing railroads for the first time in Egypt, Said recalls, "I had seen so many wonderful and unexpected sights within the few previous years, that I think my organ of marvellousness had gone to sleep from sheer surfeit and exhaustion" (p. 78).

Unfortunately, when they return from Mecca, Daoud's store has burned to the ground, and he is forced to sell Said, who is purchased by Fuad Pacha, then Minister of the Interior for the Ottoman Empire. He is taken to Constantinople, where Pacha presents Said to his brother-in-law, Reschid, as a gift. "I began . . . to think that it was my fate to pass from hand to hand, with never a sure and definite resting place," writes Said (pp. 121-122). Said's fears are realized when he changes hands again, after a Russian diplomat, Prince Anatole Mentchikoff, "would not allow Reschid Pacha any rest until I was transferred to his possession" (p. 124). Mentchikoff brings Said back to Odessa, a Russian city on the Black Sea (now part of the Ukraine) and procures a tutor to teach Said Russian, which he describes as "the most difficult [language] I ever undertook" (pp. 128). After finding the treatment by Mentchikoff's other servants intolerable, he "enters the service" of Prince Nicholas Vassilievitch Troubetzkoy, a member of an eminent Russian family. One day as he is walking in St. Petersburg, Said observes "a distinguished looking individual, in full Russian uniform, approaching me" (p. 140). When Said removes his fez and stands "in the attitude of a soldier," the individual—who turns out to be Czar Nicholas I—claps him on the shoulder and comments "Malodetz," which Said translates as "smart boy" (p. 140).

Prince Troubetzkoy proves to be a demanding master, requiring Said to learn French and to convert to Orthodox Christianity. Though he initially resists "that vivacious tongue" and "the Greek faith," at length Said succumbs and is baptized in November 1855. On this momentous occasion, Said leaves his "Mohammedan name of Mohammed Ali Ben Said at the font, and [adopts] the Christian name of Nicholas" (pp. 142-145). The following year, Said sets out with the prince to tour Europe's great cities, including Vienna, Dresden, Munich, Heidelburg, Rome, Paris, and London. Said's travel notes regarding European politics, crime in Italian culture, comparative architectural styles, and potential successors to the papacy indicate the breadth and depth of his curiosity.

In exchange for his services, Prince Troubetzkoy grants Said permission to visit his native land for a year and gives him 300 pounds sterling. However, another traveler prevails upon Said to accompany him to the Americas, and, Said explains, "my fondness for travel asserted its supremacy" (p. 187). Therefore, he sets sail with De Sanddrost I.J. Rochussen of Dutch Guiana and his new wife, landing in the United States a few weeks later. (Said claims they arrived in 1867, but his military records and other evidence suggests the date was much earlier—possibly 1857.) After sailing to and around the Caribbean, Said and the Rochussens sail north to New York and proceed into Canada. In a small town north of Ottawa, Rochussen asks Said for a loan, claiming that his "remittance" is behind schedule. Rochussen promptly disappears with Said's 300 pounds, leaving him penniless. A local pastor loans him ten dollars and advises him to seek help in Detroit or Buffalo, where "there were a great number of colored people" (p. 200).

For a time, Said supports himself as a teacher in Detroit before moving to the South, "where I could be of great use to my benighted people" (p. 202). He lives in Charleston for a brief period, travels around the South teaching and speaking, and finally settles in St. Stephens, Alabama. "I felt an insurmountable desire to put an end to my peregrinations," Said writes (p. 209). Said concludes his biography with a tribute to the importance of education and self-denial, and restates his desire "to render myself useful to my race" (p. 212). His Autobiography also includes a "Supplementary Chapter" vaunting the effectiveness of Bladen Spring waters for treating "derangement of the liver" and other ailments, including "all Female Diseases" (p. 218). This addendum is included "at the request of several gentlemen"—perhaps as a precondition for publication (p. 214). As he recorded the story of his life, Said lamented that "Africa has been, through prejudice and ignorance, so sadly misrepresented, that anything like intelligence, industry, etc. is believed not to exist among its natives" (p. 14). His Autobiography and other texts like it attempt to rectify this misconception.

Works Consulted: Al-Ahari, Muhammad A., ed., Five Classic Muslim Slave Narratives, Chicago: Magribine Press, 2006; Austin, Allan D., African Muslims in Antebellum America: A Sourcebook, New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1984; "Evolution of the Map of Africa," Princeton University Library Digital Collections; Khair, Tabish, Other Routes: 1500 Years of African and Asian Travel Writing, Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2005; McQueen, James, A Geographical Survey of Africa: Its Rivers, Lakes, Mountains, Productions, States, Populations, &c., London: Frank Cass and Company, 1840 (reprinted 1969)

So the ostentatious and conspicuous display of wealth can be infectious. All the way to Ghana. South Sudan is next.

Wow, you guys are great. I learned a great deal from this discussion. The guy that claimed the only subjects you can learn well in Nigerian universities are Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa cracked me up. He reminds me of RKRKYORUBA!

After all these years the problems have not changed from this discussion. So it is not the problem of bad universities because even when Ibadan, Nsukka and Bello were well founded, we had this discussion.

Engineering pionts to the problems in all fields. I must point out that our universities, even up to today have been able to produce undergrads that do exceptional well in all fields abroad. They are so hungry for change, they beat Africans they meet abroad.

So what is the problem?

Universities up to PhD levels are introduction to your field of interests. What you do with it is up to you. There is no job in the wide world that fits exactly into your field of study. Use methods you learn to structure your projects, sometimes you may even discard what you learn or drop out to capitalize on your ideas.

While the distinction between universities and technical or politeychnics is true, Nigerians must learn how to discard it and roll up their sleeves. That mentality killed our development.

What about Nigerians that are building helicopters, tricycles and cars from scraps? Most of them are not PhD holders and have never left the country.

Yes, Chinese and Japanese copy, replicate and violate patent laws the same way Americans used to with Europeans. What is stopping Africans?

The biggest laboratory in the world is Africa, our environment where nothing works! Top professors used to come to Oluloyo Hospital in the summer to study Tropical diseases. How many engineers have, Ajaokuta, Carter Bridge, Kainji Dam produced?

Go to Eko Atlantic, foreign "experts" bocu.

My dear brothers Ohanaeze never dey carry las.

Which position una want naow since APC got in with una votes.

Oya, another milestone!

Igbo Amaka!

When you read comments like this, you feel hopeful that more Nigerians are becoming well and better informed.

Since Independence, what have all the foreign loans and investment got us. It's all vanity. If anything, we are poorer today than we ever were.

Foolish people think progress and civilization is duplicating everything in the Western and Eastern world in Africa while our very existence depends on their savation.

We will never get out of their loans until we learn how to stop prostituting our resources, develop and inrecrease our riches within.

Their riches came from our exploitation.

In a country of the blind, half illiterate like Reno that has no visible means of livelihood like many of his admirers must be worshiped.

What has he done, corrected or what life has he led to be so celebrated? Twitter grammar? There is another foreign head of state some of you worship that he needs to correct on twitter.

What has Wole Soyinka got to do with this o!

Yeye dey boom big time.

It still baffles many how Achebe who grew up at University of Ibadan, well liked and friendly, very accomplished could be the one to write that towards the end of his life.

Can anyone imagine how long he carried the grudge?

One has to be careful.

Na who know sey de man dey sifia pain.

You guys should realize this is a very young girl. After all some young girls wish for older men and volunctory marry men in their fathers image, sometimes Igwe, Oba or Emir. The last woman with Muhammed Ali had a crush on him since she was a little girl.

I only fault the girl for coming out and following the sickening practice that it was God and hard work like her elders do.

Please give her a break nah

Dis pastor just drove most of the honey birds rushing to enter hell.

What good is heaven without well sized dicks for service, eh?

In the first place, we do not have to eat everything because we are hungry.

You do not have to be white or whatever to realize wild uncommon animals colony could be preserved and resurrected by biologists creating more food in future. The same way there is fish farming today.

Killing rare plants and animals is dumb and regressive. A beg catch sense nah!

Nigeria banks are just taking advantage of a crude system tilted in favor of the crooks.

This RMAC or whatever created the jumbo pay a deposit allowance for politicians and claimed otherwise.

What is preventing them from reforming politicians pay now before the next House resume

I keep on reading about this new found love between South-South and South-East.

It very good indeed. After all Igbo or Western-Igbo as they used to call themselves have been elected governors from Osadebe to Amechi.

Biko, tell me why all the properties Igbo lost have not been returned to them or their children, except in the WEST you hate so much.

Haha, this is 2019 and counting.

Oh, wait until the coming of Igbo President. My brothers will get everything back plus interest.

AyosMan:
I keep laughing at d Yoruba people whenever I read their comments here....4real U want we d South-south to support ur greediness and self-centeredness. U people are so myopic in ur reasoning....Am an Urhobo man we will, never have anything to do with d Yorubas....U people are so full of yourselves....From Edo to Delta, to Bayelsa,to Rivers, to Akwa-Ibom and Cross River will never have anything to do with Yoruba people not after betraying our sons Jonathan and Onoghen....after stretched our neck to support ur own Obasanjo for good eight years.....in case people don't know even PDP as a party sees U as d worst region they cannever allow U yorubas to control d presidency again.....most people keep saying Yoruba are d problem of Nigeria and over d years U people have always proven that statement to be true....U people are very tribalistc and greedy......Any day any time we are solidly behind our Ibo Eastern brothers and sisters bcus, they are our true brothers and sisters..... God bless South-aouth and South east..

If this is what it takes to bring Igbo and Yoruba together, so be it.

I hope my Igbo relatives understand what Ooni of Ife means.

We all came from Ife. The Benin are denying their origin, Urhobo accept their Ife origin as the Itsekiri.

Even some Ijebu deny their origin as Ife.

All is well that ends well.

Welcome home my Igbo relatives.

REDshouse:
I think religion is the major problem in Nigeria....and the world beyond....


Can we try for once done away with religion...
Cant we proscribe all religious body and Organisation in Nigeria

You dis man mind yourself o!

If not with religion, na how Europeans and Arabs go catch una?

Use Maguzanchi, Chi or Ifa?