₦airaland Forum

taiwoakin: You guy should stop posting nonsense

Christians have started inputing religion into politics dy demanding the next Governor of the state must be a Christian. The last 2 Governors were not elected because they were muslims neither did the Muslims demand they be elected because of their religion. They got there purely by politics and merit.

Muslims are asking for their constitutional right to religious freedom. Freedom to practice our religion without any discrimination whatsoever.
I wont go into discussing the merits or demerits of the hijab because that is not the bone of contention, the bone of contention is that Muslims in lagos are demanding fair treatment.

The condition for Muslim support for any candidate will be based on religious freedom for Muslims.

To christians disparaging the use of hijab, ask historians how mary the mother of Jesus dressed
Maybe you should stop your children's education because some educated people ended up as "useless to society"

Are you saying Lagos muslims have been treated unfairly cos that would be very untrue.

Nobody knew Mary the mother of Jesus dressed anyway and covering the hair could have been the norm in the middle east during that period not necessarily because of religion.

tosin2013: bros, you fail! no candidate who does not expressly declare his support for the hijab will be voted for!!! and this is no empty threat, there are already lots of underground work going on. if state govt in ekiti can allow hijab easily there is no reason for the stupid from lagos fashola you just wait and see!

And what if the two main candidates don't support the hijab wearing, what would you do?
Maybe migrate to a sharia friendly state or country

Happy Birthday to you *singing Obey*
On this occasion of yours Eggheaders baba
Happy birthday to you, wishing you happy returns.

Apatheist: True, but I think the motive is religious and not economic.
Wahabism, which is an early modern movement arising out of the alliance between Abd Al Wahab and the Al Saud[ progenitors of Saudi Arabia]
It follows that the Saudi Royal family is Wahabbi.
Also, Wahab himself was iconoclastic
They aren't a cult, but they have been regarded as religious fanatics for much of their history, such as when they forcibly put down by Muhammad Ali Pasha in the 19th century. The Wahabis do, however, generally disdain artifacts generally, and can be called basically iconoclastic, but they aren't a cult, they're the official religious ideology of Saudi Arabia.
And so I disagree with the writer when he says this:

It is not necessarily a hatred of history, but perhaps as TunjiMsp put it, Civilization.

Also this part:

Iconoclastic, but not hatred.
Tl;Dr:
This part explains the mind of the Saudi Royal family.

Isn't there a fundamental contradiction in Islam forbidding or ridiculing idolatory while making it mandatory to pray (looking) to Mecca,doing the Hajj as well as bowing before the Kabba? At a symbolic level, aren't the aforementioned the same - idol worship (pretty much symbols) and Mecca/the mandatory trip and the stoning of the devil thing all kinda idolatory?

TunjiMsp: It's called civilisation not destruction , those structures were built to reflect the development @ that time, but if they feel changes need to be done so be it, you can't expect those old structure to accommodate the ever increasing number of pilgrims.

The destruction of historical buildings is more about removing anything that doesn't match fundamentalist Salafist thought. The construction of the clock tower hotel has everything to do with symbolizing domination, wealth and arrogance. It is a symbol that even Islam and the clerics are subservient to the Royal Family.

Apatheist: Maybe it has to do with the Wahabbi principles of the Saudi royal family

Now that they have 'Wahabbanised" the Holy Cities, the rent accrues to their estates since the royal al Saud family and their acolytes own most of the concrete jungles built overt the historical Islamic sites that they so wantonly destroyed to bring their version of Islam to "modern" standards.

Interesting that the Saudis seek modernization materially while striving for antiquity morally and culturally. Is it ironic, or are they trying to cloak their backward-looking values and social structure in modern garb?

The Destruction of Mecca

WHEN Malcolm X visited Mecca in 1964, he was enchanted. He found the city “as ancient as time itself,” and wrote that the partly constructed extension to the Sacred Mosque “will surpass the architectural beauty of India’s Taj Mahal.”

Fifty years on, no one could possibly describe Mecca as ancient, or associate beauty with Islam’s holiest city. Pilgrims performing the hajj this week will search in vain for Mecca’s history.

The dominant architectural site in the city is not the Sacred Mosque, where the Kaaba, the symbolic focus of Muslims everywhere, is. It is the obnoxious Makkah Royal Clock Tower hotel, which, at 1,972 feet, is among the world’s tallest buildings. It is part of a mammoth development of skyscrapers that includes luxury shopping malls and hotels catering to the superrich. The skyline is no longer dominated by the rugged outline of encircling peaks. Ancient mountains have been flattened. The city is now surrounded by the brutalism of rectangular steel and concrete structures — an amalgam of Disneyland and Las Vegas.

The “guardians” of the Holy City, the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the clerics, have a deep hatred of history. They want everything to look brand-new. Meanwhile, the sites are expanding to accommodate the rising number of pilgrims, up to almost three million today from 200,000 in the 1960s.

The initial phase of Mecca’s destruction began in the mid-1970s, and I was there to witness it. Innumerable ancient buildings, including the Bilal mosque, dating from the time of the Prophet Muhammad, were bulldozed. The old Ottoman houses, with their elegant mashrabiyas — latticework windows — and elaborately carved doors, were replaced with hideous modern ones. Within a few years, Mecca was transformed into a “modern” city with large multilane roads, spaghetti junctions, gaudy hotels and shopping malls.

The few remaining buildings and sites of religious and cultural significance were erased more recently. The Makkah Royal Clock Tower, completed in 2012, was built on the graves of an estimated 400 sites of cultural and historical significance, including the city’s few remaining millennium-old buildings. Bulldozers arrived in the middle of the night, displacing families that had lived there for centuries. The complex stands on top of Ajyad Fortress, built around 1780, to protect Mecca from bandits and invaders. The house of Khadijah, the first wife of the Prophet Muhammad, has been turned into a block of toilets. The Makkah Hilton is built over the house of Abu Bakr, the closest companion of the prophet and the first caliph.

Apart from the Kaaba itself, only the inner core of the Sacred Mosque retains a fragment of history. It consists of intricately carved marble columns, adorned with calligraphy of the names of the prophet’s companions. Built by a succession of Ottoman sultans, the columns date from the early 16th century. And yet plans are afoot to demolish them, along with the whole of the interior of the Sacred Mosque, and to replace it with an ultramodern doughnut-shaped building.

The only other building of religious significance in the city is the house where the Prophet Muhammad lived. During most of the Saudi era it was used first as a cattle market, then turned into a library, which is not open to the people. But even this is too much for the radical Saudi clerics who have repeatedly called for its demolition. The clerics fear that, once inside, pilgrims would pray to the prophet, rather than to God — an unpardonable sin. It is only a matter of time before it is razed and turned, probably, into a parking lot.


The cultural devastation of Mecca has radically transformed the city. Unlike Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo, Mecca was never a great intellectual and cultural center of Islam. But it was always a pluralistic city where debate among different Muslim sects and schools of thought was not unusual. Now it has been reduced to a monolithic religious entity where only one, ahistoric, literal interpretation of Islam is permitted, and where all other sects, outside of the Salafist brand of Saudi Islam, are regarded as false. Indeed, zealots frequently threaten pilgrims of different sects. Last year, a group of Shiite pilgrims from Michigan were attacked with knives by extremists, and in August, a coalition of American Muslim groups wrote to the State Department asking for protection during this year’s hajj.

The erasure of Meccan history has had a tremendous impact on the hajj itself. The word “hajj” means effort. It is through the effort of traveling to Mecca, walking from one ritual site to another, finding and engaging with people from different cultures and sects, and soaking in the history of Islam that the pilgrims acquired knowledge as well as spiritual fulfillment. Today, hajj is a packaged tour, where you move, tied to your group, from hotel to hotel, and seldom encounter people of different cultures and ethnicities. Drained of history and religious and cultural plurality, hajj is no longer a transforming, once-in-a-lifetime spiritual experience. It has been reduced to a mundane exercise in rituals and shopping.

Mecca is a microcosm of the Muslim world. What happens to and in the city has a profound effect on Muslims everywhere. The spiritual heart of Islam is an ultramodern, monolithic enclave, where difference is not tolerated, history has no meaning, and consumerism is paramount. It is hardly surprising then that literalism, and the murderous interpretations of Islam associated with it, have become so dominant in Muslim lands.

Ziauddin Sardar is the editor of the quarterly Critical Muslim and the author of “Mecca: The Sacred City.”

MayorofLagos: by 'our folks', do you mean Ibo people?

We need a study and revelation of what was going in Ibo territory in 1891. I would love to do a mythbuster on it.

i found some documentation of Lander talking about Ibo but its not lengthy. Its like hunting rabbit and then an ant crawled up your foot and so you mentioned it as a passing episode in your narrative on the rabbit hunt.

You know them already

Hmmm Ibos in 1891 Bro don't waste your time they were inconsequential in the grand scheme of things during that period, Ijaws,Itshekiris et al had more clout TBH.

I'm always available to bust their myths tho

Mr 'no shoes' clearly loves to play dress up, I guess he didn't join boy scout in his school days.

Didn't see any figures of our folks from across the niger, but as at 1966 they numbered 50,000 in Lagos, many fled to the east at the outbreak of the civil war,but after the civil war they came in their thousands and the trend hasn't ceased.
#JustSaying #OkBye

Missy89: Dont forget his war crimes in East Timor. Aiding and abetting the Indonesians

Yeah he has a long rap sheet,also atrocities commited all over central america in the name of flushing out communists.

Missy89: This twerp couldn't even get a helicopter to fly into Iran. so how was he going to wipe them off exactly?

Lol since he knew the hostages would have well have been wiped off also, what's the wisdom in saying that now? Anyway his failures ushered in Reagan who wasn't all that TBH. He gave illegal immigrants amnesty though.

Those Mr nice guys are the ones who commonly get friend zoned, FFS if you're gonna ask her out cut out the drama and go straight to the point, it might turn out to be a win win situation or lose lose, but who cares?

Missy89: Wow!

Nigerians (majority) are the most uncivilized type of specie to ever exist!. just take a look at the comments here and you will have all the prove you need.

very disgusting and appalling. Their stupidity knows no bound, both male and female.

Why they are rejoicing exactly is very cofusing

Are you actually suprised at the appalling comments? What a bunch of pathetic humans.
I'm more worried about the stupidity that prevails cos its very contagious.
SMH

chlowi: The comments on this thread are just so Funny ... but on a. More Serious note this dude orit...m(sorry can't spell his name) is just too controversial

Hourglass

All these god of men and pastorpreneurs in Nigeria feasting on the warped minds of their gullible followers.
SMH

EnlightenedSoul: They deserved it. I mean, the sheer amount of filth displayed in the video is unparalleled.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTSp5hJELOo

Although they went a bit overboard with things considering the laws in Iran, but me thinks the punishment was a bit harsh.

Missy89: Its is now getting funny really. I am getting hate emails as well

Well it all sums up what you wrote on your signature, that's NL for you
If you don't come aboard their hypocrisy ship they'll go gangster on you.

Missy89: is that why i am a cow?

do you know the difference between a tribalist and a nationalist or u are just another 5hit head on nairaland?

I know you trying to stay out of the war but they keep drawing you in *in Michael Corleones voice.

hercules07: Please read up on those countries before spouting nonsense, China that has been around for over 3000 years, the Persians, the Indians did not have great universities? Please remove Emeagwali from that list, the guy is a fraud, Innoson is a business man, he is no better than the Alaba boys.

You'll know some Nigerian youths are fed some shit inducing dogma when in this day and age people still mention Emeagwali
The dudes been outed as a fraud for years now.
Seriously!!!

shymexx: I'm guessing that Nigeria perhaps lobbied Israeli arm contractors - to use their influence to see if Boeing can sell Chinook to naija - but it was blocked.

The list of the countries with Chinook is an exclusive league, save for Iran - and Iran got the helicopter and other American weapons it has during the Shah period of the 70s, when Iran was very close to the US - before the Iranian revolution.

Anyway, since Chinook is just a transport helicopter, they might be able to get it if they can lobby through the right channels, and pay tons of money as bribe, to lobby groups. But that's the highest they'll get.

The whole story just doesn't add up, I don't believe the Nigerian govt intended to get any chinook helicopters, since when did it become a priority to acquire transport helicopters to fight insurgents within our borders?

The helicopter costs between $18-25m depending on the variant and modifications , the UK bought 14 chinooks for $1bn couple of years back so either used or new I doubt Nigeria would spend that much on transport helicopters when their assault rifles,fighter jets and attack helicopters are almost obsolete.

A simple search on Google of the Israeli airforce inventory would confirm they have never had the chinook in their fleet of helicopters. Thisday newspaer is a propaganda wing of the PDP so I wasn't suprised at their moronic article confirmed by some dumb unnamed Nigerian official, I guess some deluded posters must be feather brained to still believe all that balderdash spewed by this clueless administration.

shymexx: Sad.

If the country lack intellectuals - at least there should be book readers who should be able to discern what the other powerhouses in Africa (South Africa, Egypt, and Algeria) are doing and copy that. Just get the book readers with all kinds of qualifications to copy that, and start something from there. It's just nauseating to read nonsense excuses like this one all the time.

The world is changing - and the next century belongs to the developing world. The rise of China has changed the dynamics of geopolitics forever, and you need to position yourself to benefit from that, or lose out. America knows it's almost game over - and even the EU is moving towards China, to create a balance. The BRICS are coming.

Unfortunately the ministry of foreign affairs is filled with incompetent feather brains.Most of the diplomats are just clueless and nobody is reviewing our foreign policy. The few good ones have retired .Its full of politicians now who are compensated with ambassadorial postings, the few diplomats are eventually rendered redundant.
Foreign ministers or secretaries as the case may be are very important posts in any sane country but Nigeria reserves it for some silly and uncharismatic party buffoon.

shymexx: Nothing has changed about Nigeria IMO. The only two periods Nigeria wasn't pro-West were: when the Murtala guy was killed, and the period when it was sanctioned. Apart from those two periods, the country has always been super-duper pro-West and supremely pro-American. Nigeria isn't part of the emerging powers sphere - it's under America's choke-hold. And isn't your Finance Minister part of the Rockefeller foundation? Also, the last time I checked, Nigeria still lined up behind America at the UN - Egypt which is a proper American ally didn't even do that.

The country has no foreign policy, and I doubt it has ever had one. Hence I'll always question the intelligence of those ruling Nigeria. Just schmucks running around with blinkered brain cells, labelling themselves diplomats. You'd think a country as big as Nigeria would have one - but it doesn't. Algerian foreign policy is there for all to see. Ditto Egypt and South Africa.

Nigerias foreign policy if we can call it that hasn't changed since independence to reflect the times and the dynamics at play in international diplomacy at present.

I don't see what all the fuss is about honestly, since when has the US ever sold us military hardware They only give us some WW2 era frigates and destroyers they've struck off the inventory of the US navy and the coast guard to patrol our coastal waters

BH or no BH we were never going to get chinooks or apache helicopters, and those weapons are not going to be the determinant factor in annihilating BH. Our military hardware are sourced from Russia,Ukraine,Belarus,China in recent years.

I know the political inclinations of Thisday newspapers lay with the current govt so I wouldn't put it past this administration trying to blame the US. In international relations there are no permanent foes or friends its all national interests.

What is our national interest and what's our foreign policy

In the words of Mussolini writing to Hitler after the defeat at Stalingrad " In my opinion Russia can never be annihilated, she is defended by her very size,her territory is so vast that it can never be conquered or held" he continued "the Russian chapter is over we should make peace with Stalin"

Napoleon's grande army could testify to what happened to them in 1812 Berezhina.

THAT Lagos city hotels charge the highest room rates in Africa is certainly not surprising given the parlous state of the nation’s infrastructure and the ambience for any kind of business. No wonder Nigeria ranks far below many African countries in global competitiveness. This high cost of hotel rooms in Lagos and indeed other cities in the country is a disincentive to investment and tourism development which should be addressed as part of a wholesome effort to create an enabling  economic environment.

   According to the Lagos State Hotel Licensing Authority, there are about 2,500 hotels and other hospitality establishments in the state. And a recent investigation of the room rates of four international hotels in Lagos in comparison with their rates in other African cities revealed that the rates are much higher in Lagos than in the other African countries. The hotels are Southern Sun, Intercontinental, Radisson Blu and Sheraton. These hotels have operations in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Lusaka, Zambia; Maputo, Mozambique; Dar-es-Salam, Tanzania and Balaclava, Mauritius.

   While a standard room in Southern Sun is N25,000 in Johannesburg; N36,000 in Lusaka; N38,000 in Nairobi and N45,000 in Maputo, the same room goes for N62,000 in Lagos. Again, while the same hotel charges N24,000 for Executive Room in Nairobi and N61,000 in Johannesburg, the same room costs N70,000 in Lagos.

   For Intercontinental, a Superior/Executive room costs N24,000 in Nairobi and N54,000 in Johannesburg, but the same hotel charges N62,000 in Lagos. Radisson Blu’s Standard Guest Room costs N19,000 in Johannesburg but N49,000 in Lagos. The Business Class Room in Radisson Blu is charged N24,000 in Johannesburg but N69,000 in Lagos.

   As for Sheraton, while Classic Room goes for N16,000 in Pretoria, it costs N47,000 in Lagos. In the same hotel, a Club Room goes for N39,000 in Pretoria but N57,000 in Lagos. The cost of a Diplomatic Suite is N149,000 in Pretoria but N248,000 in Lagos. From the foregoing, the price difference is as high as 148 per cent. This huge difference has been attributed by hoteliers to the forces of demand and supply who claim there are very few of such branded hotels in Lagos and visitors especially foreigners, tend to choose one of those brands that they or their company is associated with. So a premium is charged since the demand is higher than the supply. 

   While this may seem plausible, it is absolutely not enough justification for such huge difference in hotel room rates in Lagos compared to other African cities. And to say that customers are ready to pay such a ridiculous high premium in order to experience a perceived high standard service smacks of a certain exploitative tendency on the part of those hotels. Perhaps, a more acceptable reason for the exorbitant rates is Nigeria’s peculiar environment which makes operational costs for any business very high. At the recent Second Nigeria Tourism and Investors Forum and Exhibition held in Abuja by the Federation of Tourism Association of Nigeria (FTAN), stakeholders understandably submitted that the cost incurred in running hotels in Nigeria is “outrageously high”.

   Because of shortage of basic amenities such as electricity and water, most hotel operators now install their own transformers and generating sets as well as dig independent boreholes and install water treatment plants. Besides, hotel owners invest huge sums on security that government has failed to guarantee in the country. The result of these  costs is an increase in hotel charges in Nigeria. And the tragedy is that this poor business environment in the hotel sub-sector is the same in all other sectors of the economy. Industrial production and services have been ruined as a result of such unfriendly environment. 

  No doubt, infrastructure, particularly power and transportation, must be addressed before any meaningful progress can be made in Nigeria. Power supply has hardly ever risen above 4000 megawatts in the last decade while South Africa is producing over 45,000 megawatts of power. It is not surprising, therefore, that of the four hotels surveyed, room rates are lowest in South Africa.  

   For Nigeria to be competitive, basic infrastructure must be put in place for the cost of services to reduce.  All the pretensions to being the destination of choice for investors are nothing more than that. Until an enabling environment is enthroned with adequate infrastructure and sound policy framework, Nigeria will remain below par, her potentials will remain unrealised, while consumers will helplessly continue to bear exploitative tendencies in the economy.

Nihilist: I'm not sure you got the gist of that statement.

Yes I got your point of view and quite frankly I wished for a YES vote, but the Scots have always been part and parcel of the British empire as they expanded into new frontiers.

Its a complicated union albeit the Scots have always gotten the shorter end of the stick and as someone said on here its a clear case of stockholm syndrome,the union was never in danger of breaking up until the polls that showed the YES votes were in the lead and then the rest was left for the media to sway opinions and a lot of scare mongering tactics employed by BBC,CNN,New York times and other mainstream media just about put paid to that dream.

Nihilist: Bank of England already said Scotland wouldn't have kept the pound. And RBS and co only threatened to move their registered address and not operations.

The people who voted No are disgraceful. This was a once in a lifetime chance to emerge from the shadow of their colonial masters that has lingered for the last thousand years....

I just hope that the great Yoruba nation gets such a chance in my lifetime. We must leave this ugly faulty contraption called Niggerarea

Scotland were avid colonisers - even more than the English. Check out the histories of Africa, Canada, New Zealand, etc - the Scots were at the forefront of Britain's imperialism. In fact Scotland united with England 300 years ago when it's colony in Panama failed, causing the country to go bust. Don't forget also that the Commonwealth of former colonies is still going - they just had a lovely celebration and in fact countries that weren't former colonies are trying to join.
History is complex.

The existence of House of Lords contradicts the view of the UK as a democracy. Now the result is NO, I hope the whole UK stands up and demands a federal system that gives real power to their four nations while retaining common defence and foreign policy.

The English decimated the Scottish way of life and their country when they finally took over in the 1700s. They did the same in Ireland. What right had they to invade these countries and simply take over their people and the resources? Well, they had a good cruel army and the most sophisticated equipment of the time. Does that sound familiar in this day and age?

You can't blame Scotland for wanting to be independent. Ireland fought hard for it's independence and until recently were still battling extremist factions in their country who wanted the whole of Ireland free of England, although that was not to be.

I can't blame the Scottish for wanting independence. If the answer is yes, it will take decades probably for the Scottish to find their feet, but in the end, I'm sure they will manage just fine, as Ireland did. If they vote no, the easiest route, they will get a little more autonomy but still will rely on England's government once again. But they still will have won some of the battle.