₦airaland Forum

Genius100: Mumu!!! If you get your Biafra, obviously your son will not qualify with a score of 104...

Wow! You really demolished his argument with that one-liner. You are really a genius for real

And lest we forget, and for the benefit of those that don't know their history, it was the same federal character and unity rationalization that led the NPC government led by then Defence Minister Ribadu in 1958 to lower the standard for entry into the officer corp of the military. And what did that give us? Buhari, Dimka, Abacha, Babangida and the entire violent crew that promptly proceeded to darken our political and economic landscape for decades and blighted the prospects of my generation and those of my kids

gbanikiti: To foster unity among different ethnic groups hasn't been achieved through NYSC either.

But why are we kidding ourselves here, though? Who seriously thinks such stuff are truly designed to "foster unity"?
In truth who really beieves in Nigerian unity?
How do we spend so much money to "foster unity" in education of our kids and still have "sabon garis" in cities where supposedly Nigerian citizens are labeled "strangers" and denied civic and political rights.
Where is the Unity in Lagos where just about all the legislative, executive and judicial posts are reserved for only people from a certain section of the country (see Lagos state website) who probably dont constitute a majority of the residents and are definitely a minority if you count from the value of property and other capital investment?
Where is the fruth of that unity investment where everyday you are faced with Nigerians from the topmost political leaders to the trolls on NL spewing cringing ethnic bigotry and strutting out pseudo-scientific stereotypes?

Sunny_bobo: That is what people don't understand. Unity schools were established after the civil war to foster unity among the various tribes. The idea was for the young students to mix with mates from other tribes and culture thereby promoting cultural assimilation and unity. Hence, equal number of slots are reserved for all states and that determines the cut off. Until the slot for a particular state is filled, the cut off keeps dropping even if it hits zero.

If the primary idea was "to foster unity among the various tribes", they could have achieved that by other means. Cultural exchanges would have done equally well.
Historically, Nigerian Unity Schools have been elite schools (much better than other public schools). Methinks that the only elitism valid in education ought to be the elite of brains, talent and aspirations.

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. The day the British colonial officials decided that the western values of meritocracy and the encouragement and celebration of initiative and industry could not possibly apply to savage West Africans, and therefore decided to impose an invidous bantustanism in Nigeria in the name of indirect rule, without even the dubious justification of racial differentiations, was the day that Nigeria's faith was sealed. Nigeria can only develop at the pace of Gombe, Borno and their sister states...that is the basis of Nigerian unity.

Sunny_bobo: This blood thirsty bigot can't stop shooting himself in the foot. He was able to label the January 15, 1966 coup as murder of political and military leadership of some parts of the country while not stating that the July 29, 1966 counter coup was aimed at killing of military and political leaders of a part of the country. A coup in which he Buhari murdered and supervised the murder of his colleagues.

Shameless bigot.

My brother, you got the history absolutely right there. Very surprising that Buhari would label the misguided but targeted killing of a handful of political and military leaders as murder but would call the wholesome and genocidal killing (and you are right, he was a prime participant) of hundreds of his colleagues and innocent civilians as counter-coup. It is saddening that he sees those events like that

A-ZeD:
Nairalanders are representatives of Nigeria and the politics section shows why the country is the way it is.

I kind of think that you are quite right. I think that Nigeria has somewhat debased our character and eroded our humanity. Take what is going on with the governors forum for example. This is a collegial club of 36 of the 37 most powerful CEOs in our public landscape and see what a show of shame they are playing out in public!

lagerwhenindoubt: Nairalanders are Nigerians and they represent a majority of Nigerians given that the 'True' Nigerians who can speak better for Nigeria do not even come online or make an impact enough to be noticed like Nairalanders do.so there you have it

I kind of dig that your moniker shaa - "lagerwhenindoubt". That definitely should work. I don't get your argument though - are you saying that the more civil and informed Nigerians generally avoid Nairaland or they don't have access to the internet?

Garri the 1st: Who's marginalizing them??

Why do these people always like playing the "victim's" card??

Mtscheeeww!!!

Jeeesh! Why do you hate igbos so?

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Andre Uweh: @The OP, NO to your question.
Check out most people who start threads such as Ikwerre are not Igbo or Anioma are not Igbo are mostly people who are not from those groups and enemies of Igbo unity.

Then, why are the moderators allowing such threads which seem to serve no purpose other than providing people with a platform to spew bigotry and expose their ignorance?

geeez: I think it is truly representative of Nigerians. I was at the airport in Enugu some weeks back waiting for a flight to Lgos and was chatting with this female Igbo passenger who is an unrepentant Yoruba hater. I was so shocked she could say to my face that she will do everything to ensure anyone sent to her branch (she's a banker as well) is laid off or transferred. She swore that over her dead body will any of her kids marry or have anything to do with any Yoruba person.

I just think Yoruba people have been too tolerant for too long

In a back-handed way, you seem to be confirming my suspicion. You first use an incident to make, in my view, a legitimate point. But you could not resist the urge to throw in some reverse bigotry of your own:"Yoruba people have been too tolerant for too long"

Gbawe: The main thing to appreciate is that Nairaland is specifically set-up to attract the dregs of society ditto it's "Jerry Springer" mien. Ultimately, illiterates and ignoramuses ready to fight naked in the market square provide the sort of entertainment and 'pull' the owner of this forum wants.

Look around you today to note that shallowness and controversy is what the world wants to be entertained with. In that respect, do not take this forum to be representative of Nigeria. There are other Nigerian forum where the degree of civility, knowledge and general intelligence is laudable. Naraland just happens to be a zoo where all sorts of wild animals, only fit for the most disorderly jungle, are allowed to act as offensively as they wish. 98% of m embers who post are only worth ignoring whereas in other forums, the figure may be under 15%.

You make some interesting point but I don't know why the people that run the forum will deliberately set out to attract the "dregs of society". Could it be that there business model is just to attract traffic to their website regardless of the quality? Could they possibly improve the quality and civility of the discourse if they make people use their real names instead of hiding under puerile aliases to spew hatred?
You say there other fora where Nigerians post with civility, could you point me to some? I go on saharareporters and the language is not much better.
I don't know, I am gradually coming to the sad conclusion that there's something wrong with our collective social psyche. I think Nigeria, in a tragic way, has sort of diminished us all. Just look at all the killings, and all the stealings and all the impunities and all the sexism and all the...you get my drift.

Please I am not trying to be facetious here. I am new to this forum but the more I follow some of the threads, especially in the Politics section, the more I wonder if the profiles I encounter on those threads are truly representative of Nigerian. Or have I stumbled into the "Jerry Springer" crowd of Nigerian public discourse? You know...the mouth-breathers, the flat-earthers and the low-information crowd. Doubt me? Just open any topic on the Politics section and most what you will see are people spewing raw bigotry and displaying a level of grasp of issues that would make my kindergartener son cringe.

I really do hope that the characters I have encountered here are not a true sampling of my compatriots, otherwise we are as doomed as the wooly mammoth. Or what do y'all think?

Ogoni militant: I would have challenged you on this issue but when I checked your profile, I realised you just became a member just last week. I now realised you are using a Igbo moniker to confuse Nigerians. You are a Muslim Arab no doubt about it. Please take your story to your people. We know you guys better. You are such a dimwit/ slowpoke. A defender of evil. You all will soon be exposed. I am very sure you are the same person as Onyeocha, if you like register in many names we can spot you.

Hahahahaha!!
I would have thought I kind of stumbled onto a gathering at the zoo if I didnt know my people (Nigerians) so well.
I will leave you all with another another paraphrase - Nature neither rewards virtue nor punishes vice consistently. What is inexorably and harshly punished is stupidity. A people who celebrate mediocrity in its public sphere will inexorably reap the harvest - insecurity, poor standards of living, etc.

For me, I have long learned to take anything coming from authority (especially Nigerian "authorities"!) with a pinch of salt. That is the only way I keep my sanity. A little skepticism will do us a whale of good in our public space.
For one I have seen those pictures and I wonder what a foreign "terrorist" group would be doing with all those rusted ordinance that is at best suited for a light infantry outfit. I would have felt less sceptical if those people were found with more sophisticated arms more suited to a tiny terrorist cell such as RPGs, shoulder fired missiles, IEDs. Or maybe this is not just a tiny cell of foreign terrorists but the armoury of a nascent mass milita that has been uncovered, then we need to see where the investigation uncovers recruiting and training assets of this group.
Secondly, I would be curious to know what hezbollah is doing being very active in a theater so far from its area of interest. Even a cursory knwledge of this group will show that (like the hamas in palestine)hezbollah is primarily and overwhelmingly focused on local lebanese issues and matters within the immediate neighbourhood. This group came into being specifically to fight the isreali invasion and occupation of southern lebanon in the early 80s and has since remained a player in the byzantine politics of that tragic nation.
We need to ponder some questions on this matter - could it be possible that those guys arrested are "hezbollah" just because they are lebanese? Is it possible that these guys are just equal-opportunity merchants and middlemen of light infantry weaponry which has developed a major market in nigeria? (Remember the niger-delta weapons purchase from some army men in kaduna?). Lets not lose sight of the fact that the Lebanese have been known to be not very scrupulous in the business dealings they dabble into their philosophy seeming to be "if the price is right.
We just need to ask the hard questions is all I am saying.
Even more important and very troubling is that if a cell of a "foreign terrorist" organization" has been found as claimed in this story actively stockpiling weapons and apparently recruiting in Nigeria, such discovery should send shockwaves through Nigerian officaldom. Such discovery should be well beyond the paygrade of a military JTF and its spokesman and we should be hearing from the President, the national security adviser and the leadership of the National assembly on the extent of this development and government's plans to deal with it.
Just saying!!

all4naija: You should see the weapons used by rebels in Syria and some used in Libya how rusted they are or were. Many use solvent solution to clean the rust weapons just to make them work at all. You don't know what those rusted munitions are capable of, my friend.

I think it was Alan Derbowitz that said something to this effect - If you have the law on your side pound it into the table; if you have the facts on your side pound into into the table; if you have neither the law nor the facts on your side, pound the table into the ground!

My brother, my refernce to the state of those weapons does not have even a tangenital relation to the thrust of my argument. Could it be you picked on the word "rusted" because you could not refute my argument or is it just that maybe either you or I do not belong in this forum?

For me, I have long learned to take anything coming from authority (especially Nigerian "authorities"!) with a pinch of salt. That is the only way I keep my sanity. A little skepticism will do us a whale of good in our public space.
For one I have seen those pictures and I wonder what a foreign "terrorist" group would be doing with all those rusted ordinance that is at best suited for a light infantry outfit. I would have felt less sceptical if those people were found with more sophisticated arms more suited to a tiny terrorist cell such as RPGs, shoulder fired missiles, IEDs. Or maybe this is not just a tiny cell of foreign terrorists but the armoury of a nascent mass milita that has been uncovered, then we need to see where the investigation uncovers recruiting and training assets of this group.
Secondly, I would be curious to know what hezbollah is doing being very active in a theater so far from its area of interest. Even a cursory knwledge of this group will show that (like the hamas in palestine)hezbollah is primarily and overwhelmingly focused on local lebanese issues and matters within the immediate neighbourhood. This group came into being specifically to fight the isreali invasion and occupation of southern lebanon in the early 80s and has since remained a player in the byzantine politics of that tragic nation.
We need to ponder some questions on this matter - could it be possible that those guys arrested are "hezbollah" just because they are lebanese? Is it possible that these guys are just equal-opportunity merchants and middlemen of light infantry weaponry which has developed a major market in nigeria? (Remember the niger-delta weapons purchase from some army men in kaduna?). Lets not lose sight of the fact that the Lebanese have been known to be not very scrupulous in the business dealings they dabble into their philosophy seeming to be "if the price is right.
We just need to ask the hard questions is all I am saying.
Even more important and very troubling is that if a cell of a "foreign terrorist" organization" has been found as claimed in this story actively stockpiling weapons and apparently recruiting in Nigeria, such discovery should send shockwaves through Nigerian officaldom. Such discovery should be well beyond the paygrade of a military JTF and its spokesman and we should be hearing from the President, the national security adviser and the leadership of the National assembly on the extent of this development and government's plans to deal with it.
Just saying!!

Let's put this in perspective please. This is an electorate of 36 of the foremost political leaders of the country, voting for an office that is strictly ceremonial without any executive, legislative or judicial functions. And some still believe that we are making some progress?
I have said it before, the one and only problem bedeviling Nigeria without any contributing factors is that people do not act in good faith. We have become so denuded of character in our private and public activities that he have totally lost all sense of decency.

odumchi: I miss the calm, soothing aura of the countryside; the enticing smell of the hawkers' roasted corn; the sweet, honey-like aroma of fresh grass and morning dew; and the all-natural, fresh evening breeze which would fuel or nightly chats.

I remember the days when my friends and I would innocently shake fruit trees in the hopes of a delicious treat. More vividly, I remember how we would spend the hot afternoons playing and aimlessly roaming about, and the powerless evenings in the company of wise elders, as we listened to tales of the heroes of old.

Chai. Ndaa kwan? Where has all the time gone?

You must live in London or Dubai if you "miss the calm, soothing aura of the [nigeria] countryside". Me I go there to gawk at the human sea that is Obalende or Ojuelegba or Onitsha head bridge.

Of course!! But seriously Nija is one huge real disneyland for adults!! A land where anything could just happen and all manner of bizzare stuff go on. When I am there, I never quit marveling at the seeming formlessness of the entire landscape. I think Picasso would have been an even bigger genius if he had experienced the tapestry of the Nigerian physical and social-cultural landscape

2legit2qwt:

smh @ Nigerian girls. Well you know they are after your pocket

Listen, I am 45 and have seen better days but whenever I am in nija I have all these pretty young girls hovering all over me like flies. It always takes all the sense of proportion and self-dprecation I could muster to convince myself that it is the $$$ I supposedly have that was bringing on that, not that I had suddenly been transformed into some adonis on the trans-atlantic flight. Lol!!. I do miss all that shaa. Nija na la-la land for this Peter Pan for sure.

Didn't the World Bank dismiss this project as "white elephant" decades back? The only honest solution to this plant is to allow whoever has markets for the outdated soviet era machinary to quickly dismantle and cart off the stuff so the land could be quickly returned to the farming for which the indigenes of the area are better adapted to. Wish the Sardauna is still alive today to see the end result of his hatred and jealousy towards the more industrious peoples of Nigeria!!

All I can say is that if a guy can turn into a goat when being pursued for stealing a bicycle, then anything is possible in this fantasyland called Nigeria. Until we start to reason again, we can never found solutions to the myriad problems that have corroded our public space. N600m ko! And these are the leaders in the apparatus we are assembling to defeat global islamic terrorism in Nigeria? God help us all!!!