₦airaland Forum

@EzeUche,

I maintain though that we have to be careful when we talk about going back to "traditional borders." The times we live in now are much different than the times our ancestors grew up in. Geographies have changed, and in some areas, demographics. For instance, to return to "traditional borders," Bosnian Serb soldiers massacred 8000 Bosniaks in Srebrenica, just so they could gain a homogeneous area of Serbs stretching from the Serbian border to the town.

Creating opportunities for trade and dialog with other tribes may be a much better way to facilitate the type of change that our continent needs. Even, we may be able to utilize the connections created by dealing with other tribes and ethnicities - much as Ndi Aro did, but in a positive way.

tensor777:
^^I thought that you yourself had already outlined the blueprint for economic development in your first reply. We are talking about things like the establishment of free trade zones and the development of lines of communication within Africa that would facilitate such trade.

So we would envisage cities and towns within Africa becoming more and more multicultural and multiethnic in such a scenario.

On the other hand talking about creating mono-ethnic fiefdoms throughout Africa is just retrogressive and reactionary and reminds me of Adolf Hitler and his doomed Lebensraum policy.

Now see, this is what you should have posted in your previous reply, it would have given us a bit more perspective and kept things clear. I am sorry if I came off a bit brash. To be honest, I wholeheartedly agree with the need to create free-trade zones and lines of communication.

Ileke-IdI:
Trust me. If I suspect an unknown package by my house, they'll be the last ppl I'll think to call.

Agreed. What I want to know is who trained the trainers doing the training? O_o

@Bilymuse, giwa kwanu? I bu onye Igbo choro i bu onye Hausa, eh? Maka obu ndi Igbo na-eme ihe ojo nile na-ebu Nigeria, eh? Gwam.

tensor777:
Nevertheless hell itself would have to freeze over before your maniacal vision for africa in general and Nigeria in particular comes to pass.

What then is less maniacal, the African continent remaining in its current state, stagnant and devoid of economic will? Even in your disagreement, you could have at least laid out clearly what you thought was wrong with his approach, while remaining in the spirit of dialog and keeping things cordial. But the most you could do was throw adjectives at him. So this is my say: whereas he had one, you have no solutions; and perhaps hell itself will freeze over if the future of Africa is to be governed by men with no foresight.

The whole debt collection thing is a myth. The men are "Gadawan Kura" which is Hausa for "hyena handlers/guides." They make a living by being medicine men to the superstitious who take their ability to handle the hyenas as a sign of their potency. I want a hyena.

Lol EzeUche, it's true, I won't deny it! But you have to agree, when they weren't fighting each other, they were conducting a large amount of trade with each other and not only of goods, but of their culture and their values. The way that the European Union has reached its current state is the direct result of this. Western Europe has begun to apply what its history has taught it and is learning to tolerate each other. Africa needs to do the same! But maybe, Nigeria first.

ChinenyeN:
They don't share a consciousness. Consciousness is identity. Ethnicity is about identity. If they don't identify with each other like that (if they don't recognize themselves as sharing a consciousness with each other), then you cannot really call them an ethnic group.

Now this is the perfect explanation. At the national level, European tribes self-identify e.g. an Englishman won't call himself a Frenchman, but at the International level, Western Europe acts as one.

EzeUche:
ikenwan,

I agree with what you have said, but the question is, why do people in Europe are given the opportunity to have homogenous or close to homogenous nations. Germans live in Germany, Italians live in Italy, French live and France etc. These nations are based solely on one major ethnic group.

I know people like to argue that Africa is made up of many tribes, but a lot of these tribes have no business being made into a seperate ethnic group when they all speak the same language or just a different dialect. The example I like to use is the Ibibio. Efiks, Ibibio, Calabari and I believe Ogoni all speak the same language, but people act like they are different ethnic groups. They are one of the same.

Their homogeneity isn't due to their being of the same ethnic group. In Germany alone, there are several different backgrounds. There are the German Deutsch who speak the German language we know, there are the Dutch from the Netherlands, the Yiddish speakers,  Frisian speakers, Danes, and even some who speak the old Frankish language of the French people (this is also the language that "Dutch" came from). English fits into this category. They may all be descendants of ancient Germanic peoples, but their ethnic identities are different today.

Similarly, France and Italy aren't homogeneous because there citizens all come from the same tribes. In France, you don't only have the French national language, but you have German speakers, Italian speakers, Spanish speakers, and you have Occitan, Provencal, and a whole lot of other mixed languages that are hybrids of Germanic/Celtic/Latin languages.

Europe's -- Western Europe, especially -- homogeneity is due to it's interconnectedness. Think about it.

EzeUche:
I always have had a problem why European nations can get self determination, but when it comes to Africa, we can't.

I think it's because of the same reason threads derail in the first place -- because we don't have a network of people who can stay on one thing long enough to do it well. In my opinion, our continent has a derth of interconnected skilled-people who enjoy doing there tasks to such an extent that you can really call them professionals.

If you look at merchants and artisans during the Renaissance era, you see that they were craftsman, builders, blacksmiths et. al. who learned their trade as apprentices, starting from when they were very young. But to really prove themselves, they had to show the quality of their work, because that was the only way they could increase their value against others in the same trade. And then the general success of that class led to the general success of their city or state: roads were built and maintained so that merchants could move artisan crafts and ordinary people could find the way to the markets.

I think it was really the ingenuity of the merchant and artisan class that made way for the Industrial revolutions that happened all over Europe.

In Nigeria and all across Africa, too many people want to make the money the easiest way, and too few care enough about quality. If modern Africa doesn't redevelop its network of interconnected trade and skilled workers (which it had before it was smashed by European colonialists in their bid to exploit our continent) then we will only stay as stagnant as we have been for much of the last century.

ziddy:
Most of these policemen are morons who can barely read. They just throw meaningless grammar around, Frank Mba himself a specific example - PR man who can't string a proper sentence in English.

Very true, and it really has become pathetic. There is no standard of quality save how much more corrupt than the previous guy you can be.

Fools who want to disrupt the forum will always exist. Let us pay them no mind.

You're right. I read it wrong. Abagworo, my understanding has always been that older Igbo living outside Nigeria may be less forgiving than those who currently live there. In her case, it's the older Hausa. It could be because she's the daughter, and likewise, the fiance's parents acceptance may be because he is their son. In which case, your parents (babygirl22) may be reluctant because they are afraid of losing you.

Who's heard of the Society for Promoting Igbo Language and Culture? Imagine if their activities -- or at least, their attitudes -- were much more common, it would be beautiful. I, for one, can understand Igbo spoken in the Ngwa dialect (which, I shouldn't think, is much different from the dialect spoken across Abia State) and I used to speak it very fluently as a child. But 1997 was just a bad year for my sisters and I, and that was when we really began to forget it.

Within the last two years, though, I've really wanted to get back to speaking Igbo. I want to learn the other dialects so I can say, look, we really are one people, and I wholeheartedly agree with asha80. A language of thought and learning is a great way to preserve a language (look at Latin), but the parents should do more to instill the drive in the children, because it's the social utilization of that same language that keeps it vibrant.

This may be the first time I've ever heard of an Hausa and an Igbo woman in a relationship. Your parents are from the South? I would not be surprised, the Igbo have not forgotten the tragedies of Biafra. My apologies. Hope everything works out.

What language is that?

eewule:
Source > http://nigeriaworld.com/articles/2010/jul/195.html

Enumerating the hazards a nuclear power plant could cause will take a whole book to explain. So, let us talk about Nigerian factors. How will a nation that has no maintenance culture, that cannot maintain ordinary roads and other uncomplicated infrastructures in the country will be thinking of building a nuclear power station? Has Nigeria been able to manage and maintain ordinary refinery? Look at Kanji Dam and Niger Bridge, both which could go down any moment. Is it a government that will allocate funds for turn around maintenance and pocket same, that is planning to acquire atomic energy technology? Is it the same people that will leave their places of work to attend to their mistresses and friends at pepper soup joints or suya spots that will man the atomic energy facility that needs the watchful eyes of an eagle? Or, those that will leave their offices in search of governments' contracts in other places that will be employed to look after the running of the nuclear facility? Is there any sanity in these people at all?

This is also my concern. Atomic energy won't just be a great achievement for Nigeria, but a great way to go about taking care of the country's energy problems. But with all the risks inherent with the process, I just don't think Nigerian society is self-consistent enough to harbor an atomic plant.

Nigeria's socio-economic state allows this to happen, so I'm more offended by the Detective's use of the word "syndicate." One oil-siphoning operation doesn't turn a crew into a syndicate.

I am becoming very disappointed in Nairaland. I'd expected a healthy discussion, not having to explain simple terms to a person with limited comprehension, but I will recap my last arguments:

1. the baby is as light as she is because it is a gene relatively common among Igbo people. It means nothing or the other, except what you make of it.
2. the term "red Ibo" comes about because of this. It means nothing or the other, except what you make of it.

That said, the term "red bone" came from Anglicized pronunciation of "red Ibo" as "redi bo." Here are the sources:

http://books.google.com/books?id=EY5E5bp9KGwC&lpg=PR21&dq=red%20ibo&pg=PR21
http://books.google.com/books?id=6XZxy1y-GAoC&lpg=PA143&dq=red%20bone%20Ibo&pg=PA143


This is the last response you will get. Yeah. That means you won't get another one.

No, being an amateur ethnolinguist, I know about the history of that particular word, and how it came about in the patois's and creoles that sprang up in the American South and in the Caribbean.

"Your boy" could be Dudus's son for all I care. If he doesn't know jack-shite about the history of the language he speaks, he knows nothing. That is all.

bk/babe90:
.ROFLMAO!!! Yall Ibos wont gimme a heart attack; I refuse!!! Now Jamaicans acknowledge yall too! Immediately I seen that crazy statement I called my boy real quick! Nigga its : REDI BO'= Red Bone! The "ne" at the end of Bone is just silent! Wow!!!

I'm glad "your boy" has taken the time to study the etymological origins of his patois. But I can assure you, the etymology of the word "redi bo" comes from "red Ibo."If you would like sources, I expect you would ask.

Relapsing? Hasn't it always been a One-Party State? Which party is greater or more corrupt than the PDP?

chyz:
Not going to happen. There are already refineries in nigeria.

There are already refineries in Nigeria, but in which parts of the country are those located? Refineries built in the Niger Delta, especially, should help begin to appease the issue some of the citizens of the Delta have with the state. And then, with the refineries located nearer to the pumps, those illegal gas flares should burn less frequently in places like Ebocha.

I think this story is getting old. [i]If [/i]the mother did not cheat and genetic tests can prove this, then more likely than not, it's just the reappearance of the gene that makes some Igbo people lighter. It's natural, and it's been documented for over a century. Jamaican patois even have the terms "red Ibo" and "yellow Ibo" to describe black people with lighter skin tones. It is also were the American terms "red bone" or "yellow bone" comes from.

Hell, it isn't even just Igbo, I have a friend from the Congo with the same exact characteristic as the baby but without blue eyes.

This is pretty good news. If Nigerian companies can produce these technologies, using Nigerian minerals, we could build whole industries within the country based on them. Maybe, even export them, similar to China. This is very good news. Of course, now, it all depends on the students retaining what they've learned and developing the hacker mindset.

man smith:
so how do we tackle the poverty i think that should be the issue

And that is the question. We need to address the inefficiencies of the South's politicians and anti-corruption institutions. There is too much single-mindedness at play in the politics of the Southern Regions. What we need is a union of the Souths political will, structure, and from there on, the setting of plans and goals (such as tackling poverty, crime, building critical infrastructures, etc) and not just the description of our problems. The government needs effective oversight committees and a real shake-up of Abuja's political landscape to make them understand that maybe they should start to listen to all of their people.

It is without a doubt that the average Northerner lives in poverty. However, when considering the fact of the North's forty-nine year rule of this country, you have to ask how this level of poverty has become so endemic in Northern Nigeria. The answer? Simple: it is the by product of the corruption of the country's political system, a system opposed upon ordinary Nigerians (both Northern and Southern) by Northern elites vying to retain power.

Someone already argued that there was no direct tie-in between infrastructural development and economic development. You have to be aware that while this statement is true for Nigeria and much of the developing world, it is generally false for most Western and developed states because infrastructural development generally correlates to the utilization of economic advantages. Where you see the inverse, like you do in Northern Nigeria, this is more than likely caused by a stratification of the country's socio-economic classes.

An ultra-elite class develops their surroundings to match their sybaritic mansions, builds towers to house their businesses, then more civil infrastructures like bridges and highways to connect them, electricity to power them, and running water. But once you fall out of the care zone, all you see is miles upon miles of poverty.

Because most of the country's elites live in the North, you don't see this type of beautification process in the South as much, so most Southerners live in abject conditions, and squalor and sprawl appears in urban areas. You can't even count on local politicians to help ease the situation because they are emasculated by the political system which just recycles the same old politicians (PDP has their own constitution to run the country by because no other party can challenge them. Nigeria's constitution = garbage). Who would ever want to lose oil money?

But let's face it: the South East is Nigeria's lifeline. The crippling loss of infrastructure following the Nigerian-Biafran War created a survival-of-the-fittest situation where the citizenry of South East Nigeria had to work to survive, simply because they had no other choice. Entrepreneuring spirits built businesses that boomed in local markets, conducted trade and especially developed in the arts & craft sector. But this did not create general wealth in the East, it just created a form of decentralized stability that did nothing to hide the abject living conditions of the people. Those in the margins resorted to armed-robbery and extortion to survive, thus the rise in Nigeria's kidnapping culture.

Subsequently, Easterners, shunning the North, moved Westward, primarily to Lagos to where there was some form of infrastructure, indirectly strengthening the local economy. If you were to remove South Eastern businesses, you will have nothing, and you can dispute me if I'm wrong (oh, and oil is Southern too). What Nigeria needs is a new political movement, and it needs it badly. The survival of our people depends on it.