₦airaland Forum

ifyalways:
Gini ka iche mere m ji achuhari Ikomi

ifyalways:
Iche na o bi na council flats

ifyalways:
Bobo m di loaded . . elu na ala.

ifyalways:
. . .akuko.

ElRazur:
I rest my case.

pres-elect:
ikomi

a ga m ata gi aru n'akpa amu o

ifyalways:
ikomi,make up your mind!

Ikomi:
Sorry dear friend, I dont enjoy wasting time.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ if you do not choose to give a complicated answer as you always do.

ifyalways:
Ikomi
Luo alu,i choghi ilum,hapukwanu m ka ndi na a-manage m na a-manage m,no way
Ihe wu 2010 na acho igwu now,u either come carry me wholesale of forrrrget it.hoha

ElRazur:
Ikomi, I will enjoy this.

ElRazur:
Don't be daft. I am saying media can give people a wrong perception and hence sway or influence their views/opinion.

ElRazur:
Don't be daft. I am saying media can give people a wrong perception and hence sway or influence their views/opinion.

ElRazur:
Ikomi, my argument with you as per Ahmadenajad was that he denied the Holocaust. This is a fact, anyone with half a brain knows this. To say otherwise is just not true. The media do not make up this denial. He was filmed and on record deny the holocaust. Period.

Be my guest if you want to go through this again. But we all know, as usual you won't have anything worthy to add than to beat around the bush without providing further any valid proof.

ElRazur:
Don't be daft. I am saying media can give people a wrong perception and hence sway or influence their views/opinion.

ifyalways:
lol
That word siri ike
I ji plan na aka?I makwa aku igba cos a choghim manual "things"
Ikomus roll out your plans,im feeling you already
Pres-elect
Umuigbo weekendi oma

ElRazur:
Don't be daft. I am saying media can give people a wrong perception and hence sway or influence their views/opinion.

Thats in the case of Almadin, if you get my drift.

ifyalways:
Ikomi,i choro ka anyi hu?

1. Dancer: 43%
2. Bartender: 38%
3. Massage therapist: 38%
4. Gaming cage: 34%
5. Extruding machine operator: 32%
6. Gaming: 31%
7. Factory: 29%
8. Phone operator: 29%
9. Nursing: 28%
10. Entertainers, sports: 28%
11. Porter: 28%
12. Telemarketer: 28%
13. Waiter: 27%
14. Roofer: 26%
15. Maid: 26%

pres-elect:
Lol, ochi egbuolanu m oooooo. Lekwanu ikomi o. Amatara m ikomi. Ahula m ya na onicha mbu, ebe o na ebu ji nakuku Niger bridge. Lol.
Ebelebe igba!
Ebelebe igba!
Ebelebe nke igba igba igbakirigba!!!!!!!

ChinenyeN:
Igbo kelee nu. Eji m aka na ahu ike dikwa unu niile.

ifyalways:
Ikomus,i got your msg.

pres-elect:
hmmn, olee ihe i meaniri by that olee ebe owu? ara, afo, azu!!

ifyalways:
Darfur na Tosh gbakwa oku

ifyalways:
Ikomi i di available sat. nite

"And it has been a blessing because it enabled the country to amass a fortune. But the expectations some of us had have not been matched.

"Corruption, which has increased in magnitude since 1960, has given us a rotten image internationally and prevented us from fulfilling our potential in areas like social welfare and infrastructural development."

Others mourn the seeming loss of critical self-awareness in the country. Deborah Ajakaiye, Nigeria's first female geophysicist and Africa's first professor in the field, was a student at the University of Ibadan in 1960.

"There was so much excitement on campus. We were so full of hope."

But for Ms Ajakaiye, Nigeria has deteriorated on several levels since then: Educational institutions have been seriously weakened, the railway sector is dead and the country's value system has been deeply compromised.

"Murders which used to be extremely rare are now commonplace," she says

"[And] the acquisition of ill-gotten wealth has also become more acceptable."

Back then if someone built a mansion that was not compatible with his salary, the entire community would query it with him.

"Now, very few questions are asked," she tells me.

Turning tide?

But there is much that Nigeria can be proud of.

For instance, in contrast to the fate of the Daily Times, today the country can boast an array of media organisations and a generally free press.

In addition, there has been impressive growth in industries like aviation and telecommunications, and a recent announcement that much of the country's power sector is to be privatised could be the answer to Nigeria's electricity woes.

The tide could be turning against corruption, too. Recently, the removal of two senior figures on the Nigerian Stock Exchange followed on from a warning by the country's market regulator, Arunma Oteh, that hundreds could face criminal charges for corruption.

And according to a recent editorial in the This Day newspaper, Nigerians can feel justifiably satisfied about their contribution to security in Africa including its peacekeeping efforts in Sierra Leone and a noteworthy role in dismantling apartheid in South Africa.

There is one achievement, however, that may be worth elevating above all.

In the context of the myriad of problems faced by Nigeria over the past 50 years, somehow, miraculously, the country has succeeded in staying in one piece

"As the clock struck midnight, [they] took their positions on the dais and watched the lowering of the Union Jack and the hoisting of the Nigerian flag, And so ended 100 years of British rule, 100 years of colonial bondage, A nation conceived in faith and unity is born today, And I am happy. And I am sobbing, "

There it was in cold, hard print in the 1 October, 1960 edition of the Daily Times newspaper. An emotional commentary written by Babatunde Jose, the publication's editor at the time.

The Daily Times, which had been founded in the 1920s, was the oldest and thought to be the most distinguished publication in Nigeria at the time.

And Mr Jose, who joined it as a 16-year-old trainee, and subsequently became known as "the grandfather of Nigerian journalism", went on to praise Nigeria's new leaders for embracing parliamentary democracy and committing themselves to uphold the rule of law.

He also confidently declared that the 1960 constitution and existence of a "powerful opposition party" (the Action Group, headed by Obafemi Awolowo) would protect diverse ethnic groups - and the country as a whole - from dictatorship and human rights abuses.

In 2008, aged 82, Mr Jose died and it is true to say that he lived to see his dreams collapse.

Tragically, the rot had set in long before the first decade of an independent Nigeria had drawn to a close, as the country succumbed to multiple dysfunctions and was plunged into a bloody civil war.

Having observed such negative developments with mounting alarm, Mr Jose was eventually eased out of his editor's chair in 1976 by Gen Murtala Mohammed's military regime, which had no use for his passionate idealism and belief in press freedom.

The newspaper limped on for a few more years and then finally sank without a trace, thanks to the incompetence and dishonesty that its government handlers persistently inflicted on it.

Disillusioned and disappointed

The demise of the newspaper is perhaps symptomatic of the wider leadership problems that have dragged Nigeria down and today robbed it of benefits like sturdy infrastructure and a reliable electricity supply (and all the attendant pressures this has put on Nigeria's economy today).

Mr Jose is not alone. Many others have endured a plethora of bitter disappointments in the 50 years since Nigerians celebrated their liberty.

Chief Edwin Kiagbodo Clark - an 83-year-old veteran activist from the oil-rich Niger Delta region and a former finance minister - is one of them.

Mr Clark was a politically active school principal and staunch nationalist on that October day in 1960. He describes his mood then as being "completely elated". Today, however, he is disillusioned.

One of the things that has saddened him most over the past 50 years has been the gradual abandonment of the principle that Nigeria's different regions should develop at a different pace, and grow their economies in different ways.

Back then, Mr Clark laments, every region had its own plans for generating revenue internally via agriculture and other activities. But that widespread desire to be as productive and self-sufficient as possible no longer exists.

"Now, the Federal Capital Territory [Abuja] and most of the 36 states that have been created are almost solely dependent on the oil money that is distributed by central government. This status quo is simply not good enough," he says.

Mixed blessing

And indeed, the "oil curse" is a recurrent grievance.

Eighty-year-old Matthew Tawo Mbu, who was minister of state for defence on independence day, remembers that he and his colleagues had danced until dawn.

Before he joined Balewa's cabinet he had been the Nigerian high commissioner to London and in 1957 had been invited to the Dutch city of Rotterdam to ceremonially discharge the first consignment of Nigerian crude oil to the country.

"We had absolutely no idea, at the time, that oil would become such a major source of income," he says.

ifyalways:
Ikomus be warned

Hemp for humanity

Since that ominous time when hemp was first prohibited for capitalistic purposes, the world has degenerated to a truly frightening point where we are overwhelmed by problems—and we really don't even want to contemplate the dire consequences of our actions and state of existence. Human civilization is not well; nor is the environment, largely because of our industrial lifestyle, which reveals itself in horrendous pollution in numerous parts of the world and, probably, in climate change.

There is hope, but we must transcend our prejudices and biases, which are largely based on false morality in this case, as well as just plain greed by those who are either amoral, immoral or both. We must immediately adapt our ways and begin hemp farming worldwide on a massive scale and effort never before seen by humanity. Anti-hemp objections based on flawed interpretations of "God" or "Allah" must be thrown out the window in a haste. These nonsensical protestations and obstructions are preventing us from utilizing a "God-given plant" that has so many uses it's hard to think what it isn't good for. It's high time to end the injunction against hemp, which is also a major repression of our own freedom and independence. If local communities had their own locally produced resource base, there would be no need to take that of others, no incursions or invasions, no endless warfare. Not only can we hope but we can also demand the change, for our humanity, survival and posterity.

As an example of how vital hemp used to be to humanity, it is said that the United States may never have succeeded if a number of its founders had not been hemp farmers—an industry that made them rich. Indeed, first American President George Washington himself is quoted as saying, "Make the most of the Indian hemp seed, and sow it everywhere!"

In fact, hemp farming was required by law or otherwise encouraged in several early American villages and towns:

In 1619, because hemp was such an important resource, it was illegal not to grow hemp in Jamestown, Virginia. Massachusetts and Connecticut had similar laws. During the 1700's, subsidies and bounties were granted in Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, North & South Carolina, and the New England states to encourage hemp cultivation and the manufacturing of cordage and canvas. (John Dvorak, "America's Harried Hemp History"

One of the most important facts concerning American use of hemp is that the Declaration of Independence itself was drafted on hemp paper.

According to hemp activists, industrial "robber barons" and "medico-fascists" colluded in an unholy war against the common people to create monopolies that have since destroyed the planet and led us to the brink of complete and utter collapse. For example, in order to corner the paper market, media mogul William Randolph Hearst teamed with DuPont, enlisting the help of Harry Anslinger, the first Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, who actively worked to associate hemp with "marijuana" and to demonize it, so that his cronies could make a killing off cutting down the American Northwest's forests.

Oil-mongers jumped on the bandwagon, so they could force us all not to have local fuels but to buy from them—getting us addicted to the product of foreign sources that have since become huge national security problems with the trillion$ in oil money they have sucked out of our economies.