Written like a foreigner writing about Nigerian food, oh, was it written by a foreign person??

Jollof rice is a special meal?

fedimol:

If you read that very well, I'm sure you would have seen this
"The Flagellants were later condemned by the Roman Catholic Church as a cult "

In other words, it isn't accepted by the general Catholic populace. Same way all Muslims don't do it. So don't say what you don't know.

Nope

Still in practice

Quote from same place....

Some members of strict monastic orders, and some members of the Catholic lay organization Opus Dei, practice mild self-flagellation using an instrument called a "discipline", a cattail whip usually made of knotted cords, which is flung over the shoulders repeatedly during private prayer.[14] Pope John Paul II took the discipline regularly.[15]

joe4christ:

Have you ever thought of the possibilities of what you're running from, coming back to hunt you.
The possibilities of you being wrong about God.
What if what u laugh at today turn out the truth tomorrow

Then you pay for it

Nothing wrong in taking a position

xynerise:
I proved him wrong by shuting his pile hole.

Where did he get his fact from? I am a catholic and we dont practise what he said.

Actually.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellation

Read down to the part about Catholics, Opus Dei and such

Owakoi:


u r totally out of ur mind n a real piece of work.do u hav to blatantly insult d doctrines of another religion? u
act like an ill mannered,uncultured savage dat requires incaceration bc its pple such as u dat stir up trouble.

Really

So some can be insulted but others are off limits?

The poster is just showing that what you accept can be looked upon as a 'Stupid or Controversial Ritual'

[quotedonedy:
i have two female friends that were circumcised and they lament everyday cos of it. It denies u of intimate enjoyment u r suppose to feel.... So for men, it is gud bt for women,,,,, no way ][/quote]

So what exactly are they lamenting?

Do explain

Or rather advise them to go read up on female sexuality and sex and stop having hang ups about their private organ state

dasparrow:

For your information, during female circumcision, the c*lito*ris is cut off making it impossible for the girl once grown into adult to have any 'heavenly' feelings during sex. So what is the need then of a lady engaging in sex if she does not enjoy it because her cli*to*ris has been cut off? What of the pain these little girls go through since no anesthesia is given before the procedure? What of the infections these girls can get as a result of unsterilized blades being used on them? What of all the cases whereby young girls bled to death after the gen*i*tal circumcision? Just admit it, African culture is overwhelmingly barbaric and hardly benefits the female gender. I must see to it that none of my female children marry from barbaric cultures. End of.

Really?

You better go talk to girls who have been circumcised and check your facts

There are more than one type of orgasm (interesting, o r g a s ---- m is changed to a PC term)

Any references for bleeding to death and infection assertions?

Please do share

Pictures of FCM or I call bullshit

It reads like something copied from a 'do gooder' campaign site

Could you kind enough to reference one area where this is done?

1. Don't use Fedex in to/in Nigeria, the Fedex Nigeria franchise operator is grosslly incompetent. Most people in the US will insist on using Fedex but just say NO. DHL then UPS is my preferred carrier to Nigeria.

2. Expect to pay custom duties on such goods as you received.

3. Document all the steps of the process, when money was paid, what was promised, the actual name of the officers you dealt with and make an official complaint. Follow up the complaint and male a lot of noise. Most people are used to being shafted and only grumble (here and in real space). If you dont demand your rights, nobody will give it to you (In Nigeria and elsewhere, contrary to the impression some people here may give you). Did you take down names and dates? If not, sorry oooo.

4. For such parcels as you received, it may actually be better to send them thru small freight carriers who charge for door-to-door delivery and calculate a flat rate customs duty into their charge.

Hope this helps.

Thought Experiment.

Take 2 people, pay them same salary. Put one in Lagos and one in say Paris/London.

Say salary is 2000 Euro (and equivalent in naira at parallel market rate).

After one year, do a survey on their standard of living using recognized indices.

Check quality of accommodation, power supply, lifestyle, transport, health and tell me who is better off.

Expensive does not stop at the price of coke and petrol eg. Take a look at the total cost of living before you decide of a is cheaper than b.

simple biology 101.
your eyes are too close (to your partners face) to focus. am assuming a mouth to mouth kiss.
its an auto reflex thingie to save your eyes the pain of focusing too close.

BTW it feels better though

What comes with the salary (free housing, car, company phone, free air tickets,club membership?).
Lagos is more expensive than most European cities. Getting some things done that you take for granted is going to cost you really high..

You can't get a standard simple hotel room on Victoria Island for less than 100 Euro equivalent and the room will not have most of the basic stuff you may come to expect.

Due to the public transport situation. you may be expected to have an airconditioned car! If you have kid(s), factor in dropping the kids off/from school. And so on .....

DIY government (you have to provide water, electricity, security) for yourself. Don't believe all the hype you read, electricity in Nigeria is one of the most expensive since you have to own and manage the generating plant and carry out the servicing.

So, IMO, check what extras comes with the job before you leap in.

Good idea (re Solar Panels et al).
The office I work in PH and Warri runs off solar power with public utility as backup!

The house I stay in runs the same system wth key essentials hooked up to a solar powered system.

Look for solutions you can implement

Divine intervention may come long after you've died so less of calling on supreme deity to solve self created problems

Let us have some positive posting instead of just complaints, what can be done in the situation you find yourself or really bothers you?

I ride this bad boy almost everywhere. Changed bikes in February this year and I have put on 20,000 km on it already.
I am looking at a short West Africa loop maybe December. Pic was taken at Okada (between Ore and Benin) when ALL cars and trucks were stuck!

You guys are playing with such a serious business as starting a whole new religion, I am sorry for u all.

But as I write, I feel a calling, oooooh, I am feeling it now......w.

Forget what I must have been misled to type above, I think this idea has merit, but you missing a vital part. Young, female members first! Get ye young female members and the bankers, power brokers shall attend an dmore improtantly, come back..
I suspect this religion will flourish in cycberspace so female sounding usernames with nice pics can do abi Elder?

Me, I dont want any post, but if I bring people in with problems, I get some cut of their tithe and heartfelt contribution, agreed?

2007 is around the corner and the battle shall be fought also with spititual means, now where is my 'gullible people capture' handbook kept?

when you have the facts, am here

i did not say anything about not receiving guarantees. what you said specifically was pay after delivery, i was rebutting that. the issue of guarantee is embedded in most business transactions.

i brought the bank example because there too many people out there making nigeria a special case. especially nigerians who love nothing more than spending time showing/proving how we are so different from other countries, i dont buy that rap.

thou shall not judge only applies to 'other people'.
strong religionist already KNOW and what they say is not judging since it is the absolute truth anyway.

eff Benzos wouldnt agree to that, and I either. Just a quote from one of my blog post on a relative topic.

Quote
A canonical “dot-com” company’s business model relies on network effects to justify losing money to build market share, or even mind share, through giving their product away in the hope that they could eventually charge for it. (It’s worth noting that Amazon.com and other successful survivors of the era (*.com crash) proved this strategy sound in the long term.)

Hmmm, at the risk of splitting hairs, amazon.com did not prove that selling cheap in volume will generate future profits. Incidentally, I have gone thru two books on Bezos and amazon.com.

I work for a company where we get almost all our payments after delivering goods/services and we do a lot of business in Nigeria.  Of course we get people/organisations that do not pay up!

Nigerians are too sleek to be trusted

Really, so why (at least from the impression you give in your post) are you working with Nigerians then? Blanket condemnation is too harsh, don't you think?
I talk with some bankers who give  lame excuses why they don't give  unsecured loans to small/medium businesses in Nigeria. I asked them for specific reasons and what they had to say was default and bad loans rate is high in Nigeria. I then asked for the actual rate in Nigeria as against say Brazil, the US or UK. Nobody cares to check, what they work with is that the 'rate is high'

Now i can't stop laughing. Nigerian citizens located in Nigeria, having an on-line mall to sell things to people overseas? Well they better don't use, the Products are from Nigeria label, 

What is causing the laughter? People are already buying Nigerian services online with cc already.

If you position your services/goods pproperly you'll get takers.

Selling on the web does not only have to be physical goods. You can sell services as well.

I don't buy the concept of stuff having to be cheaper to sell well, quality and use value counts as well. One lesson from the dot.com meltdown is that selling cheap to generate volume does not always bring (a) profit in the future.

Same thing that happens to most dead people, turn to manure/dust and recycled.
Or bones preserved to be 'discovered' later on.

Is this a valid question?
Can you know what happens to dead people?

I keep hearing of this hell, sound suspiciously like what I see around me at times.

I love the web!

Guys, starting (a) business in Nigeria is same as starting anywhere else. Making it can actually be easier if you think of succeeding and not just rant away at all the perceived problems. Our system is so 18th century that they are opportunities anyway you look or turn. The books will sharpen your ability to identify the opportunities but actually turning the opportunities to cash (flow) is the tricky hard bit!

For the person who is bypassing a degree education, please if you can, go get a degree, in any subject or any approved school. You wont believe what you will go thru in live later if you don't get one now. Its worth it I beg you.

We can split all the definitions in the world but you either make it now or you don't, if you don't, you can always try again (if you r still alive that is)

What to watch out for, is confusing what one wants to do in love with what one would love to do, you need to have the mindset of a  'businessman/entrepreneur/whatever' to set up a business, IMO, its a different ball game from drawing a paycheck every week/month or whatever.

A lot of folks complain about being ripped off, my experience -YMMV- is that people set themselves up for a rip off. PAY for services, pay a lawyer to do legal work, pay an accountant to do accounting work or advise, pay a bank to transfer money - free thing de purge should be a starting persons mantra.

What of you can pay you say, what about your unemployed friends from school (another reason to go to college). The layers can draft stuff for you for later payment, ibid accountants and others.

Oh,, and don't think outside the box

Why does Nigeria make it so hard to register and company

Because we are a third world country and things have to be made hard so we can remain as third worlders

And why aren't the states allowed to register companies.

The Nigerian system is set up as a command and control economy/govt. with everything happening from the center. Every official expects to be told what to do from a mysterious central command and even Perm Secs and Ministers turn around and say, 'We have not been told what to do yet'..

The states are mere legal structures for spending money and not to carry out any meanigfull admin purpose.

___
In general, I have found out that paying a fee for this type of task (i.e. hiring a lawyer to do it) is cheaper that doing it for free

You get what you pay for and the free help may come with lots of undocumented payments.

it's also selling it at less for what you could have got elsewhere. Let's first remember that the meaning of the word 'subsidy' is 'financial assistance given by one person or government to another'.

Thanks Ka.

(Un)fortunately -take your pick- Nigeria belongs to OPEC, that means we have a cap to what we can produce and SELL per day. Production for local consumption is excluded from this quota.
If we follow your logic through, you may actually make more money selling some commodity at a lower price than what you can get elsewhere if the knock on effects of lower price can be shown to increase productivity elsewhere (Eg. Low transport cost can be shown in some instances to have a multiplier effect on productivity out of proportion to the percentage of reduction of cost)

To be exact, you can in a 'semi close' system sell yam at 10 percent below apparent market cost. The yam is sold to a yam processing factory instead of end users. The factory then adds value to the yam (eg yam chips or flour) and sell the chips to the export market and earns hard currency. The total gain of the tax paid by the firm and the forex earning may be more than the 10% reduction in raw material price.

I am tired of all this talk of ever increasing subsidy which is payment to a selected few people, to bring in a product at a guaranteed profit. The worst form of political patronage possible and an insult to our collective intelligence (hang on, maybe we are too dumb anyway).

I say, sell all the refineries for a token sum (say one naira each plus liabilities), make fuel imports a common business (just have the relevant agencies check vessels, storage facilities and quality), no need for this license nonsense when you want to build a refinery, a refinery is just a glorified factory so apply regular procedures to its approval. Within a short time, local fuel price will be controlled by local market forces and we'll all the best for it.

Of course it wont happen in a corrupt, incompetent setup with no clearly enforced laws and with people that believe in whatever they hear!

But, wont it be nice?

The Subsidy Fallacy & Other Stories

Hi guys,
I am a newbie here so if this has been treated before.oh well.

I went over some post on fuel price increase, subsidy removal and stuff. Its interesting that for ages now, the man on the street and in front of the newspaper and computer has been swallowing wholesale whatever the spin doctors dish out. Looking at the quality of spin, its shocking that people actually do not challenge some of the underlying assumptions but instead spend time defending/challenging the end result.

Do you really believe/think/know that there is a subsidy on fuel (petrol,diesel, kerosene) for domestic consumption in Nigeria?

Some background: I am a strong believer in private sector driven economy. I believe the govt. roles is to create an enabling environment and get out. Allow the private sector to run the system. I don't have sacred cows - medical care, education, transport should all be passed off to the private sector. Back to topic.

Next time someone says there is a subsidy on Nigerian fuel, look carefully at the maths.

Remember some facts:
[list][li]Crude is produced in Nigeria.[/li]
[li]There is a cost for each barrel of crude produced in Nigeria (this cost has no linkage with the cost of crude in the international market which is a function of perceived supply and perceived demand).[/li]
[li]Crude for local consumption is not part of the OPEC quota.[/li][/list]

So to talk meaningfully about a subsidy, we need to start with the local cost of crude.

Next step is refining cost (not the cost of refined products but how much it will cost to refine say a barrel of crude into petrol).

[list][li]Check the local refining cost.[/li]
[li]Check how much it will cost to pay a refinery offshore to refine x amount of crude into gasoline for you.[/li]
[li]Check transport cost to/fro.[/li][/list]

Then you have a better picture for actual cost of refined products locally and offshore.

Most of this information is available in the public domain.

< comments about deregulation of refineries moved >

Would it be possible to start a bicycle factory in Nigeria?

Yes

Are the raw materials, like steel, aluminum, rubber (processed) available to make the venture work or all these items will have to be imported and assembled in nigeria.

Start with imported and switch over to locally sourced as you understand the terrain

Anyone one know if these raw materials are produced in bulk in Nigeria?

Try the various chambers of commerce, you never can tell, they may actually be helpful at times.

Thanks.

hey, u r welcome.

Obong,
You r talking to/and getting replies from people who are not familiar with the concept of a bicycle as a means of private and commercial transportation.
I came down to Ph in the mid Eighties with some classmates from the western part of Nigeria. At Owerri and surrounding villages and towns, there were always lines of people going to/from farms and other businesses on bicycles.
My friends had to ask me:
Why r all these people on bicycles?
I was a little taken aback as to me, this was not a proper question, it was self evident why they were on bicycles (to move around and carry stuff).
It took some time for me to realise that the questions were coming from people who probable had never seen a farmer load up goods on a bicycle or gone to a rural market where 90+ percent of the people came to on bicycles.
I did a little explanation on how it was a mode of transport around where we were but my friends still had that suprise/farlook on their faces and did not look convinced on why people should use bicycles when cars and buses 'were all over the place!'

Anyway, there is a huge market for bicycles in Nigeria.
If you can get your ecomonics right, locally made/asseblied bicycles should be able to give the imported models a run for their money.

Guys in Lagos, please, a lot of our people still stay in rural areas and actually use bicycles as a daily tool!

When I was growing up, I found it a stretch to imagine people buying water or having water shortages.

Why dont you tell us what its all about? You can google, read up on them and pass the info to the rest of us?

Then we can join in the discussion.

Or walk up to them and ask, am sure they'll pass you some literature or something!