₦airaland Forum

Op didn't list out Northern states that are free and those that aren't in support of his argument.

I for one know that Jigawa state offers free education across all levels. They give free uniforms, books and feeding (for boarding house schools). Infrastructure is perfect with computer labs and such (no photos to support as am no longer there but it's true). They also offer incentives to their state indigenes who pass through university as I knew an House Officer (Doctor) working in Kano who still gets about 100k monthly from Jigawa state. He also told me he has been receiving stipends since 400 level medical school.

As for Kano state, they used to offer free education till I think last month when they imposed 400 naira school fees.

Don't know anything about the other states. But from what I saw in Jigawa, my personal opinion is that those that do go to school do so to wail away time (better than being an almajiri - as there's free food) while a few go there to learn in other to have a better future.

It's more of a cultural issue that free education will not solve.

Think about it. What jobs are there for these kids? With no access to the more developed parts of the country (unlike if there was cheap rail for example) they are locked into a world of their own for the most part. Plus there are few companies to work for, and the bulk of people whom they know didn't pass through school and more so don't seem to have needed it to succeed, so school just doesn't seem important. That's why only some parents who are not that ignorant still allow their kids to go to the schools even when they are free.

Another thought I had during my interactions with some Mangal people living in a really remote area. Was talking to some of the kids and one of them who isn't in school told me his Dad is a farmer and then asked "Who'll help out on the farm if all of us go to school?"

So for small scale farmers (who make up the bulk of Northerners) living in rural areas it's difficult sending the kids (especially the male ones) to school when they'll be no one to work on the farms.

Don't usually post here on Nairaland although I read topics and follow comments occasionally.

First of all, what sort of $2.6billion refinery produces just 300 barrels per day. Doesn't add up.

Section 292(1)( a)(i) of the Constitution of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 provides that “a
judicial officer shall not be removed from his office
or appointment before his age of retirement,
except in the following circumstances (a) in the
case of the Chief Justice of Nigeria,  the President
of the Court of Appeal, the Chief Judge of the
Federal High Court, Chief Judge of the  High Court
of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Grand
Khadi of the Sharia Court of Appeal of the Federal
Capital Territory, Abuja, and President, Customary
Court of Appeal of the Federal Capital Territory,
Abuja, by the President( of Nigeria), acting on an
address supported by two-thirds majority of the
Senate, praying that he be so removed for his
inability to discharge the functions of his office or
appointment (whether arising from infirmity of
mind or body) or for misconduct or contravention
of the Code of Conduct”.


[b][/b]

@voy,

How much is a Bold 2, Javelin and Curve 3?

†HªŋK you.

Thanks for the link but do you have something similar for Japan. And do you know anyone who's studied there?

blank:
@ Texaspette. You are quite a big f-ool for posting that thrash. I know it is meningitis. Do i need to have mentioned the name? Must you be spoonfed? Can you not make the inference that was so glaring in the post? Ok, let me help you.

Since the MENINGITIS drug trial by Pfizer, parents have been skeptical of any such drug by drug companies. This has reached the extent that they have refused to send their "kiddies" for routine stuff like immunizations and stuff.

How hard was that for you to understand? SMH.

Trust me the average Northern mother or father who rejects access to their kids doesn't know about the Pzifer issue.

Where I am immunization is done once every month. They use corpers as monitors and supervisors but not vaccinators so ma info is kinda first hand. From what I hear those few who reject do so out of pure ignorance. Not knowing what immunization does and all or rather not believing in its effectiveness.
Sensitization is key.

I also heard of an episode where mothers coming for ante or is it post natal where asking for money before submitting their wards for free vaccination right there at the hospital.

So there you have it. The issue is quite a bit complex.

Thanks bro. I'll be on the look out for both countries.

Please I want to know if it's worth while considering India as a place of choice for an M.Sc in say information management, network security and computer science in general.

They seem to know their onions and a few I know have gone there for some form of certification trainin or the other.

Basically, my question is if Nigerian employers respect degrees from that country.

Ajanlekoko what do you think? I know you to deliver solid advice on IT career matters.

And my reason for wanting India mainly bores down to cost.

[quote author=ekt_bear link=topic=707869.msg8667362#msg8667362 date=1310017136]Wonderful woman.

Comments:
1. I have no opposition to non-interest banking, i have opposition to islamic banking.
2. It is news to me that the Nigerian Ports Authority doesn't remit its revenue to the FG. Customs nko? Very shady.
3. She is right about the silly CBN banking limit policy. Looks like our suspicions of the incompetent Sanusi were correct.
4. I agree with her on the subsidies.[/quote]Most Federal Agencies don't remit profits back to the FG. I for one know that FMC's like Luth and oda FG teaching hospitals don't. Funny thing is they still get monies for salaries and capital projects from the FG.

I think from some info I heard far back. Customs gets to keep a share of the money they make but most of it is remitted.

And what's happened to the Lagos Ibadan expressway concession project issued some years back. Anyone know if that's been canceled or simply abandoned?

Nigerians would be a lot more comfortable if Sambo was announcing the award of the contract to a reputable firm rather than making vague promises wit no timelines attached.

Just as some people build wealth of the little they are given there are others who get a lot and squander it.

Frankly +20 years in the oil industry is a lot of time. A lot of people also seem to forget that his assets would have appreciated over time especialy if the houses for one are in high brow areas.

And then he's had private firms and done time as a senator. I think his net worth is just about where it should be without being a thief.

It baffles me that in this 21st century, it seems the bulk of Nigerian journalists are not employed to inform the public constructively. Just imagine El-rufai was arrested I believe sometime today and within hours I saw a news item saying Buhari condemns action. I checked same newspaper and there had no information on why he was arrested.

Instead of running to buhari a political opponent of the government who's words would most likely go against, why can't these media houses pour in more resources into the informing the public reasonably. Let us make up our own minds if his arrest was justified or not. Next thing you'll see is Sultan of Sokoto condemns action, CAN president praises El-rufai's arrest, all without telling the public exactly why he was arrested in the first place. Perhaps, the best they'll do is list some questionable anonymous source that gives only a vague answer like "it's believed he's been arrested due to claims of corruption during his tenure as FCT minister." Nothing specific that even implies this anonymous source was not a fiction of the writers imagination.

I only use El-rufai's case as an example.

What are your thoughts on this? How can we tell these journalists to stop selling newspapers through propaganda and mouth-pissing the elite and actually start informing the public on what matters.

I'm tired of reading gossip news.

@13volts,

where in Jigawa do you live?

I must say Sule Lamido has done a lot for his people. Roads are largely tarred throughout the state, education is free in most schools (including books and uniforms), health care is really cheap (compared to southern hospitals) and they have a number of poverty empowerment programs going on.

Upright750:
@Iolo Are you telling me that OBJ fingers was dirty, evil or too strong that made the finger print scanner not to accept his finger? i need your urgent answer if you can.

Lol, that's really not what I meant. It's a combination of all those things, and most importantly the fact that the OpenVR software probably wasn't as optimized as it should have been to accept high-resolution images. I still saw/heard of a lot of people with soft hands, clean hands (basically omo butter chicks) that had their prints rejected, and I'm assuming most people in Lagos and other urban areas won't fall into the dirty, strong finger category - that's more likely to happen in the interior villages with farmers and such.

And I concluded - kind of- that the blame as I felt was on the software end not hardware (fingerprint scanner in this case).

Upright750:
Yeah, Those guys did a great job but same time i will like them to explain to me the main reason OBJ finger print was not accepted for many trying before later registered for one way or the other. Yes they try, they did good job to show that we can do a thing like that but they really need to develop very well to meet up with world finger print standard. I have a friend that voted for 20 times yet the machine allow him to do so. why?

Hi,

In answering your question - Yes, it was possible your friend registered on a particular system for 20+ times. If I'm going to explain I'd say that many of his attempts were registered when ARO1's were mostly skipping fingers to avoid delays of the fingerprint scan. Skipping means you are registering each finger (or the entire hand either left or right or both) as invalid for scanning due to non-viability, or the absence of digits. When the problem and time consuming nature of the fingerscanning process became too much most people were just skipping. We registered people during this period but had to re-register them afterwards.

Even in the bush where I was I heard it was announced on radio for everyone who hadn't done the fingerprint to go back and have it done. We were supposed to retrieve voters cards without fingerprints before issuing another to those who came back, and this we did.

Most likely your friend did registrations with & without fingerprints (it's the fingerprints, OpenVR uses to scan and detect multiple registration attempts) leading to the 20+ times. And again I'm assuming it was all at the same Registration/Polling Unit if not it's a non-issue, read my previous posts.

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I'm going to try to explain the whole fingerprint issue as best as I can. And it's not what you read in the papers.

INEC originally wanted the fingerprint scanners to deliver high-resolution images (high-resolution finger print) of each finger to the OpenVR database. This is the way the OpenVR software was initially configured. The fingerprint scanners were developed by I think it's the 1st, 2nd, or 3nd largest company in the fingerprint industry. And I guess to ensure similar quality and reduce problems (compatibility with the software, troubleshooting etc.) INEC had all the DDC suppliers (Zinox, Avante, Haier - don't know if there were any others) use the same fingerprint scanner from the same manufacturer.

And for what happened I don't think there's just one party to blame.

1. I feel INEC didn't conduct a wide enough survey to determine the amount of time it would take to scan each finger using the high resolution setting and possibly didn't consider other factors I'd soon point out.

2. I should also point out that the fingerprint scanners (as is everything we use these days) were not optimized for black people. (I will tell you the difference).

3. It's possible the OpenVR software wasn't well optimized to take advantage of the process of choosing high-resolution images. I still don't know what rules the software used in accepting high-resolution photos. And it kept on rejecting images that looked alright on the screen. It's probably technical stuff but the algorithm used in accepting the images could have been improved. The OpenVR people probably just did copy and paste (sine it's open source and you really can't blame them) into their software.

If you don't yet understand where I'm going it's more or less like what happens in computers. You could have two computers with 1GB RAM, same processor. Install Windows OS on A, and Mac OS on B. Due to many reasons in the efficiency of the software, MAC OS boots faster than Windows. So MAC OS makes better use of system resources than Windows. It's possible the OpenVR software (exact module in charge of processing the fingerprints) wasn't optimized for this process.

4. High-resolution imaging is tough in Nigeria. A lot of people (mostly in the rural areas) carry dirty fingers about and many actually have funny fingers - it's either the finger is toooo strong or there's many cuts due to the hardship of life. Again this I think bores down to the (not being optimized for Africans issue).

I'm guessing white people usually have really soft hands and I noticed the finger print scanners (under high-resolution setting) performed much faster with our own people having soft fingers.

5. INEC gave us spirit to periodically clean the fingerprint scanner and if need be cleanse the persons fingers before putting on the scanner. As you continue to register people a lot of residue (mostly oil from the fingers, and left over imprints) remain on the scanner. A lot of people were not doing this.

Again, I have just given you what my general thinking about the issue is. There's really no way to determine what exactly was the cause until a proper investigation is carried out.

But if I'm going to choose I'd say the fault was from the software not well-optimizing the fingerprinting process under a high-resolution setting. Again I don't don't know where the OpenVR guys got that particular module from and if it's the best in its class.


When the lines were getting too long, and as at then time, average time per person was like 45 mins to more than an hour (the software just refused to fingerprint some people indefinitely) INEC had to reduce the quality of pictures taken.

In doing this, there's other problems to think of.

A lot of people think of fingerprinting as a one-off thing. Just capture any image of someone's finger and there's no chance of it being similar to someone else's own (don't know the exact statistics). The fingerprint scanners had an option to set them (from the OpenVR software) to take high-resolution, medium rez and low rez photos. I'm going to assume that that statistic works and is applicable only when it's on high-resolution.

Nevertheless, INEC had to order it's IT agents around the country to reduce this setting from high to low to reduce long queues and make the exercise faster and less cumbersome (as well as accomodate the people the software wouldn't even accept at all).

This meant that the Open VR software was capturing low-rez images of each finger. Under this setting, the software was messing up (probably because the images were set to low in the first place). The AFIS supposed to catch multiple registrants started mixing up different people (saying A had registered twice but bringing up B's picture and information as the double - was why I said it used only fingerprinting to check and confirm).

This means that it's possible for someone to register multiple times. The AFIS part of OpenVR still caught multiple registrants, but chances of it being at 100% efficiency were drastically reduced.

Now, during the voting process, when the voter's lists came out. Some people had two or three entries, we were instructed to cancel out any one (using photo) with more than one entry. Thus ensuring the person could vote only once. Some P.O's (presiding officer) did this, others did not.

That's the story.

Slyr0x:
Yeah. .iGet yo point. .Buh no such form of "security" can be compared to a "point-of-entry" one. .By ths, i mean why not tackle the problem at its point of entry (this case during registration) instead of allowing the problem into the system. .then performing the "cleansing" afterwards.

Yes I totally agree. Such system would be best for reasons you've pointed out. Yet it hasn't been developed in a scale that Nigeria would demand for it's registration exercise.

Slyr0x:
How effective was this process? 'Cos there was actually this news i read in Punch Newspaper about a woman (who claimed to be an evangelist) registering close to like 50+ times within the same state(lagos). .The best thing to have done was to have an on-the-spot system whereby a user's biometric details needs to be checked against the database(a central one this time around) before proceeding with the registration. .I mean with all the money allocated to the process, going the "traditional" way shouldn't have been an option. Of which anything could've happened to the backups while in transit.

Again, from what I know the segregate approach went quite well given the circumstance, topology of Nigeria, availability of infrastructure and countless other factors.

Truely, I've considered the whole central database thing with my brother and a few friends. One problem however exists - guaranteeing the reliability of the connection (most likely intranet linking to the database) that would be used. In the field you really can't guarantee such things what happens when it gets cloudy (assuming it's a satellite connection) or for some reason the link to a central backup fails - you'll disenfrancise potential voters within the few minutes/hours/days the link is down. I do not know of any mass registration situation or any country that uses an on-the-spot verifying central database - I haven't researched this though.

I should also point out that a satellite system would be far more expensive than INEC proposed (was given).


GSM service providers are also not an option as in my registration unit for example, reception was erratic (they still deserve props for even remembering those pple there).


Ok so about the woman who claims to have registered 50+ times. I think that's really not the issue. The truth is that you can register a million times and collect a million voter registration cards. But if you are to go by INEC ethics (the correct procedure for the registration exercise and indeed voting - i'll link both later) said woman should not be able to vote in more than 1 polling unit. Because it's supposed that all other 49 registration attempts would be deleted when backups where compiled.

The second issue I'd address is the security of backups in transit. I think it carries less chances of theft or external intrusion compared to say ballot papers. What are the chances of knowing that car/bus/or anything is carrying backup harddrives for INEC. And even when the backups are tampered with, existing copies still remain on the DDC machine. I should also point out that we were required to backup in a harddisk that was assigned to the RACO (like supervisor in charge of all the units in a ward). I'm supposing that it's the backups of these supervisors that were carried down to the state INEc office (less backup devices in transit).

I initially thought INEC given too much money but consider that INEC bought Generators for all the wards (I'm not sure what KVA now but portable, key-starters not less than 2KVA) I saw something similar for 150k. Then they also bought boats, and a hilux vehicle for all the LGAs in nigeria (that's 770+ hilux vehicles, I don't know how many boats).


Healthy debate,

Slyr0x:
To start with, this "software" was touted to be open source but it aint. 2ndly, about multiple registratns, yhu rily cant blame the software. .The Distributed Database Management System should've been the right choice NOT just a DBMS. The database used to store users data WAS STORED LOCALLY on the PC used and therefore there was no way of checking if a particular user had registered elsewhere before. There shoulda been a central db system whereby before registering a voter, it checks the database to see if it matches any known record collated from other centers and if such exists, then such user won't be registered again.

As an ARO 1, I had the opportunity to fiddle around the software for about 3 weeks. I must point out your observations are not at all correct. The OpenVR software had an AFIS (don't recall the full meaning now) that was suppose to run a check in the database for multiple registrations. The software also had other less known features (I mean publicized by the press or known across the general public) like the ability to import backups from other DDC machines.

From what I know with what happened in my state is that all the backups from all the DDC machines used were transferred to the INEC headquarters of the state. The backups were then imported into a central machine (usually for the REC/under his control) and voter's register for each Polling Unit printed.

The issue here is that voter registers were printed on a state level. And I think INEC really tried for doing that.

The reason why there can be no federal/central database as you point out is more of a Cost Benefit thing. What are the chances of multiple voters going across states to vote with only 4 to 5 hours of voting time per day (12.30pm to 4.00pm),

To continue, I must appreciate the fact that the designers behind the OpenVR software really had their work cut out for them. I was in a remote village (was posted to Jigawa, exact village was about 4 hours from my place of posting) and even in such remote place, the OpenVR was updated (patched) about 3 times or so.  This shows they were working behind the scenes even during the exercise working to improve the software, reduce bugs and other stuffs. They also made adjustments to the software during the fingerprint scanner sage (it was a software not hardware issue) and then also during the black-catridge-shortage sage too.

I am a present NYSC corper so had first hand experience with these things. I'm also kinda I.T. savy. I don't have any affliation with the OpenVR nor anything to gain from them so all I'm saying is true.

You guys should feel free to ask questions about the OpenVR or Voter's Registration or Voting exercise as I see a lot of misinformation out there.

God Bless,

Ok. Please send your quote and location details to adeniran.tunde@gmail.com

anyone to help out?

If the laptop is brand new you might have to pay some fee as import duty. If it's not a new one you might have some story telling to do with the custom guys to convince them.

Had an experience like this when someone I know sent three brand new laptops from the US to the UK via post to cut down the cost of sending them directly to Naija via DHL. Backfired when we received a letter from the UK post office saying we had to pay import duty on the three laptops and cost of import duty on each one was actually the cost of sending them directly from the US in the first place.

Hi,

I need an HP DM1z - 11.6" ultraportable running AMD fusion. Anyone preferably in computer village or within Lagos environs should supply me with a price quote and contact details.

I believe specific configuration may vary (with things like memory, hard disk size) so let me know what exactly your offering and at what price.

Thanks.