If you feel that grammatical errors bother you so much, you can certainly go ahead and edit posts, but you'll find that you end up spending all your waking hours editing posts, given the low level of adherence to correct grammar in Nigeria.

Personally, I prefer to let grammatical errors slide - if the grammatical errors are so bad as to make the person's post incomprehensible, he will find that nobody is paying attention to him because nobody can understand him and he will stop either stop posting or 'clean up his act'.

I think it would be a good idea to reorganise the forum hierarchy so that people can only post in 'node' forums (i.e. forums that do not have any forums under them). I think it is confusing to have forums like 'General' having threads like 'White Lies', 'How Did You Celebrate Worker's Day? (1st May, 2005)', etc. and also have forums like 'Business' and 'Politics' underneath them, especially because this isn't the practice in most forums that I am familiar with.

I think it would be better to have sections in which nobody can post, and then create forums that people can post in. In other words, the hierarchy will be something like this:

Under 'Forums', there will be 'General Section', 'Living Section', 'Entertainment Section' and 'Technology Section'. Nobody will be allowed to post directly in these sections.

Under the 'General Section', there will be 'General', 'Business', 'Politics' and 'Recycle Bin'.

Under the 'Living Section', there will be 'Family', 'Romance', 'Pets', 'Health', 'Education', 'Faith', 'Travel' and 'Motoring'

Under the 'Entertainment Section', there will be 'Humour', 'Games', 'Books', 'Music', 'TV/Movies' and 'Sports'.

And under the 'Technology Section', there will be 'Phones', 'Personal Computers' and 'Internet'.

The posts that are currently in the 'General' forum (i.e 'White Lies', etc.) can be moved to the 'General' forum under the 'General Section', and the single post currently in the 'Living' forum can be moved to the 'Romance' forum under the 'Living' section.

Let me know what you all think.

Hi Seun,

Thanks for inviting me to join the Representatives forum.

I wouldn't encourage you to mail people who you don't know about the forum - that might even turn them off, in the same way you would be turned off by people who invite you to buy Viagra or view porn from someone who also happens to know about a 100% risk free deal which will make you 100 million naira richer.

Would it be possible to print flyers with the website name on with an interesting quote from one of the posts on the forum? Something like:


*** flyer start ***

"Useful WAP/MMS tips on Glo plus everything you need to know"

Find out about this and more at

www.nairaland.com

The site where Nigerians talk about Nigeria to Nigerians

*** flyer end ***


You could leave the flyers at cybercafes, schools and universities. The idea is that you're hinting that there's useful stuff to be read there, and curious souls will want to know more.

Chigszy,

There are proposals to change the rules on term limits so that instead of an official being allowed up to two terms of four years each, he/she will only be allowed a single six year term.

I think this is a good idea, because it will mean that officials won't be distracted with campaigning for re-election. Also, they won't have to do the will the 'big men' who put them in power, because they won't have to worry about the 'big men' removing their support for the next election.

Dominobaby,

I think one thing that might help on Internet dating sites would be if there was an associated messageboard where would-be daters could interact with each other. Then it would be easier to check out who was real and who was fake by observing how each person interacted with other people and checking their stories for internal consistency (does what they say check out with what they said earlier?) and plausibility (is it likely that what they said could be true, based on what I know about them?).

Or then again, maybe not.

Tayotina,

I don't necessarily enjoy cooking, cleaning, washing and other domestic chores, but I am most certainly able to do them and do them well.

The point is, there's something called division of labour (where the different roles to be performed in the house are split up depending on who is relatively better at doing them).

Now I'm good at domestic chores, which my wife may be better than me at doing. I'm also good at handling mechanical and electrical stuff and moving heavy stuff around, which my wife may not be so good at. Doesn't it make sense for me to specialise in the stuff that I'm good at, and leave my wife the handle the other stuff where I am at a disadvantage?

I don't think I would let my domestic skills go to waste even if I wasn't in charge of that area, because there are times that my wife would be unable to perform them. Then I would be able to step into the breach. Also, I don't like being too dependent on other people.

But even if I wasn't able to boil an egg to save my life, I think that as long as I was appreciative of the domestic work that my wife did and I always expressed this appreciation, I don't think that my wife would worry too much about it.

Trish,

For me, it's less about whether you are telling the truth, and more about the intent of your statement. Is it intended to cause harm or do good?

A quick example: let's say that assassins are chasing a person who you know to be innocent and who has rushed into your house for protection. Let's say you have hidden him so well that there is no way they could find him if they searched. Now if they ask you whether you are harbouring him, will you tell the truth? You can see that it will do far more harm than good to do so.

There is a cost to lying, though - you have to ask yourself whether it will destroy the trust between yourself and the person you lie to. Obviously, in the case of the assassins, you could care less if they trust you or not, so it doesn't really matter if you lie. There are other less clear cut cases, where for example you have to hide some bad news from someone because they are not in a position to handle it at that point in time. You just hope that they understand your reasons for doing so, and do not interpret your action then to mean that you habitually lie.

Chigzy,

Is it fair to ask the man to help in the housework if women aren't asked to do 'heavy stuff' like fixing broken down stuff, moving heavy things, etc.?

My ideal arrangement would be for there to be a joint account for expenses that are incurred on behalf of both parties (like accommodation, food, etc.) contributed roughly in proportion to each parties earnings. But each party should still be allowed to maintain their own individual accounts for their own purposes.

With NITEL in charge, I'm not holding my breath, especially when I remember how badly they ran (and still run) Nigeria's telecommunication infrastructure. I'll wait until either they are fully privatised or Globacom eventually get their own fibre optic network rolled out.

The age thing is very serious among us, the yorubas in particular. If your sister is just one year older than you she can send you on errands and you have to 'obey'. If you don't 'obey' your parents will accuse you of being stubborn, insubordinate. Now you can imagine that same lady being your wife. There will definitely be a power struggle!

Not really. The culture of younger people obeying elders is not so rigidly interpreted, else you would have a situation where a Yoruba employer couldn't employ someone older than him.

Anyhow, I think it's all down to mutual consent - what both the parties in the relationship agree on. If the wife agrees to respect and defer to the husband (even if she is older) and the husband is happy with this, then there's no problem.

The problem only arises when the wife expects that the husband should obey her because she is older... but then, he should have spotted this early on during the courtship stage and backed out then if he wasn't comfortable with that.

Hello Seun,

First of all, I'd like to say "well done" on kicking this site off. I've noticed that despite the near ubiquity of cybercafes in Nigeria and the love that Nigerians have for discussing stuff, there doesn't seem to be a forum which Nigerians resident in Nigeria visit to share their views - hopefully, yours will become that forum.

Regarding the establishment of private Nigerian refineries, I don't know if you've seen this article, from the Daily Champion website:

‘Why private refineries are delayed’

SOPURUCHI ONWUKA

DEPARTMENT of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has attributed the reluctance of investors to fund the establishment of private refineries in the country to government’s continued regulation of the price of premium motor spirit (PMS), also known as petrol.

Its director, Mr. Mac Ofurhie who disclosed this also cited fears that labour unions and civil society organisations would resist hike in the price of fuel emanating from full deregulation of downstream oil sector as another disincentive to such investment.

Government had given 18 licences to companies last year to establish private refineries as part of measures to make petroleum products readily available and deregulate the downstream oil sector.

But the prospective owners of the refineries are yet to construct any following difficulty in securing foreign bank loans and investors for the planned projects.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with Daily Champion in Lagos, Mr. Ofurhie said most of the licencee are afraid to execute their plans due to frequent labour and civil society protests against price movements in the downstream fuel market.

DPR is the official regulatory organ of the federal government in the oil and gas sector which also issued the licences for 18 private refineries.

Mr. Ofurhie said it would be difficult to take investment decision in a market environment that is full of pricing uncertainties.

"We are talking of plans that will involve about $1.5 billion dollars or thereabout. Then you count that there is no deregulated regime to enable them sell their products at a reasonable price without the unions and civil society organisations staging disruptive protests. These are part of the things that hinder the investments."

Advocating full deregulation of the market to enable investments in private refining, Mr. Ofurhie said new refineries would pull down prices by reducing cost of production and weeding our cost components associated with importation.

On progress report on the refineries the DPR boss said only one of the 18 licences has actually gone to site while the rest were at different stages of engineering design.

"They have not really come out with a commencement programme," he said.

Emphaising that it was only a fully deregulated market that is needed, the industry regulator said government has floated other incentives like guaranteed crude oil feedstock to encourage the licences.

"I am sure the government is interested in assisting the refineries take off and realised in time to mitigate the problems in the downstream market."

All that is needed, he said, is to deregulate the price of petrol since, he added, other products have attained substantial level of price deregulation.

"So, for it to be deregulated, there is need for government and the unions to agree. What I am sure of is there is need to deregulate in order to ensure the building of new refineries which will eventually the prices of products."

He pointed out that rising international prices of fuel was affecting both the prices and volumes of imported products and urged all stakeholders in the downstream market to reach an agreement soon to achieve the level of stability needed for investments.

The point of the article is that a business man will not put his money where he is not sure of making a profit, and unfortunately, the domestic market is not one where you can make money by selling refined petrol at current prices.

I guess the question comes down to whether Nigerians prefer a cheap product that is scarce, or an expensive product that is plentiful, and which (as in the case of GSM calls) could become cheaper in the longer term.