₦airaland Forum

I got this in my email from a friend this morning. Hope it gets some of us thinking like it did me? Happy Reading!

They call the Third World the lazy man’s purview; the sluggishly slothful and languorous prefecture. In this realm people are sleepy, dreamy, torpid, lethargic, and therefore indigent —totally penniless, needy, destitute, poverty-stricken, disfavored, and impoverished. In this demesne, as they call it, there are hardly any discoveries, inventions, and innovations. Africa is the trailblazer. Some still call it “the dark continent” for the light that flickers under the tunnel is not that of hope, but an approaching train. And because countless keep waiting in the way of the train, millions die and many more remain decapitated by the day. “It’s amazing how you all sit there and watch yourselves die,” the man next to me said. “Get up and do something about it.” Brawny, fully bald-headed, with intense, steely eyes, he was as cold as they come. When I first discovered I was going to spend my New Year’s Eve next to him on a non-stop JetBlue flight from Los Angeles to Boston I was angst-ridden. I associate marble-shaven Caucasians with iconoclastic skin-heads, most of who are racist. “My name is Walter,” he extended his hand as soon as I settled in my seat. I told him mine with a precautious smile. “Where are you from?” he asked. “Zambia.” “Zambia!” he exclaimed, “Kaunda’s country.” “Yes,” I said, “Now Sata’s.” “But of course,” he responded. “You just elected King Cobra as your president.” My face lit up at the mention of Sata’s moniker. Walter smiled, and in those cold eyes I saw an amenable fellow, one of those American highbrows who shuttle between Africa and the U.S. “I spent three years in Zambia in the 1980s,” he continued. “I wined and dined with Luke Mwananshiku, Willa Mungomba, Dr. Siteke Mwale, and many other highly intelligent Zambians.” He lowered his voice. “I was part of the IMF group that came to rip you guys off.” He smirked. “Your government put me in a million dollar mansion overlooking a shanty called Kalingalinga. From my patio I saw it all—the rich and the poor, the ailing, the dead, and the healthy.” “Are you still with the IMF?” I asked. “I have since moved to yet another group with similar intentions. In the next few months my colleagues and I will be in Lusaka to hypnotize the cobra. I work for the broker that has acquired a chunk of your debt. Your government owes not the World Bank, but us millions of dollars. We’ll be in Lusaka to offer your president a couple of millions and fly back with a check twenty times greater.” “No, you won’t,” I said. “King Cobra is incorruptible. He is …” He was laughing. “Says who? Give me an African president, just one, who has not fallen for the carrot and stick.” Quett Masire’s name popped up. “Oh, him, well, we never got to him because he turned down the IMF and the World Bank. It was perhaps the smartest thing for him to do.” At midnight we were airborne. The captain wished us a happy 2012 and urged us to watch the fireworks across Los Angeles. “Isn’t that beautiful,” Walter said looking down. From my middle seat, I took a glance and nodded admirably. “That’s white man’s country,” he said. “We came here on Mayflower and turned Indian land into a paradise and now the most powerful nation on earth. We discovered the bulb, and built this aircraft to fly us to pleasure resorts like Lake Zambia.” I grinned. “There is no Lake Zambia.” He curled his lips into a smug smile. “That’s what we call your country. You guys are as stagnant as the water in the lake. We come in with our large boats and fish your minerals and your wildlife and leave morsels—crumbs. That’s your staple food, crumbs. That corn-meal you eat, that’s crumbs, the small Tilapia fish you call Kapenta is crumbs. We the Bwanas (whites) take the cat fish. I am the Bwana and you are the Muntu. I get what I want and you get what you deserve, crumbs. That’s what lazy people get—Zambians, Africans, the entire Third World.” The smile vanished from my face. “I see you are getting pissed off,” Walter said and lowered his voice. “You are thinking this Bwana is a racist. That’s how most Zambians respond when I tell them the truth. They go ballistic. Okay. Let’s for a moment put our skin pigmentations, this black and white crap, aside. Tell me, my friend, what is the difference between you and me?” “There’s no difference.” “Absolutely none,” he exclaimed. “Scientists in the Human Genome Project have proved that. It took them thirteen years to determine the complete sequence of the three billion DNA subunits. After they were all done it was clear that 99.9% nucleotide bases were exactly the same in you and me. We are the same people. All white, Asian, Latino, and black people on this aircraft are the same.” I gladly nodded. “And yet I feel superior,” he smiled fatalistically. “Every white person on this plane feels superior to a black person. The white guy who picks up garbage, the homeless white trash on drugs, feels superior to you no matter his status or education. I can pick up a nincompoop from the New York streets, clean him up, and take him to Lusaka and you all be crowding around him chanting muzungu, muzungu and yet he’s a riffraff. Tell me why my angry friend.” For a moment I was wordless. “Please don’t blame it on slavery like the African Americans do, or colonialism, or some psychological impact or some kind of stigmatization. And don’t give me the brainwash poppycock. Give me a better answer.” I was thinking. He continued. “Excuse what I am about to say. Please do not take offense.” I felt a slap of blood rush to my head and prepared for the worst. “You my friend flying with me and all your kind are lazy,” he said. “When you rest your head on the pillow you don’t dream big. You and other so-called African intellectuals are damn lazy, each one of you. It is you, and not those poor starving people, who is the reason Africa is in such a deplorable state.” “That’s not a nice thing to say,” I protested. He was implacable. “Oh yes it is and I will say it again, you are lazy. Poor and uneducated Africans are the most hardworking people on earth. I saw them in the Lusaka markets and on the street selling merchandise. I saw them in villages toiling away. I saw women on Kafue Road crushing stones for sell and I wept. I said to myself where are the Zambian intellectuals? Are the Zambian engineers so imperceptive they cannot invent a simple stone crusher, or a simple water filter to purify well water for those poor villagers? Are you telling me that after thirty-seven years of independence your university school of engineering has not produced a scientist or an engineer who can make simple small machines for mass use? What is the school there for?” I held my breath. “Do you know where I found your intellectuals? They were in bars quaffing. They were at the Lusaka Golf Club, Lusaka Central Club, Lusaka Playhouse, and Lusaka Flying Club. I saw with my own eyes a bunch of alcoholic graduates. Zambian intellectuals work from eight to five and spend the evening drinking. We don’t. We reserve the evening for brainstorming.” He looked me in the eye. “And you flying to Boston and all of you Zambians in the Diaspora are just as lazy and apathetic to your country. You don’t care about your country and yet your very own parents, brothers and sisters are in Mtendere, Chawama, and in villages, all of them living in squalor. Many have died or are dying of neglect by you. They are dying of AIDS because you cannot come up with your own cure. You are here calling yourselves graduates, researchers and scientists and are fast at articulating your credentials once asked—oh, I have a PhD in this and that—PhD my foot!” I was deflated. “Wake up you all!” he exclaimed, attracting the attention of nearby passengers. “You should be busy lifting ideas, formulae, recipes, and diagrams from American manufacturing factories and sending them to your own factories. All those research findings and dissertation papers you compile should be your country’s treasure. Why do you think the Asians are a force to reckon with? They stole our ideas and turned them into their own. Look at Japan, China, India, just look at them.” He paused. “The Bwana has spoken,” he said and grinned. “As long as you are dependent on my plane, I shall feel superior and you my friend shall remain inferior, how about that? The Chinese, Japanese, Indians, even Latinos are a notch better. You Africans are at the bottom of the totem pole.” He tempered his voice. “Get over this white skin syndrome and begin to feel confident. Become innovative and make your own stuff for god’s sake.” At 8 a.m. the plane touched down at Boston’s Logan International Airport. Walter reached for my hand. “I know I was too strong, but I don’t give it a damn. I have been to Zambia and have seen too much poverty.” He pulled out a piece of paper and scribbled something. “Here, read this. It was written by a friend.” He had written only the title: “Lords of Poverty.” Thunderstruck, I had a sinking feeling. I watched Walter walk through the airport doors to a waiting car. He had left a huge dust devil twirling in my mind, stirring up sad memories of home. I could see Zambia’s literati—the cognoscente, intelligentsia, academics, highbrows, and scholars in the places he had mentioned guzzling and talking irrelevancies. I remembered some who have since passed—how they got the highest grades in mathematics and the sciences and attained the highest education on the planet. They had been to Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), only to leave us with not a single invention or discovery. I knew some by name and drunk with them at the Lusaka Playhouse and Central Sports. Walter is right. It is true that since independence we have failed to nurture creativity and collective orientations. We as a nation lack a workhorse mentality and behave like 13 million civil servants dependent on a government pay cheque. We believe that development is generated 8-to-5 behind a desk wearing a tie with our degrees hanging on the wall. Such a working environment does not offer the opportunity for fellowship, the excitement of competition, and the spectacle of innovative rituals. But the intelligentsia is not solely, or even mainly, to blame. The larger failure is due to political circumstances over which they have had little control. The past governments failed to create an environment of possibility that fosters camaraderie, rewards innovative ideas and encourages resilience. KK, Chiluba, Mwanawasa, and Banda embraced orthodox ideas and therefore failed to offer many opportunities for drawing outside the line. I believe King Cobra’s reset has been cast in the same faculties as those of his predecessors. If today I told him that we can build our own car, he would throw me out. “Naupena? Fuma apa.” (Are you mad? Get out of here) Knowing well that King Cobra will not embody innovation at Walter’s level let’s begin to look for a technologically active-positive leader who can succeed him after a term or two. That way we can make our own stone crushers, water filters, water pumps, razor blades, and harvesters. Let’s dream big and make tractors, cars, and planes, or, like Walter said, forever remain inferior. A fundamental transformation of our country from what is essentially non-innovative to a strategic superior African country requires a bold risk-taking educated leader with a triumphalist attitude and we have one in YOU. Don’t be highly strung and feel insulted by Walter. Take a moment and think about our country. Our journey from 1964 has been marked by tears. It has been an emotionally overwhelming experience. Each one of us has lost a loved one to poverty, hunger, and disease. The number of graves is catching up with the population. It’s time to change our political culture. It’s time for Zambian intellectuals to cultivate an active-positive progressive movement that will change our lives forever. Don’t be afraid or dispirited, rise to the challenge and salvage the remaining few of your beloved ones. Field Ruwe is a US-based Zambian media practitioner and author. He is a PhD candidate with a B.A. in Mass Communication and Journalism, and an M.A. in History.

I have read things on this forum that made me conclude and believe that most supporters of Mr president were dropped on their head by either the doctor or the nurse the day they were born and its effect is still with them till date.
God have mercy on us all.

If and when we are ready to free ourselves from the bondage of these thieving bastards you call leaders we wont look up to labour to call for strike or call it off at their convenience. Arab spring did not start with labour.

When bias can't let a person see the truth in a statement, then there is more hope for a fool than that person.

The beauty of this debate/argument/discuss is that, all views irrespective of the camp it may belong to (Muslim, Christian, atheist) expressed is LIMITED to the extent of your logical reasoning power or intelligence, The underlying word being LIMITED. Am sure if we, as humans are endowed with infinite knowledge, we would have answer to this question, but let's not be in a hurry to know who created God, in death which is certain for everybody and when knowledge will no longer be limited. Then you shall all Know.

What you are trying to achieve with this post, OP to put it in another form is trying to answer the question of which comes first, The Chicken or the Egg? which in all the human knowledge of this age and time still can't answer with certainty.

i hope there is an independent party monitoring the examination of the doodoo before NDLEA official planted one in it in order to save face.

Come to think of it, the Ghana we are all rushing back to now because of it's level of development was as a result of somebody doing a coup back then.

I thought this policy was to take effect in June 2012 in some states. its stated in the newspaper (Tribune) that the policy will take effect in Lagos come december, my question is this why the hurry?. Taking in to consideration that the flow of cash during this period (xmas) in this locality more than tripple the average in other month.

Does this sanusi guy know what he's doing.

htc hd2 with opera browser. cant remember the last time i powered up my laptop for internet usage.

simply the best.

Rawlings said military coup is done to correct any form of government institution that has lost focus in achieving its set out objectives and aim. That was his understanding when he carried out the coup in Ghana then.

i will have know grouse if this  looting with impunity is being perpetrated by khaki boys, at least i will know that cos they carry guns i will behave.

Now to believe or to be under the illusion that  we are under a democratic dispensation and these idiots thinks they can do whatever they like without giving a rat ass about the general population, these has to stop.

i know at a point something will have to give and i hope we will be able to survive it as a nation.

bloody MOFOs

Two qualities are expected of capable leaders, good if the two are combined but yet they could be mutually exclusive.

Intelligence and hard cohones (Balls).

Time will show us which one GEJ has.

How can a religion that terms non believers an infidel and justified the killing of the so called infidel a religion of peace.

I can see why the country is in the gutter, the brains of the people in government are in the landfill and most of the governed have theirs in the waste bin.

For how long will these madness continue.

Let not all who supported and voted for him come on this forum and criticize him cos with the measure and passion with which they used then, they will stand condemed.

You all ain't seen nothing yet, they are just getting ready to run the country aground.

Wish you all goodluck.

Is it me or the level of education in the private school is being raised too high. its not a new thing nowadays for a primary 3 pupil to come home with assignment that either the parents end up doing or the kid have to consult the almighty google for research and answers.

Please why would a primary 3 be givenan assignment in deductive reasoning, why would a primary 3 student be given an assignment that require consultation of the periodic table.

i understand we are in the age of technology and development is at a neck breaking speed but i still there is a process which identifies gifted children and seperated from the general pool.

can i have opinion regarding this observation and the implication it portend.

Religion is the opium of the mordern age with which people are divided, extorted and exploited. its like people are under a strong spell which they can't break free from.

God help us all.

A plot of land acquired from wisdom properties before MFM is up for sale. The price is very nogitiable

if intrested call 08052219470

Please can somebody tell me if giving to the Nigerian Police who by every definition falls under the classification of beggars will earn me 2 years too, cos this might get some people being shot at for refusal to give money to them.

i read in today's daily that the government of fashola will jail anybody caught giving alms to begger on lagos roads.

it says the administration is committed to best practices in social care and as such money intended for street beggars should be channelled to churches, mosques,registered orphanages, motherless babies homes etc.

my question is this, where is the demarcation between my fundamental human rights to help whomever i deem fit with whatever resources i have and the law that dictates to me who and where i must channel my help afterall some of us still gives and donate to all these supposedly social welfare institutions.

Even in advance countries we are so trying to be like, there are beggars and homeless people who are given alms so why do we have this tendency to be over zealous even when we have best of intentions.

Though we have those who had made a profession out of begging but i know most wouldnt be out there begging if they could help it.

Make effort to reduce beggars on the streets with programmes aimed at such but dont tell me i'll go to jail for giving alms.

Some few hours back Obama decided and annouced the pictures of either dead or the buried at sea body of OBL will not be released.

Here is the deal reached between George W bush, OBL and Obama.

It is believed in some circles that OBL carried out the 911 attack at the behest of the powers that be in America in order to further their NWO agenda which has been unfolding gradually over the years all in the name of war on terror, example being what one is being subjected to at the airport and how gradually human rights are being chipped away all in the name of National Security.

The deal was that after the attack OBL will go underground in order to give credibility to the attack and stay underground till they are able to perfect the plan to make him disappear from plain sight forever while being able to live his life in the open.

The whole sunday/Monday show of OBL being killed in a mansion, whisked away and buried at sea is a plan that has taken almost 10 years of tireless planning to execute flawlessly.

If ever a body was taken from that mansion in pakistan, it is not OBL, He has undergone facial reconstruction surgery somewhere in south America an is somewhere living his life.

Remember this is just a conspiracy theory or is it.

The idea is open to critique.

According to INEC, there are about 120,000 polling station nation wide, if all these new organisations that has sprang up to raise the populace awareness regarding participation and protection of votes could come together and obtain from INEC the schedule of all the 120,000 polling station along with its codes and is put up on a website in a format that results from the each polling can be inputted.

Results will be gathered by 120,000 volunteers at each of the polling station across the country, who are already registered voters at the polling stations in their various wards and by way of already pre registered phone numbers ( as text from a different number will be rejected) will send a text to a predetermined number at the supposedly collation centre set up by these organisations and is immediately put on the website for all to see.

With this method results will be known well before even INEC announces it's own version of results which presently is being suspected to have been tampered with at INEC collation centres in some states.

Like i said this is open to critique for a better idea to take shape and be implemented.

this is to all JEGA (Jonathan Ebele Goodluck Azikwe) apologist out there, i hope one day during his reign cos its obvious now that the election is going to be rigged in his favour you wont all turn coat  when the crack of the whip from the slavemaster keeps finding your back and you end up looking very stupid in doing so.

its amazing how bias clouds logical reasoning to a point of insanity, when the obvious is sacrifised on the alter of prejudice.

Next saturday enter that booth, thumb print on the umblera and wait for the hardship those people dispatched from perdition (PDP) will unleash on the country.

Dont wish Nigeria Goodluck, wish her the best of luck come next saturday.

WEDNESDAY, 02 MARCH 2011 00:00 BY ADE OGIDAN NEWS - NATIONAL

THE ongoing reforms in the nation’s banks may soon be dogged by a fresh litigation, as a group of shareholders has threatened to drag the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to court, over alleged unilateral merger and acquisitions exercise of the financial institutions.
Also, the stakeholders, under the aegis of Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria (ISAN) have concluded plans to formally petition President Goodluck Jonathan ahead of the legal suit, over the matter.
CBN governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, recently disclosed in London, United Kingdom that 10 of the current 24 banks in the country would merge by end of this month, while industry sources indicated that the number of the financial institutions may eventually shrink to 15, under a merger/acquisition scheme already scripted by the apex bank.
Indeed, some of the “rescued banks” have unfolded plans to enter into negotiations with certain undisclosed investors, while a few Memorandum of Understanding (MOUs) had even been reached by a few of the banks, with prospective buyers.
But ISAN’s national co-ordinator, Sunny Nwosu, told The Guardian yesterday that CBN’s moves would be challenged in the court, “as they are statutorily illegal, due to non-consultations with shareholders, who are the owners of the banks”,
However, “before we file the suit, we would send a petition to President Goodluck Jonathan to see if he could call the CBN governor to order”.
Nwosu pointed out that already, “Access Bank Plc has been planned to buy over the bigger Intercontinental Bank Plc, through an MOU drafted and signed by two CBN lawyers, which has further thrown up immorality issues in the deal”.
According to him, “the plan to sell the banks’ shares to pre-determined investors, from our intelligence sources, had been concluded earlier, with intention to favour certain investors close to CBN leadership.
“The situational factor surrounding the plan would normally elicit concerns from all those that are interested in transparency and rule of law, as the moves being made so far by CBN have been shrouded in utmost secrecy.”
“All we’ve been hearing have been one-sided valuations of the banks’ assets by CBN appointed financial advisers, without reference to the shareholders.  We even had information that the banks are being made to pay for the services of those consultants.
“From all indications, the same CBN appointed managements of the so-called rescued banks have been declaring the banks as inadequately capitalized, without independent verifications by shareholders.  Where then is the transparency in the whole process?
Nwosu said that the recently established Assets Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) has been surreptously engaged to discount the assets of some of these banks, “preparatory to selling their respective shares for peanuts”.
Besides, he stressed that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been shying away from making positive intervention, which would ensure adherence to laid-down procedures in shares’ acquisition, under the present bids for the banks.
“Under the prevailing regulations, the shareholders should be allowed to source for suitable and compatible investors, where the need arises and we are not sure there is need for current shopping for investors by CBN, for the banks.
“Indeed, if there is any capital shortfall that requires the banks to recapitalise, both the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) and Banks and other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA) require all shareholders to have the first right to recapitalise the banks.
“In doing this, the shareholders, at the emergency general meeting would mandate the board and management of the concerned bank to script the necessary moves and not the other way round where investors are being imposed on them by CBN.”
He added: “We find the role being played by AMCON as anomalous and could threaten the legal firmament of the entire financial system”, explaining that beside unsavory discounting of banks’ shares, “AMCON is not supposed to be a voting partner in the system as this is a direct and illegal move to reduce the powers of shareholders”.
Nwosu disclosed that plans to make Access Bank to buy over Intercontinental Bank is most unfortunate and would be resisted by shareholders.
“It is amusing that someone with small throat is being made to swallow a bigger object.  When the object has been swallowed, there would obviously be some braises on such small throat, “making philosophical reference to Access Bank’s bid for Intercontinental Bank.
He asked: “Why don’t you allow the bank, through the shareholders, to ‘toast’ each other before courting so that their respective compatibilities would be assessed.  Why does CBN want to destroy one bank or discount its shares to make it cheaper in the market in favour of pre-determined investors?
An official of Intercontinental Bank, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to confirm Access Bank’s bid for his bank, even as he affirmed that an MOU was earlier reached by both banks for an acquisition deal.
“We are still looking for investors.  The fact that we reached an MOU with Access Bank does not confirm that we have consented to the terms of a buyer.  The exercise is ongoing and we implore everybody to exercise patience till the deal has been consummated”, he said.
Currently, the CBN was still keeping mum over the number of foreign concerns interested in Nigerian banks. Already, South Africa’s FirstRand, has expressed interest in buying one of the nine rescued banks.
“We did register interest in that process. I’m not able to mention which bank, but we certainly registered our interest. We are looking at opportunities, especially given the reforms taking place driven by the Central Bank of Nigeria,” Sizwe Nxasana FirstRand’s Managing Director,  Sizwe Nxasama said recently.
The CBN had asked for potential bidders to register their interest in the troubled banks by mid-December to test the enthusiasm for acquisitions. A report by the Bank of America, Merrill Lynch published recently, revealed that a number of South African banks, have continued to express interest in Nigeria’s banking sector.
“A number of South African banks have expressed an interest in acquiring a stake, in one of the Nigerian banks. At a recent meeting with Johan Burger, Chief Operating Officer of the FirstRand Group, he described the situation in Nigeria at the moment as a once in a life time opportunity.”
The Head of Corporate Communications of CBN, Mohammed Abdullahi, recently confirmed in a media report that stated “discussions are going on already, expressions of interests have been received between the banks, the financial advisers we appointed for them, some organisations and individuals that have expressed interest,” without giving further details.
By the end of September, nine of the banks made provisions in excess of N2.2 trillion for loan losses. Potential investors are anxious to see how quickly an AMCON can soak up the bad debts and make the banks attractive.