₦airaland Forum

Hello all. Got to the US today via Doha with Qatar Airways. I travelled with wider and our 4kids.

The trip itself was pretty stressful cause we had an 8 he 55minutes layover in Doha after a 10 hr 15minutes Lagos-Doha connect as against the usual 7hr 30mintes it took before the Qatar crisis.

After a total of like 37hrs (that"s adding the 4hrs spent at mmia) we got to JFK terminal 8 on schedule at 3.15pm local time and the place was pretty scanty.

We used the automated scanner and after a few minutes queue, it was our turn. The CBP Lady just shared jokes with the kids while she proceeded to stamp US all in for 6months, no questions asked, not even "why are you here ?" We thanked her and left. It took like 5minuyes to stamp each of the 6pps and the machine receipts.

Fast forward to agric after we collected our bags, we had declared that we had things like garri, egusi, ogbonna, yam flour, groundnuts etc. We itemized the food items and the cost in USD in the i-94 given to US on the plane and also answered in the affirmative to the question on good in the automated process.

The officers just asked whether we were sure we had no prohibited items and asked us to jave a pleasant stay.

Getting a ride to our accommodation was a bit dicey.The Uber guy showed up then said he couldn't take 6. I had to cancel and got charged $5
Eventually had to pay $55 to Bròoklyn for a ride with one of those "kabukabu" guys who brough a minivan. The yellow vabs eanted us to pay for 2 Cab that would have set me back $75 per Cab.

On the whole JFK was pretty stressless at least the terminal 8 I used today.

@Seyewest Thanks for the response. Just needed to be doubly sure.

seyewest:
No not...

Hi all.

Will be visiting the US real soon with DW and 4kids, POE is JFK. My relative who is our host was stated in our DS 160 during renewal via Dropbox as the sponsor of the trip. We will also be staying at his place.

Question: Will 9k dollars extra take along cash appear excessive to the CBP officers?

Note: Our stay is for 4weeks

Thanks.

Hi all.

Will be visiting the US real soon with DW and 4kids, POE is JFK. My relative who is our host was stated in our DS 160 during renewal via Dropbox as the sponsor of the trip. We will also be staying at his place.

Question: Will 9k dollars extra take along cash appear excessive to the CBP officers?

Please has anyone been able to book a flight off qatarairways.com in the last 3 days ? I have been trying to book and i keep getting a pop-up response that "this application does not presently support bookings from Lagos......". Please can anyone help ??

@seyewest thanks for the great work you're doing here.

abujaniv:
Hello kraba. In general, this is a question best directed to customer support: support-nigeria@ustraveldocs.com
But I could also suggest that you just make a new profile for your child, along with a new e-mail address. Web-based e-mail addresses are free, so just make a new one.

Thank you so much for the timely response. I just created a new profile for her (this makes it the second time) in keeping with your advice above but it was flagged again with the same auto response pointing at the similarities with my own profile. Again it requested that i go back to my own account, suggesting how to retrieve my "lost password", if that's the reason for creating the new profile.

I have also sent a mail to the address you supplied up here and recieved the auto acknowledgent. I also noticed it was the same address i had contacted 2weeks ago without any reply.

Please is there a phone number i can call ?

Thank you.

@abujaniv, a good evening to you.

I am having a hard time scheduling an appointment for my 2-year old daughter. My 3 other girls, my wife and i, all had our visas renewed via dropbox some months back but she couldn't be included cause she is a first time applicant.

The scheduling website keeps insisting that the new profile i created for her is similar to mine hence it can not be used.(i am paraphrasing the automated response).

Please, how do i book her appoinment since she has no personal e-mail address and mine had already been used while completing her DS-160, as is my practice for all my kids ?

Please note that i submitted her DS-160 on monday, 15th May, 2017 after which i tried getting her interview date. Once that failed, i sent an e-mail through the feedback window on the scheduling site that same day but i am yet to recieve a reply from them save the automated acknowledgement that came in almost immediately.

Please help.

teemanbastos:
Glory be to God nt Jonathan!

May that same God forgive you whenever you blame Jonathan when BH wrecks havoc on Nigerians

You are really observant. That's the APC way, always trying to bend the rule to suit themselves and then crying foul when they are check mated. Expect them to come for you with e-cutlasses very soon.

kodded:
what about march 14

You forgot the Police vs Agbero fight scam and the prostitutes under-payment scam!!

Some Nigerians are just jokers, no wonder the un-employment rate is so high. Only a fooish person will engage this fellow even on a pro-bono basis.

Zoharariel:
I still don't see how that stops him from being booted out of Asorock in few months time.

Immigration Scam,

Pension scam,

Fuel Subsidy Scam,

Stella Oduah's Scam,

Diezani's Aircraft Scam,

Farouk Lawal's Scam,

Ayo Oritsejafor's Scam,

Mohammed Abacha's Scam,

Ayo Fayose's Scam,

Buruji Kashamu's Scam,

Fani Kayode's Scam,

$20Billion Scam [$54Billion According To Obasanjo].

Conclusion: 2015 - Nigeria Sai GMB/Osinbajo!

My friend its obvious you have very little regard for FACTS, most of the things you have up here are factually inconsistent. God forbid Pa Buhari becomes president, your likes will be sent too jail indefinitely without trial for putting together so many lies in one write-up whille attempting to embarrass the govt.

Its better you repent b4 its too late, knowing that GEJ will continue till 2019 and you have enough time for full rehab.

Just saying, though.

Meanwhile elections MUST hold on february 14.

N.B: GEJ became acting pres in April 2010 and substantive in May 2010, how does that add up to 6yrs? Pls go and retake maths exam in your WAEC if you failed it or better still go take the whole exam properly if your case is like Pa Buhari's own. Stop allowing certificate-less politicians to think for you.

uyplus:
GEJ is really that bad to allow Abba Moro still be a serving minister after defrauding jobless youths. He is really that bad to increase his feeding budget from N1bn in 2014 to N4bn in 2015. He is that bad to stay mute when hus wife was indicted in a $13m money laundering case with EFCC. He is really that bad to allow Dieziani use N10bn on private travels. He is really that bad to have spent $30bn on revamping power yet no giant achievements has been made. He is really that bad to have increased our external debts from $26bn to $70bn. He is really that bad to have spent N968bn as security budget yet nothing has been achieved against the fight for insurgency. He is really that bad to have stayed mute on the missing $20bn exposition by the whistle blower, Sanusi Lamido. He is really that bad to be budgeting N2bn to build VP residence while ordinary Nigerians are homeless. He is really that to be spending N10bn on 11 presidential jets, when he should be more prudent to have max of 2. He is really that bad to have allowed $15m to be swept under the carpet in the illegal arm deal at South Africa, where the names of the Nigerians involved are still shrouded in secrecy but the name of the Israeli was exposed. He is really that to have attended the Organization of Islamic Countries meeting when no president in Nigeria has ever attended such. He is really that bad to have stayed mute on the scam $470m cctv contract deal in FCT, yet no surveillance camera is working. He is really that bad to have said stealing is not corruption. He is really that bad to have said "how much did Jim Nwobodo stole, money that can't buy a Peugeot" (why would a sitting president commonise stealing of public funds, even if it's N1, it shouldn't be stolen because it's should be a call to service and not an avenue to redefine comfort). He is really that bad to have allowed to pension scam thief go with a little punishment. He is really that bad to have pardoned ex-convicts like Bode george, and Alameyghsia. He is really that bad to have not even find a major road like the east/west road which connconnects the south south region. He is really that bad to allow an overinflated budget of N117bn for the 1.5km 2nd Niger bridge yet Lagos state government built the 1.3km Lekki-Ikoyi bridge for N29bn. GEJ is really that bad to allow Tompolo own a warship, and Asari and Boyloaf issue war threat, yet they haven't been arrested. He is failure to have used his cohorts to aattempt sweeping the issue of the alleged missing N30tn under the carpet.

Nigerians want change. We demand accountability. We want a government that is ready to fight for the masses.

To hell with GEJ. If you fail to see that he is a failure, I will open your eyes to the obvious. He is a failure, even with 6years of oil boom he failed, now he wants to deceive us that he can perform in 4years in oil doom.

Pls what's the job of ur governor and lg chairman?

KanwuliaJara:
After 6 years. . . .still 'fixing'!
Another 4 years will NOT make a difference.

No road for my village o!
Short distance nko?
OLODO 'ZOOLOGY' PRESIDENT!

He truly belongs in A ZOO. . .IN A CAGE!!!!

Its always very annoying when you people insist on forcing all the failures created by our useless past leaders on GEJ, while at the same time trying to share all the glory of his successes with them. Pls can you show us any where in Nigeria, whether on land or in the water where OBJ built any railway except on the pages of Newspaper. This is man that didn't even build roads.

motherlode:
kai stop saying that! OBJ started it but GEJ completed it.
So OBJ should also be equally praised for reviving the railway.

Most of those who try to belittle what this destiny child is doing are risking HBP. When we consider how far we came in 50 years and then compare what this man has done in less than 5 years, the fear of God should keep us from talking trash.
Consider the spread of his interventions in all sectors in all zones. A big kudos to a rare achiever.

Looks like Koro might win after all but its a pity but majority of lagosian might not be willing to vote for Koro just like many can NEVER vote for GMB. Its unfortunate but people need to learn to look at the big picture rather than their personal ego

Congratulations to lnnoson and private sector friendly/thinking government we have right now. People abused the president when he said Nigeria would soon be exporting cars, who's CLUELESS now. Left to some others we know, Nigeria will never be ripe to do anything new except to keep importing everything in the name of best quality. They complain about everything, shout change in the day time yet work hard like BATs at night just so everything can stay the same to their benefit.

Automobile manufacturing is taking shape, railways are progressing too, agriculture is moving forward, power will also fall in line. I just hope some angry people would not have bombed all their people out of hate by the time this country is completely transformed.

Please let the transformation continue cause if these backward guys mistakenly get to power they will reverse all the progress already made and return us back to the era of state control of everything. They've done it before.

Nigeria will get there!! Kudos innoson.

Barely one week after president Jonathan was sworn into office in 2011, the opposition unleashed their well planned "propaganda agenda" tailored towards frustrating the president's "transformation agenda" and designed to paint him as "clueless, incompetent & weak" so as to necessitate the need for "CHANGE". A good strategy you would say given the level of education of majority of Nigerians and the class hatred that has now become the norm.

They developed a "marking scheme" for him, which was based primarily on his mannerisms, dress code, intonation, wife's grammatical competence, remoteness of village, course of study in the university and of couse the language his body speaks. This list contains several other soft stuff that has made gossip magazines our prime news source in today's Nigeria and forced real news outfits to turn to "press release" centres in order to stay in business.

As a citizen of Nigeria with my roots in the south western parts of this nation, but who has a tendency to root for the under dog, i sought to develop my own marking scheme based on truth, fairness and within the borders of reasonability and here are the conclusion i came to.

Firstly, i set out what i thought were the essentials required to dig out Nigeria from the hole it was in, in 2011 and proceeded to isolate the things that a reasonable person would do to bring about enduring improvements. Issues like setting out a clear national vision, breaking them down to sectoral visions, recruiting the right leaders to develop masterplans with clear deliverables and timelines for each sector and drive their implementation, give them the political protection and backing to do their jobs and maintain a clear line of communication with the general populace while the job is being done.

What did this president do? He developed his vision which he christened, the transformation agenda, proceeded on an expansive head hunting process within the confines of "national spread & federal character", ensured that every major and some sub-sectors got well thought out masterplans with widespread input from critical stakeholders based on which he signed performance bonds with these employees of his, giving them all the freedom, authority and political backing to get the job done and has since been implementing these plans with varying degrees of success, fine tunning these plans as the need arose, and firing some of these line managers and hiring new ones for better results.

My conclusion is that no "reasonable" and "knowledgeable" analyst can fault his approach although the last leg which has to do with carrying the general populace along has not been competently done in my opinion.

However, the sectoral result is where some questions might be asked, and justifiably so, as to how successful this administration has been in its often touted transformation agenda. While sectors like roads & briges(federal interstate), seaports, aviation, agriculture, automobile manufacturing & ancilliary sub-sectors, railways, msme development, education(federal infrastruce and funding), oil & gas(but for the stagnation of the PIB in the NA), power and housing dev. & finance are obviously going in the right direction, security and to some extent the fight against corruption(depending on who you talk to) have gotten worse. (PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT ALMOST ALL OUR NATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE HAS FEDERAL, STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT COMPONENTS)

I decided to isolate the duo of security and fight against corruption (both law enforcement issues) which seems to have become the rallying point of the Nigerian opposition and look at them objectively vis-a-vis our peculiarities as a nation and the subsisting ethno-religious and volatile political realities which a democratically elected, civilian government is faced with while trying to better the lot of society. After a thorough examination of the state of this 2 sub-sectors and through scenario building, considering all the options available to an administration like the present one (not a coupist military admin) and given the several division points up and down the Niger, i came to a conclusion that the only reasonable approach, if Nigeria is to remain one, was to find a way to quickly ramp up physical infrastructure and other inputs that will help to better the lot and wean a sizeable majority of Nigerians off the apron strings of their ethno-religious-political champions, make true, committed, patriotic Nigerians of them and then and only then can we truly, truly deal with these 2 hydra headed monsters (both the creations of thesame voiciferious politicians) in a permanent and sustainable manner.

My question at the end is this simple minded analysis of mine, given the realities of today's Nigeria and the facts at our disposal, has this administration done well or not?

Are there truly areas of our lives, save security(without a doubt), where the situation has worsened under the watch of this administration?

Can an honest observer point out one sector or project that this administration inherited from a previous one and made things worse?

Please discuss intelligently for and against, no name calling pleeeaaaase. Thank you.

isomadtech:
Having read through this thread, i found out that a lot of people don't know milestone projects that were started during OBJ administration. Some of the power project, railway and some other key ones were negotiated by his administration. Some were counterpart funded and the agreements were done in such a way that incoming administration have no choice but to continue with them. These are some of the project being commissioned and under construction today. Dont celebrate GEJ on what he did not initiate. Also remember that OBJ came in after 15yrs of neglect of infrastructure development by military.

Sorry my friend, but are you saying GEJ should have done what d likes of OBJ and Co. did, by abandoning projects "pre-qualified & assessed for viability" (and maybe designed but not actually "started" or paid for) by past admins and start new ones, thereby adding to d over 26000 abandoned projects he inherited? That's the preserve of uneducated leaders whose sole aim is caressing their own personal egos to the detriment of actual development of d nation.

Hate him or love him, Jonathan will go down in history as having completed more projects than all other Nigerian leaders put together in a 5year period(April2010-May2015)

Other derided their predecessors, discredited their efforts and discontinued their projects, GEJ reviewed past efforts, recalibrated them, and continued/completed them. Others
planned, he's doing.

Mambilla was 1st muted over 30yrs ago, he's now starting actual work. Zungeru, "initiated" 30yrs ago is now off the boards, actual work began last year. Kashimbila is now 97% completed, just waiting for d 40MW electricity component. Almost 40 other dams have either been completed or rehabilitated.

All FG owned airports have been/are being remodelled while 5 new int. terminals and. One brand new airport is being built as I type.
He met 4000km of motorable FG roads out of 35000km, by dec. 2013 he'd taken that to 25000km.

He's rehabilitated all exiting narrow guage rail lines in the country and now as this thread confirms, the new standard guage lines are soon to come on stream

As at last count, he'd added 14 brand new FG owned degree awarding institutions to solve carrying capacity problems and ramped up funding through Tetfund, NDDC, CBN and other agencies to d tune of almost N1trillion to improve quality in all higher institutions including state and some privately owned ones.
Even with primary and secondary education that are not under his jurisdiction, his mark is indelible: Teacher training through the revamped NTI, Almajiri schools, girl child schools et al.

Let's not talk about Agric reforms, "actual" power reforms with actual Completion of 10 brandnew generating plants(over 4500MW) and several transmission projects, Housing financing and development reforms, greater support MSMEs, revival of automobile industry and on and on.

For the love of God and the fear of harsh judgement in hell fire, if Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, were to be your son, brother, inlaw, uncle or even father would you call him a failure with this kind of record

brownlord:
This is no assumption, if he dint do much before now and waited few few months to election to start some nonsense project just to get vote, then all I can say is that they are political motivated project which will be abandon after election.

FYI actual construction of this project started in feb 2011 and its now more than 90% completed, so what are u talking about? Is there a super store where u buy already built up rail line with. Stations to booth?

AZeD1: Why should you "commend" someone for doing what they are paid to do?

Sorry to disturb your morning tea but why do people commend a cowardly Fashola, who is too scared to even publicly condemn TB Joshua not talk of prosecuting him, for doing his extremely over-paid job, yet the under-paid soldiers who courageously and patriotically face death daily are not worthy of praise?

Arrogance and unwillingness to say "thank you", that's why 90% of Nigerians are irredeemably poor.

CoolHunk: I'm not surprised. We Alumni of that institution stand out anywhere we go. We're visionaries, pioneers, innovators. Like it or not, Unilorin is the Harvard of Nigeria.

Aye! Aye! Great Unilorite any day any where! So proud of my Alma mata

Good move

Its unfortunate that the APC spends so much time exciting and rallying their base instead of cultivating the undecided voters who mostly determine how elections swing in every sane democracy.
Reality is that PDP is a well structured organisation with multiple selling points hence it is fool hardy to think that a convergence of the intellectual elite who claim to want "change" largely in Lagos, a few state capitals and abroad will automatically erode the national grassroot support of the PDP and I do not believe this opposition party(APC) as presently constituted as what it takes to cause an upset

While the general elections is fairly open, it would amount to financial suicide to buy the PDP presidential ticket. I think the body language of PDP itself already suggests that there's no vacancy.

AZeD1: When you submitted your biometrics to the telecommunications company and embassies, did you also submit your financial details?

I registered for mine today and got my NIN, I didn't give any bank details and Presently I don't have any mastercards only visacards, so if anything, I expect I'd have a choice on the account I want to attach to be able to key into the other applications on the card

PhockPhockMan: Stop celebrating your naivety here. MTN,u AIRTEL And ETISALAT are all foreign companies, yet they in possession of personal information of millions of Nigerians including you, if NSA want any of the information from any of them, including Glo, an indigenous company, its a matter of pinch of button.

My broda, yours is one of the few informed comments I have read on this thread, first off all 160 million nigerian phone lines were. Registered with biometrics by 3 major foreign firms and I never heard any dissenting voices then, secondly, most nigerians 16 years & above have willingly gone to submit their biometrics at one foreign embassy or the other with great pride and even paid for it.
So except for myopic political gains, I see no reason why any "progressive" mind will oppose this long over due instrument of true inclusive prosperity.
This was the same excuse used by northerners to keep us from liberalising sectors like electronic/print media, aviation, telcoms, power for so long and thesame people that are "outraged" here have been raging for the "outages" in those sectors.
What you can't do for now, outsource it until you can, it simple logic.

lakpalakpa: Some of the killers are now friends with Goodluck Jonathan...

IBB - Killer of Dele Giwa

Omisore - Killer of Bola Ige

Mustapha - Killer of Kudirat Abiola

Fayose - Killer of Daramola

Obanikoro - Killer of Funsho Williams

Etc Etc.......

PDP = Killer Party

Jona-daft till 2015



http://www.informationng.com/2013/10/pdp-is-a-party-of-killers-former-chairman-reveals.html

Seems u have the 411 on all major assassination contracts in Nigeria, I'm sure you're in this line of business and an experienced practitioner at that, given the level of specificity You're bringing to the table, I hope you won't be too offended if the "hooded" men pay you a visit to seek your enlightened help in resolving some of these puzzles.

J12: Over 70 per cent of these assassinations occurred during the administration of Olusegun Obasanjo. Yet, some people will call him a great leader.

The worst part is that OBJ is Now seen as a saint just like IBB, pointing accusing fingers at someone whose admin has witnessed almost zero "political killings" save the ones we keep hearing on the pages of d newspaper that he's "planning" to kill millions of opposition politicians.

Mobile apps

ABDamola: Wia did u download d nairaland zip file?

Its at d bottom of d page where u have d original post

Just got it. Works fine. Kudos

I think d op has done justice to this one. To those justifying this sort of politics of propaganda, I have only one question; what would you have said if Jonathan were to go and commission the lagos-ibadan expressway as it is, in the name of phased commissioning