₦airaland Forum

TheFreeOne:



The system needs to be restructured fast lest everything falls of the cliff into dissolution but the selfish political leaders are in slumber thinking all is well.

Wittyduchess:
What first needs to be regulated is the unabeited killings by herdsmen, the bodfaced nepotism by the president and it's cabals , then we can talk.

richmond500:
No, the platform that promotes escalating of these things need to be regulated first.

richmond500:
Some of the herdsmen killings are fake news from way back, some high politicians will do things that promotes Bloodshedding, all these needs to stop then we can deal with internal issues

If there was ever a time Nigeria could have taken off, it was in 1999. Democracy had been restored, with its economy reopening after decades of mismanagement and plunder under military dictatorships.

Tomi Davies, a systems analyst, was one of thousands of Nigerians who came home to help rebuild the country. After a few years working on public-sector projects, he was offered a bag full of dollars to add ghost employees to the payroll system he was installing. When he refused, a group of men attacked him at his home in the capital, Abuja.

“I arrived like many others full of hope, but had to escape in disgust,” said Davies, 65, who returned to the U.K., where he is now chief investment officer of Frankfurt-based venture capital firm GreenTec Capital Partners.

Others like him have left too, defeated by the dashed aspirations of a nation that wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. Endowed with some of the world’s biggest oil reserves, plenty of arable land and a young, tech-savvy population of 206 million that sets Africa’s music and fashion trends, Nigeria had the potential to break onto the global stage.

Instead, policy missteps, entrenched corruption and an over-reliance on crude oil mean that a country that makes up a quarter of the continent’s economy risks becoming its biggest problem. A dangerous cauldron of ethnic tension, youth discontent and criminality threatens to spread more poverty and violence to a region quickly falling behind the rest of the world.

Since its discovery in the 1950s, beneath the mangrove forests of its south eastern coast, oil has dictated the boom and bust cycles of the former British colony, with the commodity now accounting for 90% of exports and half of government revenue.

Poverty Capital

The economy has yet to recover from the oil crash of 2014, and is unlikely to do so anytime soon, meaning its population will continue to out pace economic expansion adding more poor to what is already the poverty capital of the world. Over 90 million people live in penury, more than India, which has a population seven times greater.

A presidential spokesman referred questions to the government’s economics team. The finance ministry and central bank didn’t respond to several requests for comment.

https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/372423414.jpg

The coronavirus has only made things worse. Personal incomes are set to fall to their lowest in four decades, pushing an additional 11 million people into poverty by 2022, according to the World Bank. One in three Nigerians in the workforce unemployed, among the world’s highest jobless rates, fanning social discontent and insecurity.

Policy blunders by President Muhammadu Buhari have complicated the road to recovery. He came to power in 2015 pledging to create 12 million jobs in his first four-year term; halfway through his second term, unemployment has more than quadrupled.

Buhari, 78, revived an import-substitution drive that was popular when he was a military ruler in the early 1980s, crippling businesses that can’t get goods to survive. He has banned foreign currency for imports of dozens of products from toothpicks to cement, closed borders to halt rice smuggling and refused to fully ease exchange controls.

Policies like this have curbed foreign investment, pushed food inflation to 15-year highs and scared off companies such as South Africa’s supermarket chain Shoprite Holdings Ltd.

“The government made so many mistakes even before the pandemic made things worse,” said Amina Ado, who was one of Buhari’s oil advisers from 2017 to 2020. “We need to urgently change course because we are big enough to matter in the world.”

The roots of the malaise though, predate Buhari. Under British rule, Nigeria’s three main regions, divided along ethnic and religious lines, were awkwardly sandwiched together in a 1914 amalgamation. Since independence in 1960, elites from the largely Christian south west and south east have tussled for power with the Muslim north.

“Political instability is a huge obstacle to the kind of deep, long-term institutional economic reforms needed for Nigeria to be able to kick start,” said Zainab Usman, director of the African program at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Oil led to the dismantling of what little industry there was by opening the floodgates to cheap imports financed by a strong local currency. Countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, which were as poor as Nigeria in the 1960s, have surpassed it in per-capita income after diversifying.

https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/372423820.jpg

A surge in corruption also wrested away resources needed for infrastructure and a reliable power supply — both of which are lacking.

“In a lot of countries, people are used to officials skimming something off the top, but ultimately delivering something,” said Matthew T Page, an associate fellow at Chatham House in London. “In Nigeria, everything is skimmed off the top and nothing is delivered.”

Security Meltdown

Mistrust of the state and poverty seeded violence. A decade-long jihadist insurgency in the northeast rages on despite Buhari’s claims to have defeated Boko Haram militants in 2015. Piracy has also made the Gulf of Guinea one of the world’s most dangerous waters, while inland, a deadly conflict between nomadic herders and farmers in the middle of the country is moving south. A new separatist rebellion is emerging in the south east, where a secessionist attempt to create the republic of Biafra sparked civil war in the 1960s.

Kidnapping has surged to its highest in at least a decade, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. Nearly 900 students were taken from schools in mass abductions since December, according to the United Nations.

https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/372423699.jpg

It wasn’t always like this. As a child in the 1980s, Alvari Banu remembers the short road trips to visit the family farm between Abuja and the northern city of Kaduna. Now, kidnappings on the same road have kept him away for almost three years.

“The situation is getting worse,” said Banu, 41, a financial consultant. “The government has completely failed to provide even basic security.”

Disorder is a huge impediment for growth, costing the economy $10.3 billion in 2020 — more than the federal government’s total revenue that same year, according to official estimates. Without key reforms, Nigeria’s economy will remain anemic, expanding little more than 2% this year and next, still below the population growth rate, according to the International Monetary Fund.

In the meantime, the government is living on borrowed money, with debt service costs eating up over 80% of its revenue.

“This could end up in an external debt default if things don’t change,” said Charlie Robertson, global chief economist with Renaissance Capital, an emerging and frontier markets investment bank.

To avoid calamity, the government needs to allow the currency to depreciate, invest in electricity and campaign to lower fertility rates, which at 5.3 births per woman is one of the world’s highest and saps savings, said Robertson. Climbing oil prices, a planned sovereign bond sale and upcoming disbursement of IMF resources will help the country muddle through for now, said Omotola Abimbola, an analyst at Lagos-based investment bank Chapel Hill Denham.
The brunt of the economic decline is falling on the young, two-thirds of whom are either jobless or under-employed. With a median age of 18, the country’s population is growing restless and disconnected from the aging political class that lives in luxury. Last year, protests over police brutality became a nationwide uprising that paralyzed major cities, curbed only by a violent crackdown that killed dozens.

“There is a lot of frustration because there are a lot of overqualified people unemployed,” said Chioma Okafor, a 32-year-old public health-care expert who moved back to Nigeria in 2014. After two years making $200 a month in consulting in Abuja, and with no prospect of a better job, Okafor borrowed money to buy a one-way ticket back to the U.S.

“When Buhari came to office, people were expecting things to change,” she said. “But it’s not just Buhari that failed. The system is broken.”

SOURCE: BLOOMBERG

LordVoldermort:
If you study the companies behind it you'll see it is mostly Western companies in Japan and S.Korea that are pushing the technology

LordVoldermort:
You have forgotten it was the west that joined us together and it was our slavery and colonization that got them were they are today...

The west are not better than us they fight each other too e.g World war 1&2...that flying car will likely be used to drop bombs in the future...

My point is stop judging Nigeria using foreign scales

A news report I saw this morning incensed me. It was the news about Fulani herders
threatening to attack cities in Delta State if the governor does not rescind his ban on open grazing. At the same time, ironically, I was reading a New York Times story about the nerds in Silicon Valley are working to put cars in the air.

The states of the progress of two countries have never been this clearly stated. Or it has always been this glaring but we as a people have attained a level of incompetence that is shamelessness. We are no longer ashamed of the rubbish littered on the floor of our commonwealth.

It takes a secured man, a well-fed man, and an empowered person to be ashamed. So, if we are no longer ashamed and knowing the danger of un-ashemedness, there is a need for selected times when we can pretend to be ashamed.

When I saw the threat of attacking human beings and properties over the mode of what cows would eat, my anger was a frustrated one in the predictable sense that I am helpless. Fulani herdsmen can attack Delta State and I can do nothing about it, and nothing would happen.

The president, a Fulani himself, has come out to defend open grazing and said that farmers who lay claim of these 1960s “routes” should be summoned to defend their claims. Imagine an Isikwato man appearing in a council to defend the claims of his ancestral land with a northerner who needs the land to feed animals.

I can’t help it. Buhari is the commander-in-chief and the police and the army are under his command. Even state governors have no control over the security apparatus within their jurisdiction. If Fulani herdsmen want to take my land, my primary concern would be my life.

But the flying cars news piqued my occasional shame arsenal (it is not bad grammar, I have a shame arsenal that only comes out occasionally as my mental health permits). The flying cars piece made me put the incessant stories of what cows will eat side by side each other.

How do you carry a man with a broken waist? inquires an Igbo adage. How do you analyze the progress of a country that has chosen to remain backward and proud about it? Buhari’s regime banned bitcoin, and then
banned Twitter because one man was embarrassed when his tweet was deleted.
There are hundreds of thousands of Nigerians (or more) who trade bitcoin.

There are tens of millions of Nigeria who use Twitter. Twitter has gone beyond a social media platform. It is a platform for finding missing persons, for getting readdresses against police brutalities and other official abuses, for crowdfunding for health and for business, for news, for employment, for campaigns, for influencers marketing, and as a source of leads generation for businesses. Etc.

But we lost all these, albeit legally because one man’s ego was bruised.

So while we are banning cryptos, social media, and slicing open our farmlands in order to accommodate beasts, oyigbo people will soon put flying cars above skyscrapers. And no, it is no helicopter. These flying cars would not be noisy nor require a special field to land. You can still park your flying car in your garage.

Is Nigeria ready for this? Of course no. How many Nigerian leaders and those who are positioning themselves to rule in 2023 will be here in 30 years’ time? Are you not being sinister expecting our grandpas to think of a time when they are no more? Is it even African to expect people to make provisions for their death?

We are not even prepared for the onslaught electric cars would have on our livelihood as a nation; it is, thus, grossly farfetched to expect us to have the capacity to comprehend the need for a flying car. If these flying cars that white people are hustling to build would benefit cows, Nigerian ruling hegemony might be more interested.

It is technology, it is a new way of doing things, and it is not in any First Republic Gazette, how then do we sell it to Nigerians? What we don’t comprehend, we ignore, and sometimes we kill. Ignoring this news item might be the easy way for many Nigerians, even you (especially you), would be the easy way out.

But I refuse to allow it. Countries are running at aircraft speed and we are moving on a rickety bicycle with cattle impeding traffic. We need to have some shame. This is me bringing the shame right to your phone.

Rissimenky:
All kinds of projects are coming up in Lagos.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/6J1lsyf_1nc/maxresdefault.jpg

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/IPGp8se48mw/maxresdefault.jpg

https://i0.wp.com/nigeriarealestatehub.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/lagos-city.jpg?fit=1610%2C906&ssl=1

Majority of the projetcs have ZERO federal input. From urban rail networks, to world class bus terminals, to BRT systems, to entire new metropolises like Eko Atlantic.

If Lagos can do all this stuff without seceding from Nigeria, why can't OnItsha?

Why can't Onitsha build an 'Eko Atantic' of the East?

If all the money spent by IPOB in its dumb agitation was used for attracting major investments to the East, by now the entire East would have been a construction site.

Just like Lagos.

A Fulani Jihadist group has issued a 72-hour ultimatum to Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State to withdraw his support for the open grazing ban.

Anaedoonline.ng recalls that 17 southern governors had in a meeting in Asaba, Delta State, issued a ban on open grazing n the region.

But in an unsigned letter circulated in the state, the Fulani Jihadist instructed Okowa to withdraw support for the ban.

The letter read: “This is to inform Delta State that the Fulanis of Usman Dan Fodio leadership shall do everything it can to uphold the legacy of our heritage of open grazing, for we are nomadic people from origination and shall never negotiate the ownership of Nigeria and West Africa and sub-Sahara.

“We, hereby, ask the governor of Delta State to immediately withdraw his earlier stand on ban of open grazing in 17 regions in not less than 72 hours from the above date and also withdraw his position as the leading voice of the governors, even before the hosting of the South-South, South-East and South-South governors meeting in Asaba.

“Failure to adhere to this demand for being the host of the 17 governors, Delta State, most likely the city of Asaba and Agbor, shall encounter severe consequences than that of Bornu, Kebbi, Kastina, Kaduna, Enugu, Benue, Oyo and many more that will not respect the Fulani’s heritage.

“We take responsibility for the detonated explosive uncovered in the state secretariat, which should serve as warning to the Delta State government for what is to come, should the governor fail to abide by our demand.

“We advise all Fulanis and northerners, including the security personnel, to leave Delta State as soon as possible for the wind of our action is now present in the land. For failure of the governor to adhere to our call, this shall leave us with no choice.”

ReeLoaDead:
This post is in line with your asinine thread from some years back: https://www.nairaland.com/4144074/lies-nigerians-living-america

Sirjamo:
In case PDP dundees are wondering how he lifted people out of poverty, he's not talking about white collar jobs: Farmers, Manufacturers and N power beneficiaries know what the president is talking about.

Rissimenky:
Considering Nigeria is Africa's biggest internet ecosystem with 120 million users, and is projected to be the world's 3rd most populous nation by 2050 after India and China, I'd say potentially several billions of dollars.

Now that that's cleared up, let's ask this question:

What is Twitter worth to Nigeria?

Next to nothing.

There are many platforms lining up to replace them.

mmadu5:
those giving them these loans are mad. like do they expect Nigeria to repay them? onyibo mumu sha

UstazAhmed:
These debts are not embezzled unlike when the south was in power. They are being judiciously used for infrastructures.

Enough of these wailings. Buhari is the best leader ever in Nigeria

ygowon:
Yes, I'm glad the world knows who really are the enemies of Nigeria. Ipob is terrorist but bandits and herdsmen are farmers and villagers

Buhari Asks Jonathan To Resign Over Insecurity

UstazAhmed:
Your pdp and southerners are the sponsors of Al these bandits to spite our beloved buhari apc administration

Antoeni:
Buhari vs Boko Haram
Buhari vs PDP
Buhari vs ipob
Buhari vs Corruption
Buhari vs Avengers
Buhari vs Hoodlums
Buhari vs kidnappers
Buhari vs End SARS
Buhari vs ASUU
Buhari vs Rustlers
Buhari vs social media
Buhari vs Yahoo boys
Buhari vs enemies of Nigeria
Peace will return to Nigeria

His enemies may have few reason of hating him but patriotic Nigeria have many reason for loving him. May Buhari succeed.

Rissimenky:
Even worse, the so-called educated Nigerian youths that should see Twitter's ban as an OPPORTUNITY to use their own brains to develop a platform, are too busy shouting and abusing Buhari for banning Twitter, to employ their own creativity and innovation.

Wasted, useless, dependent generation.

QuotaSystem:
Why did Twitter show remorse by DELETING Nnamdi Kanu's hate tweets?

https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/465867-twitterban-twitter-deletes-nnamdi-kanus-tweets.html

brightalo1010:
yet Twitter is crying because of the ban from FG. You won't have sense again in your life

omonnakoda:
This question is best answered by Twitter

It is their business not anyone else's