₦airaland Forum

More Abia

Abia water works. Please maintain your facilities. Thanks

More Abia

Abia

More Aba pics
second photo is Mormon Temple in aba

Abia people prefer to post (on the net) pictures of human being instead of those of the landscape. First photo is a private house in Abiriba (small London) Abia State.

How about some Enugu cashew for Jona to quench his hunger

Ohsisi

Nike Lake resort is there. Go through

Jona is a loser. I have created a PH thread and he should go there and join the ugly photos in merrymaking

Meanwhile what a refreshing environment. Did you notice how green those palms are?

More on Enuguuuuuuuu

Nigerian Breweries Limited
Lagos Office; Aba Breweries, Enugu Breweries

''Ama Brewery is the biggest brewery in Nigeria and the most modern in the world''.

http://www.nbplc.com/our_company.html

The Port Harcourt Waterfront : Confronting the curse of an oil city
By Ochereome Nnanna, George Onah & Jimitota Onoyume
Thursday, December 10, 2009


Port-Harcourt Water-Front, Abonema waterside

PORT HARCOURT—If you visit any of the Waterfront settlements in Port Harcourt, you are unlikely to want to come back unless something or someone dear to you is one of the victims trapped in their bowels.





advertisement












Ajegunle in Lagos is touted as Nigeria’s foremost slum settlement. Compared to the Waterfront slums of Port Harcourt, Ajegunle is “London.” At least, Ajegunle is solid ground built on approved government land.




There are roads and streets accessible to motor vehicles, and some of the roads are even tarred. There are schools, hospitals, clinics and potable water.


There is legitimate access to public power supply. Sanitation may not be at its best, but Ajegunle is amenable to sanitation, more so as there are few homes without toilets.


Above all, Ajegunle is under the authority of the state and subject to the laws of the land, even if criminals have not completely lost the fight for their share of the social and economic space there.


Come to any of the waterfronts in Port Harcourt, these elements of modern living are absent. The houses are made mostly of corrugated iron sheets and timber. A few are normal block houses, but they are invariably so tightly spaced together that even commercial motorcycles find it difficult to gain access.


Vehicle owners in the settlements park their vehicles along the major roads and trek to their homes down in the hovels. When there is high tide from the mighty Bonny River coming in from the Atlantic high seas, the water from the adjoining waterways comes into homes.


You can imagine what people who live here go through when it rains as it frequently does in Port Harcourt. There are no toilets in homes in some of them such as Bundu Waterfront. People answer the call of nature by either going close to the edge of the salty seawater or packaging their excrements in plastic bags and throwing them into the water.


Let us quote the words of a former Commissioner for Information in Rivers State, Mr Emma Okah, who, in an article in The SUN newspaper on Sunday, September 13, 2009, aptly captured the stigma the waterfront settlements leave like a diabetic scar their dwellers: “There is an awful stench that hangs in the air, and those who spend some time there carry this odour around town, giving off a whiff of decay.”



Water-Front



Apart from sanitation, the most distinguishing attribute of the Port Harcourt waterfronts is the total lack of security and the reign of the laws of the jungle put in place by underworld mafia lords who made themselves immune to the laws of the land.


For years, the state law enforcement agencies were unable to take control of crime in these settlements. Women are regularly raped. Hardly does a day pass without people being murdered. There is an unwritten law which forbids victims of crime to report to the police. Those who break the law will pay with their lives or those of their dear ones.


In fact, some gang chiefs have erected permanent outposts where sentries are stationed to watch out for the presence of law enforcement agents.


Okah again: “There are landlords who rule by the gun. There are gunrunners who feel free and fear no laws. There are drug dealers who fear no NDLEA operatives; there are gangs that decide the fate of the rest of society. There are hired killers who laze about with sharp knives and tout for jobs; there are freelance killers waiting for any odd jobs. Of course, there are sundry criminals (they are legion) who serve as recruits for political thuggery, oil bunkering foot soldiers, chieftaincy tussle warriors, militants, prostitution, etc.”


The Chief Press Secretary to the Governor of Rivers State, Mr. Blessing Wikina, told our team: “The most important aspect of this whole thing is the security and development. Once, there was a shooting at Abuja Waterfront, when the governor and the Brigade Commander got there they saw those bad boys swimming and sailing across from the settlement to the other side of the water.


These bad boys had observation point ‘OP’, where they stay and observe when security men would be coming to the place. Again, the waterfronts exist on their own and this means that they have a government of their own. Whatever happens there is not reported to the police; they mete out justice, crude justice as it were, and they kill people anyhow.


“For instance, if you have a sister who lives in the waterfront and somebody comes and kills any of the children, your sister is forbidden from reporting the matter to you or the police because, according to them, they have their own internal mechanism to sort out their problems.


It was also at the waterfront where somebody went to protest the nomination of another person from Rivers State and when the man returned they shot him in the presence of his family at the waterfront. As a matter of fact, all the security agencies in the state have stated in their security reports that the waterfronts must go.”


The Justice Kayode Eso Panel on Truth and Reconciliation put together to probe the political disquiets arising from former Governor, Dr Peter Odili’s eight years in power in the state also noted on the security situation in the waterfront slums, inter alia: “We recognise, from the evidence before us, that lack of security is a major problem in Rivers State and we believe that everything possible should be done to provide security of lives and property in the state.


We support government’s determination to make Rivers State safe and secure so that its citizens can go about their legitimate business without fear. The waterfront areas are porous and pose a threat to security within the state.


We recommend the destruction and dismantling of all waterfront houses around Port Harcourt namely: Eastern Bypass Waterfront, Marine Base Waterside, Nembe Waterside in Creek Road , Bundu Waterside, Elechi Beach Waterside, Njemanze Street Waterside, Iloabuchi Waterside, Witt and Bush and Isaka. We recommend that the government should provide alternative accommodation for the residents of these areas. These water front areas should be taken over by security personnel.”


Demolishing to rebuild


The Port Harcourt waterfronts later became a strategic staging area for militants and criminals, who killed and kidnapped both local citizens and expatriates at the height of the crises in the Niger Delta. Many of the toughest secret cult groups had their headquarters in these shanty towns because they provided excellent hiding places and access to the creeks through the waterways for criminals seeking quick getaways.


When former Governor Celestine Omehia assumed power and decided to tackle criminality head-on, he determined that to achieve this, the waterfronts had to go. He approached President Umaru Yar’Adua and painted the grim picture of the challenge the waterfronts posed to security, development and social wellbeing of the people.





Prototype of Port-Harcourt Water-front


The President gave him the go-ahead to remove the water fronts. Omehia’s plan was to develop housing estates in alternative parts of the state, such as Iriebe in Oyigbo local government area for high, medium and low income earners and relocate the inhabitants of the waterfronts there before demolishing and redeveloping them.


Even though government officials assured that when the waterfronts were redeveloped the inhabitants would be brought back, many dwellers of these enclaves did not believe them. They pointed to Maroko in Lagos which was evacuated and developed for the benefit of the rich.


Omehia also ran into heavy political storms with ethnic stakeholders (or those who declared themselves as such), especially Okrika indigenes of Rivers State, who have vociferously for years claimed to be the aboriginal owners of the waterfront parts of Port Harcourt.


Backed by such eminent Ijaw leaders as Alabo Graham Douglas, Chief Albert Horsfall, Chief E. K. Clark who hails from Delta State and the head of the Okrika Council of Chiefs, Senator James Tari Sekibo, the Okrika chiefs who opposed the demolition and relocation on the ground that it would remove them from their ancestral land, lobbied President Yar’Adua to declare a state of emergency on Rivers State and appoint an administrator in place of Omehia.


As usual, the waterfront issue degenerated to the old riverine/upland political dichotomy. Just as most riverine Rivers people wanted the demolition to be halted, most upland commentators urged Omehia to proceed with their removal. Undeterred, Omehia was priming to move against Bundu Waterside, when the Supreme Court verdict that removed him from office in November 2007 descended.


With a new helmsman, Hon. Chibuike Amaechi as the new governor of Rivers State in office, there was a temporary respite as he announced that he was staying action on the demolitions. There were widespread jubilations in all the waterfronts because apart from the ethnic claims to ownership and despite its subhuman living conditions, these are the only parts of the oil city where the truly downtrodden could afford to rent accommodation.


Many of the inhabitants are subsistent seafarers and fishermen who would be cut off from their livelihood if moved.


Amaechi actually enjoyed the warm embrace of Ijaw leaders, and Senator Sekibo and Alabo Graham-Douglas who were opposed to Omehia jumped on board with him.


However, the “romance” did not last. When Amaechi got over the euphoria of his victory, he decided to launch what he termed an “Urban Renewal” programme.


This involves the total restoration of Port Harcourt to restore its “Garden City” image, the removal of all illegal structures, development of new roads, construction of drainage and the development of a Greater Port Harcourt to befit an African oil city of the 21st Century.


Clearly, the squalid waterfronts would not survive the scale of renewal that Amaechi contemplated and launched. Part of this policy involved the demolition of perimeter fences around houses in the city which, over the years most landlords had extended to the edge of tarmacs thus blocking the flow of traffic and closing homes from public view.


At the end of the exercise, the city started breathing again, and the ugly traffic snarls for which the city is well known eased off somewhat.


Who owns Port Harcourt?


The crises of the waterfront settlements have their roots in the very history and character of Port Harcourt, which itself is shrouded in controversy and oftentimes, violence. The Okrika residents of the waterfronts have always made it clear to all that care to listen that they are not opposed in principle to the idea of demolition and redevelopment of these enclaves per se.


A memorandum by the Wakirike-Bese (Okrika) Council of Chiefs to Governor Amaechi on the subject dated July 7, 2009 and signed by 19 top Okrika indigenes, states: “First, we have to put it on record that we are not against development in Port Harcourt in particular and Rivers in general.


We are in total support of providing modern facilities and amenities for the citizenry…however, we place on record our total opposition to any large-scale social, economic and habitation dislocation of our people and communities by way of demolition of the waterfront communities in the name of development and urban renewal without any alternative for their relocation.”


And yet the same Council had opposed the Omehia regime even when it had a clear agenda of first setting up modern housing estates within the Port Harcourt metropolis and resettling the waterfront residents.


The Amaechi government plan is a little bit different. According to government sources, the sum of N850million has been set aside to pay what amounts to bonus commercial rates to homeowners in the enclaves to seek and acquire choice property in any part of the city.


According to the Rivers State Director of the National Orientation Agency and secretary of a government committee that conducted enumeration in the waterfronts, Chief Andy Nweye, each of the owners of structures in the Bundu and Njemanze Waterfronts so far targeted by the Amaechi administration was offered nearly N30 million to encourage them to move out to enable government bulldozers to move in.


Officials say even tenants were also offered financial incentives, and both gestures were made based “purely on human consideration” and not as compensation since government does not believe the dwellers of the waterfronts have any legal or other entitlements.


Amaechi, officials say, is a believer in the private-public partnership for development, and after the redevelopment of the waterfronts, the compensated waterfront dwellers could still, just any other Rivers indigene or public bidder, bid for the houses.


The question that arises is: why are the Okrika leaders (who have forbidden their indigenes of the targeted waterfronts to take government’s offer, opting to seek redress in the court of law) resisting every strategy to relocate them as their demand indicated?


According to a former Commissioner for Education in Rivers State, Professor Tam David-West, the whole issue boils down to the old bone of contention: who owns Port Harcourt . Ikwerre/Diobu indigenes of Port Harcourt have historically laid exclusive claim to their ownership of the lands on which the city was built.


On the other hand, the Okrika counter-claim that Port Harcourt was ceded to the British Crown in 1913 by both Okrika and Ikwerre/Diobu chiefs. However, one Dr. Abam, an Okrika indigene, has written a pamphlet in which he makes a claim of exclusive Okrika ownership of Port Harcourt .


And which Port Harcourt , anyway? We are not talking about the city as it is today and will soon be when the Greater Port Harcourt is completed. We are talking about the parcel of land that on May 18th 1913 was ceded to Sir Alexander Boyle on behalf of the King of England registered as 16/211/17 and deposited in the Lands Registry in Calabar (the then Capital of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate) but now in the Lands Division of the Rivers State Ministry of Lands.


The Okrika in their above-mentioned memo to Governor Amaechi, assert that all the waterfronts belong to them. Senator Sekibo in an interview with our reporter put it like this: “On 18 May, 1913 by deed between the chiefs and head men of Okrika Ijaw and Diobu communities for and on behalf of themselves and their people on the one hand and Sir Alexander George Boyle, the Deputy Governor of the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria for and ….

The face of PH waterfront deserves better, like the prototype photo (last one) below

*jona:
Abuja picture is now part of Enugu.

Please which one of the photo is of Abuja?

Enugu should only be compared to Ibadan and Kaduna (and may be Benin), all former regional capitals. Lagos is way ahead of all of them being the former capital where fed money was pumped in like crazy until lately.

You cannot arrive at a so-called best governor without addressing the components of the whole. Basically, there is no counting of 100 without counting 1 to 99

Femmy

What is VAT? You do not need to be working to pay VAT. If you walk into Mr Biggs eatery and buy some chicken, you already pay your 5% VAT and Mr Biggs people do not ask you if you are working or not. VAT= consumption tax. Why another consumption tax for Lagos residents, especially when the 5% VAT is again redistributed to states?

How to rate the governors:

This is usually done based on different parameters, followed by a grand selection for the overall best performance

Best gov security
Best gov food production
Best gov infrastructure (roads/housing/water supply)
Best gov prompt salary payment
Best gov industrialization
Best gov job creation
Best gov provision of health
Best gov rural development
Best gov improvement in education/provision of scholarships
Best gov low or no corruption (just by perception, at least for now)
Best gov environmental/beautification
More,

There is already 5% VAT paid, so why the additional taxation on consumption? Not that I care because it does not affect me in any way. Just fighting for the poor Yoruba and Okoro residents.

People,

I am 1000s of kilometers away from Lagos and Nigeria. I have no personal business in Lagos and my only relation living there is a multi millionaire who can afford any taxes even much more than the indigenous Lagosians. These Yoruba fools in here ranting about should eschew tribalism. Fasola is not GOD that cannot be criticized. He is just a lawyer and a governor (probably for 8 years ONLY). Those aren't peculiar achievements, since Nigeria has tens of thousands of lawyers and hundreds, if not thousands, of governors (since independence). I do not give a rat's arse about the person of Fasola. My bills and taxes here in the US are far more than most Lagosians can pay but heck we are talking about Naija where salaries are tragically low, on the average.

The Sly:
Keep displaying how unbridled your empty infected box you call a head is.

The meaning of the name you bear (I mean Sly) speaks well of you. Demented racoon.

AloyEmeka,

No mind them. Only thoroughly mentally challenged people see tribalism in opposing views. How can any sane mind attempt to compare Fasola with Fasola?

The Sly:
Oh Yes. . . I would have seen em if i was a military-grade imbecilic I.di.ot like you.

A thoroughly reprobate and loathsome loser

The Sly:
Since you are a high functioning simpleton
My point would be so hard for you to comprehend.

Only a blind KNAVE will not see the photos of estates and clean roads posted, among others. What a jackass

The Sly:
Cretin!
Posting mainly hotel pichshures means only one thing.
You dont have a better looking place to post for the world to see.

Urchin,

Is it only hotel pictures you saw here?

The Sly:
Some Nigerians and their Bullshytes. . . .
Post some bloody pichsures of Enugu and not some nice looking hotels.

Ode! And the hotel is located where and occupies what space?

Fhemmy,
consumption tax does not depend on income. Why so many ignorant people in naija?

Fhemmmy:
Regardless of how much people get paid, the taxes are based on the income and not just anyhow.
BTW . . .what will a man that is not making enuf money doing at the hotel?

Jona is now posting scenes from Nollywood movies. He can't even differentiate between movie and real life. Hahahaha

Paroh frey

So u wan begin compare Lagos with UK? Start with the salaries. How much do you get paid working in Lagos compared to UK?

Lagosians groan under severe tax regime amidst meltdown
Huhuonline.com lauds the efforts of the current administration of Lagos State; those objectives are indeed commendable especially in the areas of making Lagos safer, cleaner, and for realizing the vision of a proud and enviable mega city, where investment and economic empowerment can ultimately reign.

However, these ‘‘good intentions’’ have been forcefully dragged into a situation capable of milking and extorting the good citizens of Lagos through various untoward taxes introduced by the government; the ripple effects of that have reduced Lagosians to the condition of eating from hand to mouth, and adding to the negative impacts of the global economic meltdown on the people.

The introduction of Lagos State Transport Management Authority (LASTMA) to ameliorate Lagos traffic gridlock was nice but the shoddy tendencies of the officials of LASTMA in the name of generating fund for the state are a serious national embarrassment. Government should stop hiding under the guise of providing service(s) for the people meanwhile they have ulterior motive of swindling the people through ‘‘legitimized’’ criminal means. We agreed that recalcitrant road users should be punished and fined accordingly where necessary, but penalties that attracts over N25,000, N30,000 N150,000 and N200,000 are no longer meaningful but clear case of government extortion on the life of the defenseless citizens.

Again, Lagos State government resuscitates the old War Against Indiscipline (WAI), an initiative of Idiagbon/Buhari led military administration; an era where all forms of indiscipline were curtailed in the Nigerian system. Lagos now introduced Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI) Brigades, headed by an ex-military man, Captain M. Danjuma. But the way they are going about it is wrong. The orientation and training given to their recruited officials are not adequate. Besides a number of their men don’t even have minimum education requirements, these defects reflect in the manner they dress, the way they address and prosecute the erring members of the public, and this does not promote the envisioned Lagos mega city at all.

Sometime last year (2008) in Victoria Island, some of these KAI officials killed an armless senior Police officer while they were on ‘routine assignment’ (demolition of shanties in Bar-Beach).The worst of it all is that they collect money indiscriminately from members of the public with no modicum of dignity. This gross indiscipline shows that the primary essence of their establishment has been long defeated. ‘‘Area boys’’ (street urchins) now sew and wear their uniforms to perpetrate crimes in the streets of Lagos. These lapses are coming up due to the way the organization was structured and managed. Even an authentic KAI brigade don’t even have a name tag on his uniform or crown on its beret to indicate whether he/she is truly a member or not. It is sad that in Oshodi where there base is, their office and surrounding environment is unkempt, and stinks of human organic wastes.

Another shocking news is that, residents of Lekki-Epe expressway will by 2010 get enmeshed into serious agony because the planned three toll plazas would be introduced on that corridor by Lagos State government. For 30 consecutive years toll fees would be collected on the road through a concessionaire who is in partnership with Lagos government. This will definitely pauperize the people the more; 3 toll plazas is too much for a 50km road, even in the developed world where their system is most organized with a defined welfare package for its youth and senior citizens that has never be practiced, their policies wear human face at all levels. However this toll collection will simultaneously take place in both Lekki-Epe axis and Lagos-Badagry expressway of Lagos State.

Further, Lagos State Hotel Occupancy and Restaurant Consumption Bill were signed into law by Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) on June 22, 2009. This Law imposes a five-per cent charge on goods and services consumed in hotels, restaurants, event centres and short let apartments throughout Lagos State, with effect from August 1, 2009. The special adviser to the governor on legislative matters and power bureau, Abdullateef Abdulhakeem, explained that section 1 of the new law imposes the tax on anyone who consumes goods and services in those mentioned centres, advising them to register with the state’s Internal Revenue Service, for the commencement of the payment immediately.

That means that operators of hotels, fast food centres (eateries) etc in Lagos State will now be faced with a compulsory five per cent tax, albeit the already10 percent service charge and 5 percent value added tax (VAT) they have been paying before. This is a sheer step to impoverish the citizenry. The volume of customers to those affected centres will however be reduced precipitously, making some of them to go out of business, and that will contribute to unemployment. If government cannot provide employment they should not kill businesses that are providing job opportunities for the unemployed Nigerians.

We have other agencies in Lagos State like, Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA), Lagos State Infrastructure Maintenance and Regulatory Agency (LASIMRA), Lagos State Signage and Advertising Agency (LASAA-which its present effect of high levies are now taking serious toll on people who are into outdoor advertising in the state) etc. It is glaring that the proliferation of agencies like this are meant to satisfy the interest of few politicians who are loyal to the government of the day at the expense of the citizens.

More pathetically, thousand of shops, stalls, building, churches, mosques, shrines etc have given way to Lagos ‘‘beautification exercise’’, and no definite compensation were made to the affected property owners. Most of them were told all lands belong to government. This step indeed brought sanity to the dreaded Oshodi market and other criminal hideouts for hoodlums in the state; there is now fluidity of traffic for both human and vehicle movement, but there were no provisions made for the displaced market men and women who were swept away by the Fashola ‘‘Sunami’’. The 10,000 Nigerians who were set packing at Tejusho market after being bedeviled by yearly fire disaster, is still a mystery that is yet to be unraveled to those that cares to know. Traders in Ajegunle too were equally not spared to mention a few. This cruel trend really made a lot of Nigerian youths to resort to all forms of criminal activities. We all know Lagos is a miniature Nigeria, whatever affects Lagos cascades to Nigeria at large.

Unfortunately, instead of creating palliative measures for those affected Nigerians in order to cushion the effects of some of these inhuman policies, Lagos government prefers to spend billions of naira in fighting crime in Lagos. Meanwhile we still have ‘‘Area boys’’and fraudsters loitering around popular parks and garages like Oshodi, Ojota, Iyana-Ipaja, Ojuelegba, Ikorodu, Obalende etc, harassing motorists and commuters over one form of levies and the other.

Lagos state had set good precedent in the past, which other States were even emulating, especially in its unique transportation system (land and water), waste management, housing, urban renewal etc, but those goals were championed with genuine intention to make life better for the common masses, but today, that is no longer the case. Unconfirmed reports even have it that funds that are internally generated in Lagos are now being used to fund elections and court cases for politician within and outside Nigerian States. If Lagos still want to be relevant and be seen as a pathfinder in people oriented policies and developmental programmes, it should desist from its anti people programmes and non progressive policies, and work towards offering ease of life to the people by harmonizing its tax system and removing all its ‘‘intimidating’’ burden called levies, so that Lagos would guarantee both economic and social respite for the rich and the downtrodden.

paddy_lo:
for the umpteenth time i have always known that vat is shared among states. . .i was never arguing the fact

as for your second point,i await your proof

I was not even responding to you unless you are the same person as BolanleOdu who argued that VAT money is never shared among states. I am stilll on the Lag thing.

^^^^^ (Paddy_lo)
Bufoon: Did you or did you not read in that article that VAT money is shared among the states? That was the first argument; the second being how it is actually shared. I am getting info on the way it is shared to prove that Lagos gets the highest among the states. Just hang on ok?