₦airaland Forum

shymexx: How did the U.S contribute humanity?? Ooops, by killing off millions of people and stealing their natural resources, no?? U.S.A has done more harm to humanity than good, to be honest...

Nah, appealing to renounce my nationality, take up the Nigerian nationality and be as miserable as you're...

I thought you were making a good argument so far until you said that

Thanks guys. I think your inputs are all valid. They deal with the political issues, and some would argue that when you have the right foundation everything else will fall into place. But I lean more on having a comprehensive plan for all sections of our national life and the economy that is methodically implemented going forward

They are still evolving. There is hardly a need for ideology right now. What we need is a government that will invest heavily in infrastructure and get us out of needing basic things, then we can talk about ideology. Ever heard of Maslow's hierarchy of needs? You first deal with food, clothing and shelter before you start talking about self actualization. That's our case presently.

If eventually we get to a two party system and the current parties survive, PDP would lean conservative and APC would lean liberal, I think.

pro01: How can a country possibly have an unemployment rate of 95%? A entire population of idle hands? Surely, that estimate is far-fetched.

My thoughts exactly. If people are farmers, are they unemployed? It isn't practically possible to have a country with 95% unemployment. You can say under-employed but not unemployed. The list is political also. Iran shouldn't be on that list. They are light years ahead of us. Syria is also there only because of the civil war in their country presently.

As for us celebrating that Nigeria is not on the list, isn't it such a big shame that the thought should cross our minds? With all our resources and the brilliance of our people. A more valid ranking is the HDI where we rank 156 of 187 countries. That's sad but accurate.

MsDarkSkin: VERY INTERESTING ....

sounds mighty familiar...

I think someone by the name of KAILS once said something similar....anyway you are both spot on

Thanks. I see that my worldview on this matter isn't shared by me alone. Nigerians get to the US and lose complete sight of what goes on back home, taking more pride in being second rate Americans

smuckers: How would you like it if AA's have the same attitude as yourself? What if it was the other way around and they maintained a poker face when discussing African history. I have to say Africans have some of the worst manners.

I said I already knew enough of AA history, far more than most AAs know about mine. I just didn't think a church is where to take history classes. But that isn't really the point of the whole write-up, is it? Read again.

take dat: Brilliant effort @Op. Having a carefully written manifesto that addresses our fundamental problems isn't as important as its implementation! I remain hopeful though!

I agree. But it's a start anyway. Let's hope they can come up with one that will get Nigerians excited and hopeful about our future

eGuerrilla: @Neo-XVI,

I applaud the effort you put into drafting this manifesto and actually agreed with most of the ideas tabled.

The only quibble I have is that, as you have made no allowance for restructuring the state from its current form, some of these noble objectives would only lead to a greater arrogation of power at the centre.
Thankfully, it appears APC understands there is a
resounding need to deliver on this imperative.

Continued

Thanks man. I agree with your point on restructuring. There has to be some form of restructuring but I'm skeptical about the Feds only serving as "monitors" to a diverse 36 states with other parties ruling. When we do get a good government at the middle, it has to actively set the agenda for the rest of the country else it could be a huge opportunity lost. But I agree, restructuring should be on the table

As the new party sets about drafting its manifesto, they'd do well do adopt well-meaning ideas from Nigerians from all works of life. Listed below are people-centered ideas that should work well. A real manifesto will have these ideas fleshed out, including some justification and strategies for implementation, but that would be too much to post here. Feel free to discuss and/or add your own ideas, I understand some politicians come by here sometimes.

Corruption:

• Abolish immunity for public office holders from prosecution while in office
• Make it mandatory for all public office holders to declare their assets before taking and after leaving office
• Enact a whistle blower protection and reward act. To avoid false accusations, the onus of providing some form of evidence should be on the whistle blower
• Enact tougher penalties, including life imprisonment, for people convicted of corruption/misuse of public funds and resources
• Set up minimum standards of transparency in government
• Lead by example (critical)

Jobs and the Economy

• As a matter of national emergency, build sufficient power generating stations and distribution infrastructure all over the country with the goal of providing 24-hour, uninterrupted electric power to every nook and cranny of the country. The strategy should be a forceful push for private participation and complimentary government investment to meet demand. This singular act, if achieved, will revolutionize commerce in the country. This can be done within 5 years. The designs already exist so we're not re-inventing the wheel here. The only part that would be time-consuming is usually the lead time on procurement of equipment from companies like GE.
• Get Ajaokuta Steel Company working to its full capacity, as another matter of national emergency. This is another extremely high impact policy that if implemented, could revolutionize Nigerian manufacturing and export. Along with constant power supply, this will provide the base for the industrial super structure that would carry a developed Nigeria.
• Implement a National Tax Plan which demands that every working person pays income tax, whether in paid employment or a small business owner. Without a tax paying citizenry to demand accountability from government, government can never be trusted to be accountable and clean on its own volition. No one is that good. Streamline federal, state and local taxes, especially on small businesses. Tax defaulters are sentenced to jail and/or fined heavily. This will also add to revenue while reducing the focus on oil.
• Implement a new National Interstate Highway Plan from east to west, north to south, linking every state and every major Nigerian city to its neighbor via modern highways
• Rehabilitate and improve air and rail transport, especially for cargo operations. Build high speed interstate trains for passenger transport
• Build more seaports all across the coastline to reduce congestion and ensure more efficient marine and custom operations
• Ban the importation of a long list of goods that could be produced locally in order to stimulate local production. Our GDP will not fare very well until
we reduce the massive trade deficits we currently have
• Increase import duty on certain other goods to ensure that local industries can compete
• Systematical increase capitalization thresholds to ensure stronger, more robust banks
• Provide hassle-free loans for small scale industries and reduce taxes on all manufacturing industry operations
• Provide fast, independent audit of the NNPC, the subsidy scheme, and oil industry operations in Nigeria to eliminate the massive sleaze and corruption
that has crippled that industry. Set minimum standards of transparency in their operations. Reassess oil contracts and contracting procedures.
• Resuscitate refining to the full capacity of already established refineries. Map out policies to encourage more local refining to eliminate the need for oil importation. The goal should be self-sufficiency in refined crude products. We are an oil producer for goodness sake! Whoever heard of an oil producer importing gasoline and diesel?
• Enact and implement a national minimum wage increase

National Security and integration

• Begin the use state of residence as a criteria for seeking political office (as opposed to state of origin). This will rapidly improve national integration and over time douse the tensions that exist now. Imagine a time when an igbo man that has contributed to the advancement of a locality in Bauchi becomes their rep in congress. Beautiful! No?
• Look closely at indigene/settler laws with a view to giving settlers legitimate right to land (including farmlands) and to own properties. The country cannot claim to be united when everyone is holding tenaciously to their territories. If you've lived somewhere for 10, 20 years or more, they shouldn't have any hesitation calling you brother or sister
• Dialogue with all terrorist groups, affiliates and sponsors within the country and try to resolve their legitimate concerns while they declare a cease-
fire. If they remain obstinate after genuine efforts at resolution, unleash the wrath of government on them and wipe them out or chase them out of the
country
• Secure our borders and account for every foreigner in the country
• Adopt a home first strategy in deciding what foreign missions our soldiers engage in. We should stop being Santa Claus to our African neighbors who
neither appreciate nor respect us
• Modernize our military operations and strategy and improve their capability to handle the kinds of threats we face
• Provide retraining for ALL Nigerian policemen. Increase salaries and living conditions and modernize their equipment and operations. Also recruit
massively to provide sufficient policing for cities and states.
• Scrap the NYSC. It has become a corrupted, money wasting venture and a big cause of delay for youths. The productivity of a critical demographic is stifled by this program with huge diminishing returns. Use the money to hire permanent, qualified teachers instead and free graduates to go and work as professionals in their fields.

Education:

• Free, compulsory, universal education for all children up to high school level. Fine parents who fail to comply by not registering their kids for school
• Improve learning facilities and conditions nationwide. Improve school curriculum
• Outlaw child labor in any form, including hawking, until age 16
• Audit teacher qualifications. Weed out unqualified teachers. Hire adequate qualified teachers. Improve training and retraining of teachers
• Set up a National College Fund to fund research and learning in tertiary institutions.
• Improve school curriculum and make it mandatory for all current college lecturers to earn a PhD within 5 years, after which no one without a PhD should
handle a college class without supervision i.e. they should be TAs and AIs, not full lecturers
• Grant partial, and eventually full autonomy to tertiary institutions (after free education through high school, people should be willing to pay a bit more
to get a degree)
• Encourage merit-based public and private scholarships for the brightest students
• Set up a national low interest college loan program to help private citizens fund higher education

Agriculture and Water Resources

• Encourage mechanized farming in the country by partnering with local authorities to provide such machinery for rent Improve agric extension activities, high yield seeds, fertilizers, etc, all at subsidized costs to farmers. The goal should be self-sufficiency in all staple foods. Buy and store excess production from farmers in good years. There are vast swathes of land that are not cultivated the country over because of small scale subsistence farming
• Renewed focus on cash crop production for exports. Bring back the groundnut pyramids, the cotton fields, and the cocoa and oil plantations of the 50s and
60s. Encourage some local processing before export to increase value while also providing jobs
• Pursue a vigorous plan to supply clean, pipe-borne water to all cities and towns nationwide. And gradually to hinterlands
• Provide for better irrigated farming opportunities in dry seasons especially in Northern Nigeria

Health

• Immunize all children on as required from birth. Make these services available even in the remotest villages. Focus should be on less expensive,
more efficient preventive medicine
• Build and improve hospitals and primary health care clinics nationwide
• Build world class specialist hospitals over time and employ Nigerian doctors practicing elsewhere (US, Europe). This will save crucial foreign
exchange for us from politicians and the rich who go abroad at the slightest provocation, sometimes even for such things as medical checkups
• Improve training facilities and curriculum in medical schools

Enough with the 7-point or 10-point agendas. What Nigeria needs is a comprehensive work over

Saw this clip of Sydney Sam on Youtube. Looks like a decent and useful player to have in your team. Does look like a toned down version of Robben. Keshi should call him up, mosdef

http://youtu.be/75dVpMIhBXo

He should also invite Dennis Aogo of Hamburg. We can do with more players fighting it out to make the confed cup team.

ROSSIKE: Oh please spare us this trash. The only reason YOU can even type this stuff is that the Nigerian govt introduced mass education after the British left us with a 7% national literacy rate, following their 63 years loot-fest (1897-1960). All the while exporting our resources worth untold billions in today's currency.

So sure we could have done better in the post-colonial period, but don't come in here making out that we've made no progress at all. YOU, statistically, would have been a stark illiterate stuck in the village were the colonialists still in power, not this educated, pompous, overfed creep who can no longer see anything good about his country.

Do I know you from somewhere? What's with all the insults? And how did you come about knowing WHERE I was educated?
Did you read my analogy of the light bulb? Does it suggest to you I meant the country has made "NO PROGRESS AT ALL"?
Why were you overwhelmed with a desire to respond with insults when u barely understood what I said? In essence, are you one of the paid government agents here?
Are you suggesting we blame the British for our current predicaments even though they left 53 years ago, and even though at the time there was no meaningful oil money yet?

I appeal to Nigerians, to resist this tendency to display the symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome where victims of abuse end up having sympathy for their abusers.

Funny how Reno wants us not to display the Stockholm syndrome on one hand and on the other hand wants us to love and support the same Nigerian govt that has fleeced, abused and r@ped us dry all these years. Ironic, isn't it? Even the worst govt in the world has projects it can show to claim there have been "progress", but do those projects necessarily affirm real progress? A more valid judgement of progress should be based on what was achieved given the potential that exists. If I have a 60 watts light bulb in my room and it delivers just 5 watts of power, should I be ecstatic and happy with it? Or should I be disappointed and demand that it supplies more power, at least 50 watts.

When Nigerians see and read about corruption in govt, about 4 billion naira first lady mansion and 3 trillion naira subsidy scam and a never-ending electric power saga, bad roads, high food cost, poor and worsening education and health standards, all of these amidst what our potential truly is, should we be anything less than disappointed and critical of our government? There is no vision, no strategic plan that GEJ has adopted and is assiduously working on to get us half near where we should be. So yes Reno, we will not display the Stockholm syndrome and fall in love with a govt that has fleeced us dry, abused and r@ped our collective heritage.

I donated to Buhari's campaign in 2011. It was my first time giving to a political campaign. I campaigned hard, best I could to try to convince folks, but Buhari was a hard sell especially to christians because of his past statements and actions on religious and regional matters. So I think he should stay away this time, campaign hard for his party's ticket and if they win, he can still be an influential anti-corruption voice in the ruling party.

Gov Fashola and Ribadu should work well. I think each has the better track record from both South and North among non-retired military, younger politicians. I do hope christians will understand that with politicians, religion is rarely a matter of moral conviction, just political expediency. It definitely hasn't stopped them from looting us dry so far, so why should it count?

I don't know how Pat Utomi would function as an elected official but I've always admired him as a leader. I think he should run for governor or senator soon, as a stepping stone to the presidency. The man has a compelling vision and knows what ought to be done.

At the end of the day though, they should avoid anointing a "consensus" candidate and do nationwide primaries like they do elsewhere and let the best candidate win. A consensus VP can be picked afterwards.

^^ Not really. I wrote most of this while they were doing their "celebration" and maintained a poker face the rest of the way

So I went to church on Sunday and apparently it was a "black history month celebration". I sat in my chair and was like wtf? Not that I don't like AAs, or the US for that matter. Not that I disrespect their history or fail to empathize with what their (and my) ancestors went through. Just that I think I know just about enough of what I want to know about AA history and would honestly prefer spending my time, church time, doing something else. Besides I think it's misplaced priority anyway, since about 90% of the church members are either still Nigerians or have dual citizenship but we somehow almost never pray for the motherland. We're always praying for the US, which isn't a bad thing btw, only that it just doesn't sit well with me.

So rather than forgetting our own history and celebrating America and AA history we should be more concerned with what goes on back home in Africa. For one, the continued racism in the US is sustained both by the ineptitude of the African American (loud, unmarried girls with 2, 3 kids at 22, and lazy men who think they're still 10 year olds sagging their baggy pants, going about engaging in unprotected sex, never taking responsibility for the resulting kids, and constituting about 45% of the prison population) and the sorry state Africa's in. Need I elaborate?

The argument of the white man has been that slavery actually benefitted those Africans that had the good fortune of being sold to America and Europe as slaves. It may be a politically incorrect and definitely insensitive statement to make but the tragedy is that that statement is not necessarily incorrect. Want proof? Ask any AA if they want to relocate to any part Africa permanently. You'll get a hysterical "No! Hell no!" You can't blame them. I don't want to go back either. At least not yet. One only has to look over across the Atlantic for the reasoning behind that hysteria to become obvious.

That argument (of the white man) is supported by the number of Nigerians leaving the country in droves in search of a better life in the "streets of gold". It is also upheld by the fact that majority of African countries are in the bottom rung of the Human Development Index which measures education, health and living standards of sovereign nations. Nigeria ranks 156 among 187 countries (2011), and aside from Nepal and Haiti, all other nations behind us are African nations.

Quartered by inordinate ambition, lust for power, the unspeakable greed of the ruling class and a stubborn unwillingness to expect results commensurate to efforts expended, Africa has become legendary for missed opportunities and failed potentials. The perfect example of how not to run governments. This failure of leadership has even led to calls in some quarters for the return of our white slave masters. Surely we can do better!

So until a time comes when it is no longer the ambition of both the young and old to leave the shores of Nigeria; until a time comes when all Africans from the world over begin to return home, and all blacks, be they AA or South Americans or Europeans begin to sell off their possessions and return to the motherland on their own volition; until such a time, we cannot say with certitude that slavery is a crime against humanity that should never have happened. And the celebration of black freedom (or history as they like to call it), mostly relinquished by the white man himself after he's had his fill of cheap labor to build his country, will continue to be moot to me.

The challenge before our leaders in Africa is to lead us well. To govern us well. To build on those pillars of human engagement and progress - health, education, freedom and the pursuit of happiness in a long, rich life - and lead Africa to her long-awaited greatness! Is that too much to ask?