₦airaland Forum

Thursday, February 16, 2006
BY SUSAN L. OPPAT
News Staff Reporter
Michigan State Police say Nigerian scam artists took a Salem Township woman for $125,000 in an online dating scheme, then tried to hit her again by offering to get her money back for the low, low price of $965.

Detective Sgt. Fred Farkas said that the 63-year-old woman called to complain that a man she had been dating online hadn't shown up for Christmas as he had promised, and had stopped replying to her e-mails after she wired $125,000 to him for investments in the European stock market.

Farkas said the man also promised to take her away to Spain in telephone calls she thought she was making to London.

Metropolitan Police in London told Farkas in a letter he received Wednesday that the overseas telephone code the woman used in making calls to the man - 0704 - routes calls to any location in the world. In this case, to a wireless telephone in Nigeria.

Farkas said he traced the woman's money to a bank in New York that deals only with overseas banks, and then to the Liberty Bank of Nigeria.

The money, he said, disappeared at that point.

Farkas said the bank in New York has also taken a complaint from a victim in New Jersey.

He said there is no interagency cooperation that would allow him to track the money once it's in Nigeria, and he has no way to prosecute the case or retrieve the woman's money.

He said the woman contacted him Wednesday to inquire about a letter she got in the mail, asking her to pay $965 to get her money back.

He will tell her to turn the offer down, he said this morning.

Police have been warning area residents about e-mail scams originating out of Nigeria for a number of years. The most common scam involves an e-mail promising the recipient a share of millions of dollars if he or she provides a bank account number to help smuggle the money out of the country. The scam artists then empty out the bank account.

Anyone who provides bank account numbers to e-mailers sets themselves up for thefts from those accounts, police say.

Susan Oppat can be reached at soppat@annarbornews.com or at 734-482-1166.

http://www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/base/news-16/1140104500157750.xml&coll=2

LAGOS (Reuters) - Nigeria's anti-graft agency has filed fresh charges against central Plateau state governor, accusing him of stealing 700 million naira (3 million pounds) in public funds, according to a charge sheet published on Friday.

The Financial and Economic Crimes Commission (EFCC) charged Joshua Dariye, who fled a British investigation into money laundering in 2004, embezzled the money between 2001 and 2003 in connivance with six top officials of the state.

Dariye, who is constitutionally immune from prosecution in Nigeria while in office, was not in court on Thursday when the charges were filed.

The six officials pleaded not guilty to the seven charges drawn against them and Justice Abimbola Banjoko ordered them to be remanded in prison. No date was fixed for hearing.

This is the EFCC's second attempt to prosecute Dariye since he was arrested by the Metropolitan Police with $175,000 (100,000 pounds) in cash in London in September 2004. He failed to report to police for questioning and returned to Nigeria where he has constitutional immunity.

Dariye and some bank directors are facing charges in another court of laundering more than 1 billion naira, but the case has stalled since 2005 because of the governor's immunity.

The federal government released a dossier in 2004 detailing alleged embezzlement by Dariye -- the first hard evidence of looting by a senior elected Nigerian official in five years -- but efforts to get the state house of assembly to impeach and strip him of his immunity have so far failed.

Dariye, a second term governor and member of the ruling People's Democratic Party, said in comments published in local newspapers last week that part of the funds were used to finance the re-election campaign of President Olusegun Obasanjo and some party topshots in 2003.

The presidency has denied this.

The fresh charges against Dariye followed the impeachment in December of Diepreye Alamieyeseigha as governor of the oil-producing state of Bayelsa in the Niger Delta.

The ex-governor, who had earlier jumped bail in London where he was facing money laundering charges and escaped to Nigeria, is now facing charges of stealing $55 million in public funds. He has pleaded not guilty.

His arrest was a major boost to Obasanjo's campaign against graft, an endemic problem in the world's eighth largest oil exporter.

But the president's critics accuse him of selective justice, saying his searchlight is directed only at perceived opponents. The presidency denies the charge.

The EFCC has targeted other state governors -- powerful figures who control about half of Nigeria's oil money -- but efforts to investigate the source of their wealth have been frustrated by their immunity.

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-02-17T131057Z_01_L17596285_RTRUKOC_0_UK-CRIME-NIGERIA-GOVERNOR.xml&archived=False

Whichever way you look at it, it always goes back to the government, doesn't it? The government has all the money, and hence calls the shots.

Individuals can do their part with whatever resources they have. However, for any change to have a significant impact, the government must step in. It's all about the government, government, government,

i just read the first few posts and i decided to reply i just read the rest but anyway sha, thats my opinion and i've dropped it and i'm not disagreeing with anybody. the poster of the topic asked a question and i've answered in the best way i can and thats it. ok?

OK. But if you're going to take part in a discussion, don't you think it makes sense to read all that has already been said, so you don't appear like a slowpoke who's repeating a point that has already been disproved?

@Rolly

Read through everything that has been said so far, instead of rehashing the same old statements of unconditional daily baths.

If you disagree with points that have been raised, then tell us why you feel that way.

@nferyn

That is exactly what I've been trying to point out.

Most proponents of daily bath are black. These people have no idea what effect such action has on the white skin, yet they're vocal about criticising whites for not doing what blacks do daily.

The greatest hinderance to software developement is a lack of easy Internet access.  As a web application developer, I can't imagine working without having 24/7 Internet access.  If I can't remember how to use a function for example, I can pull up the answer in seconds with a quick search engine search.  A Nigerian at home in my position probably has to wait till his next visit to the Internet cafe.  I just completed a custom accounting software, and it only took about 6 months to write from the ground up.  That is remarkable.

Although one can install all required development tools on a computer, and even download all manuals, nothing takes the place of the Internet as a resource.  There are forums where you can post any question any time, and get answers in minutes.  Nigerians currently lack that luxury.  That makes it really tough to keep pace with the rest of the world.

Indians are making billions each year in outsourcing dollars in software development.  We should have a piece of that pie too, if only the atmosphere were right for software development.  As always, the problem goes back to our impotent government.

I do.

But I probably won't, if I had eczema. That's what the discussion is about, isn't it? I hope you're following the train of thought.

Let me break it down for you.

Blacks say daily bath is a must, no matter what. Blacks have no real reason for this position.
Whites say twice a week will suffice. Whites probably have done extensive research on the effects on the skin.
Scientists say eczematous skin gets worse with frequent baths. Do you agree or disagree?

I say don't judge white, since you're black, and therefore have no idea what frequent baths does to white skin.

I hope that's simple enough for you to follow.

I have eczema and i take showers every single day

I'm sure you know something the scientific community doesn't.

I think it also depends on the kind of soap used.  If your skin is dry from eczema, and you take daily baths with harsh soap like normal people would, would that help or worsen the situation?

I believe people are too quick to judge the white person.  Their lifestyles are often different from ours.  Most swim daily.  Which is a form of bathing.  Many work under controlled temperatures.  Which means they won't sweat.   White people do stuff that most blacks don't.  Besides, white skin is different from black skin.  And since, I'm not white, who am I to judge?

I'm just trying to make you guys think rationally here.

That being said, I must say there are some white people that are just plain filthy.  So filthy, you can smell it.  But then again you'd find such among blacks also.

If you sweat a lot at your job, or if you're a construction worker or auto mechanic for example, your bathing should be frequent. But if you're somebody who sits all day long in an air-conditioned room, drives in an air-conditioned car, and then goes home to have a swim, maybe you don't need daily baths.  Agree?

I did some multilingual webpage design work a few years ago, and I got to learn a bit about special characters in documents.

The keyboard idea you suggested is cool.  But what about people around the world who simply want a naira sign?  That is where cut and paste comes in. 

Also, you have to bear in mind that just because your keyboard has a naira sign, it doesn't mean that it will display properly on other computers.  This is why you need to understand the knowledge behind special characters.

You can create a special character in HTML by using a numeric character reference.  In the case of the naira sign, you can use ₦ or ₦

For this to work however, the character encoding of your webpage must be Unicode utf-8.  This simply means you add the meta tag <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"/> to your html code, and you have to set the font to a unicode font.  See http://www.oasisoflove.com/3/naira.html

With this simple technique, you can create almost any character in any language, including right to left languages like Arabic.

Unicode characters will also work in any document/program that supports unicode encoding, e.g. Microsoft Word.  Most recent versions of programs do support unicode.  Just make sure you have unicode fonts installed, such as Arial Unicode MS.

The topic of special characters is very complex.  If you want to know more about unicode and how to use it, visit http://www.unicode.org/.

As far as I know, daily bath is not recommended only for people with eczema. Such people often have dry and irritated skin, and frequent baths exacerbates the problem by stripping moiture away.

Usually the skin produces natural oils and moisture that combats dry skin problem. If someone with eczema bathes daily, and uses artificial moisturizers, the moisturizer may not be able to penerate the micro grooves on the skin. This leads to itching sensation. But because the body's oils come from inside out, all those grooves are well oiled naturally.

Besides eczema, there's really no reason not to shower daily. In fact, hot morning showers invigorate me, especially when it's cold outside.

There are two specialised areas of web design: web programming, and frontend design.

Web programming is where you write computer programs to run a website.  For example, if your website allows people to upload images, you have to write a computer program to handle that upload.

Frontend design involves what your website actually looks like.

If you want to do web design for a living, you probably want to specialise in one area first.  It's tough to get good in both areas.  But it's not impossible.

My guess is that you're interested in being a frontend designer.  For that, you need:

HTML
CSS
Photoshop
FTP
Flash (recommended, but not essential).

Note: some designers don't know HTML/CSS.  They simply use WYSIWYG programs, as the post before me suggested.  It's up to you which way you go.  Personally, I don't use wysiwyg programs.  I do everything in html.  HTML is very easy to learn.  Take a look at my tutorial: Teach yourself HTML on http://ffa.oasisoflove.com/

Once you've gotten comfortable with frontend design, you can then ask people how to learn web programming.

Well, the DVD is in the mail. I hope it gets there. They said it should arrive in about a week.

if you behave in a certain way, people will begin to know you for that. Not every body accepts bribe and if more and more Nigerians, who have no tolerance for bribary and corruption, return home, then less and less people will take bribe, making those who do the minority, i see a big change coming on

If you want stuff done in Nigeria, you have to be prepared to hand out bribes. It's over zealous to think that people returning home is the answer to eradicating bribery. No way. The answer is in our government setting traps for corrupt officials. It's so easy to catch a corrupt official, but your government isn't doing it.

I'd like to see that day when bribe-takers become the minority. But it's not going to be Nigerians abroad that'd make that happen.

- Everybody wants to be paid for doing their job, right? Fair enough, if i receive good service i'll give tip (which i understand is a requirement in the US), but if the service is bad i don't; hell if the service was that bad i wouldn't go back anyway.

I hope Nigeria doesn't adopt the idea of tipping. It's just another way of charging people more for purchases.

- when most people are cheated, it is usually as a result of their own greed.

What? When I'm cheated, I'm to blame?

- No security, of course tell me exactly where is secure. When i was at Uni in london, a girl was raped at the same busstop i used everyday to school. i promptly got myself a tokumbo car

Your life and property is way less secure in Nigeria. There is crime everywhere in the world, but to a higher degree in Nigeria. I understand Nigerians abroad now buy homes in Ghana, Benin Republic, and even as far away as Sierra Leone just to be in a safer society which is closer to Nigeria? That is how bad the situation is. Worse still, the government of Nigeria has no clue about how to solve this problem.

When you life is in danger, who do you call? You call the authorities. Well, guess what, the authorities are themselves corrupt. Does that happen in London?

- No electricity then get a good generator. So instead of paying British gas, you use your money to run your gen

Unless you're going to get a generator for everybody, your idea won't work. When power goes out, you can't make phone calls. It'd affect tv/radio stations. You probably can't get online, since your ISP's power goes out too. If you have a business that depends on electricity, like refrigeration, you have to get to work to start up a generator when power goes out.

Do you see why merely having a generator at your home doesn't mean much?

For now so many things have to be endured, but if everybody pulls together to fight against corruption, poverty, bad government etc changes will occur; but we don't do that do we? We don't fight for any cause and expect change to occur spontaneously, puulleesse!!
Prayer is one thing, but we all know that God helps those who help themselves. Action speaks louder than words people.

The question is, how are things going to change if Nigerians abroad all return home? People in Nigeria can fight without needing Nigerians to return home.

The only way I know to fight is to elect leaders based purely on merit. Not tribe. Not religion. Not family affiliation. As soon as Nigerians can start practicing true democracy, things would change.

Furthermore, I believe that people advocating for people to return home aren't thinking things through. Western Union reported that Nigerians abroad sent about $4 billion home in 2004. Then there is Moneygram, and also money sent through people visiting home. Also, people abroad build homes for Nigerians at home. All together, I'd say $10 billion get sent to Nigeria every year. That is serious help for Nigeria, and Nigerians. Do you really want to suddenly throw that away, and have people return to a broken system that doesn't work?

On the issue of nuclear waste,there must be a better way of handling it apart from dropping it in waters.All we need do is to find out.We are not any less than those nations that use nuclear energy.

I am a scientist, and I'm saying there's no way to dispose of radioactive material. Unless you want to create a nuclear fission system to explode those radioactive elements. Nuclear fission will cost you more money than simply building a solar energy system.

Don't discount solar energy. It's the way of the future. With all the year-round sunshine we have, that is our answer. And we do have the money to build it. We can start on a small scale, and gradually expand from city to city.

Yes, I'm downloading it now. It's coming down at a rate of 1.43MB/s. That is fast!

If there are any source (tar.gz), or rpm files you need that aren't included in the base install, let me know so I can put them on a separate disk. I'm not sure what versions of apache,mysql,php come with fc4. So, you may want updated versions. You definitely want to get away from mysql 3.x version.

We should find out how best to handle waste.Most Western nations do it.

Show me one western nation that does it, and how they do it.

Yes they do it, by dumping nuclear waste into the waters of other nations.  Are you advocating that Nigeria should dump nuclear waste into our rivers?  If that's what you're saying, then you're the worst terrosist ever to walk the face of the earth.  And if you're not, then tell us how you plan to dispose of nuclear waste.

In my view,there is no way PHCN would meet up with our ever increasing power needs

There are ways. One of them is solar power.

The city I live in just started building a solar power system that will power 400,000 homes. Solar generators have zero emission. Solar panels continue to work for decades maintenance-free. Solar generators are easy to build. Even a layperson can do it. So why won't you invest in that?

I'm going to the post office wednesday. I'll put that in the mail for you too.

You never mentioned if you prefer dvd or cdr. Left to me, I'd send a dvd since it's only a single disk.

You should edit your last msg to remove the address.

In that case,  send me a private note with your address.

Let me know if you prefer dvd (1 disk) or cdr (4 disks).

@Maxflame

Spammer, so just how much are those guys paying you to advertise for them all over the Internet?

If you gave it a little thought, you'd understand that HT is still bus speed. So, what's wrong with the statement that bus speed limits performance?

I'm looking for something to do? Yes, I'll give you something to do.

Answer this,

Is hyper transport limited to the cpu, or is it a part of the motherboard data transport system?

The fact is, if your motherboard can move data slower (bus speed) than the cpu can crank it out, the cpu must slow down. This is common sense.

Otherwise, please explain is simple terms, what the role of bus speed is.

As far as shutting up, you're in for a big surprise. You haven't seen anything yet. You're going to spend the rest of your life defending youself. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.

Sorry AMD don't have stuff limiting their performance such as bus speed. AMD's are built for performance and it depends on wht you want em for. AMD actually whoop the ass of pentiums. You guys know about their Opteron chips and dual core opteron chips with hyper transport? Totally rocks.

No matter how well your cpu performs, if your motherboard's bus speed can't keep up, then your whole system is impacted. Also, the L2 cache pre-processes data from the RAM, before it gets to the cpu. So, larger L2 cache means better performance. The only case where L2 cache doesn't matter is where DMA is in play.

Therefore, bus speed and L2 cache are vital to system performance, regardless of your cpu power.

Nigerians!

I could engage in a battle of wits with you, but you don't match up. However, be careful what you wish for. You might just get. At this point, I'm respecting the rules of this forum as a friendly place. Something tells me though you're going to cross a line that'd justify whatever response I dish out.

I'm not sure how the Nigerian postal system is these days.  My experience has been that they steal everything that looks even remotely important.  Otherwise, I would burn you a dvd, or cdr of FC4 and send it to you.

@oasis: feel free to scream spam again.

Ahh, grow up, juvenile mind. People like you are so vindictive, you would to go any lengths to prove your case. And we wonder why Nigeria is always behind. It's because people waste so much time on crap.

@geton

I understand your question.  People involved in scams want to quit, but there's nowhere for them to go.  It's a catch22.  You also metioned that we cannot reform Nigeria suddenly.  It must be done gradually. 

It all goes back once again to leadership.  For this to happen, we need a leader with vision.  A leader who has a large capacity for planning.  He/she must be able to think like a computer programmer who creates a huge flowchart that allows him to see the result of his application even before he writes one line of code.  We do have such people, but their chances of getting elected is slim to none.  Our politics is defined not by ability, but by tribal/religious affiliations.

Election campaigns in Nigeria is a circus.  In the developed world, every little dirt about a person is dug up.  They have records about every action you've ever taken in your life.  If you've ever beat up your wife, it's on record.  Which is why we need to have a database of Nigerians as I've already suggested.  Now, if a candidate has demonstrated a pattern of good leadership in the past, it's very likely he'd do well as our president.

This whole question falls to votes.  Will Nigeria ever have a population that would vote based on merits, rather than tribe/religion?  Can millions of muslims vote for a christian candidate?  Can Yorubas and Hausas vote overwhelmingly for an Igbo candidate, even when there is a Yoruba and Hausa contestant?  If you say yes, then we have a chance.  If you say no, then we have a long way to go. 

We came close one time.  Murtala Muhammad would have done so much for Nigeria, but they killed him after only 6 months.  What does that say about the fact that Nigeria doesn't like progress?

The bottomline is, Nigerian leaders are generally selfish.  Until that changes, nothing is going to change.  We'd simply keep going round in circles of leader after leader.  Now and then people abroad will return home and do their part.  But a few men can only do so much in the presence of overwhelming opposition to progress.  The only way to move the nation forward is for the leaders to start adopting positive policies.

Nuclear power is not that difficult to create and use. But the problem with it that has kept even the developed nations from implementing it is that "nuclear waste" is more expensive to get rid of.

There is no easy way to dispose of spent radioactive materials.  We are too immature and lack discipline as a nation to handle it, and protect the public from dangerous fallout of radioactive material.

Any nuclear accident affects victims at the genetic level. Years down the road, you'd start seeing all kinds of birth defects, and inexplicable diseases in victims and their subsequent generations.   As if we don't have enough problems in Nigeria already.

Before we get in over our heads, read up on Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster.

If you want reliable electricity, consider solar energy, not nuclear energy.

Start building solar generators: https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-5890.0.html

I was just wondering what the nutritional value of pepper is. I know some Nigerians love highly spicy food. I mean the kind that sets your tongue on fire, and makes you shed tears like a baby.

Does all that pepper help the body in any way. Or is it even bad for the body?