₦airaland Forum

With the number of politically related murders in Rivers state alone, one begins to wonder whether it is only Rivers state that is in Nigeria and whether election never ends in Rivers state.

Why dem go kill Buhari na?... This kind of country sef!

Now that he has the free support of over 100 lawyers, he should sue the police authorities for some serious damages.

These men look hungry..

1 thermocool of igboh also apprehended

seunmsg:
You are as fraudulent as trentonline. what you quoted above was not Buhari's words but that of trentonline. It's very shameful that you even went further to fraudulently insert quotation mark into a statement that originally had none. Paragraphs 4, 5, 6 and 7 are the exact words of the president and you can clearly see the quotation marks. Can you show me where he said Nigeria's business environment is not healthy for investors there?

Lol... Very soon Buhari would make a speech about making Nigeria a safe, secure and developed nation. But the punks would report it as "Buhari says Nigeria is an unsafe, insecure slum."

Dubious folks on patrol trying too hard to distort public, but albeit in a very daft way. But at the end, they only end up deceiving their fellow slow brains; I can already see several of them here present masturbating on the silly report.

TheFreeOne:
Haba...idontbelieveit...he must have been quoted out of context.


This sounds more sensible and believable.

The report is what I call journalistic stupidity; a very common ailment associated with reporters as they try to sensationalise stories and it is mostly driven by partisan interests. This sort of thing is very common with Vanguard newspaper for instance; it reminds me of the most prominent one by Vanguard before the elections when Buhari said "it is not good that the dollar now exchanges for N230" but Vanguard titled the story "I will make dollar equal to Naira". Till date the dubious title stuck in the minds of people.

Now this is coming from the renown TRENTONLINE so why should anyone expect less

Lol.. see gobe!

Who is the mumu engineer that designed this rubbish?

Didnt know RB was still in existence and is still deceiving hopeless gullibles till date.

OBAGADAFFI:
No amount of blackmail form your likes can hide the truth.

Lots of girls are kidnapped from the north, but Oby and co choose to focus on Chibok girls for reasons unknown to us.

An educated Oby should have known that campaigning cannot bring back those girls.

The day Nigerian stop thinking along APC vs PDP lines, that day we start moving forward.

What truth exactly are you talking about?

At least 1000 cases of children being kidnapped is reported across Nigeria everyday, do you as an individual speak out against every single one of those cases (both the ones you know of and the ones you don't)?.... So why would you expect Oby to speak out against every single one of those case before you agree she is doing this simply out of a good heart for humanity?.... Isn't it commonsensical to know that any activist or concerned individual can only pick up a case they consider dear to them and follow it up?

Let's say there are 170 million people in Nigeria, Oby is just one individual and there's only so much she can do. If she felt touched by the chibok girls issue and decided to take it up and agitate for the government to do something about their rescue, what stops the other 169,999,999 Nigerians (including yourself) from taking up the other kidnap cases with the government?... Is Oby the only person alive in Nigeria?

You claim campaigning cannot bring back those girls, what would you have rather done?... Sit back and relax especially as the ever efficient Nigerian security forces were ONTOP OF THE SITUATION?... Meanwhile at the time the govt showed absolutely no sign of seriousness on the case just as is always the case with our useless govts; even the president at the time openly denied that anything like the chibok kidnap ever happened.

While you advise that Nigerians should stop thinking along the APC vs PDP line, I'm sorry that advise is best suited for yourself because it is only that myopic thought process that can make a person say these things you are saying.

Lol... dont know why this sounds funny to me.

mightyhazell:
Na wa o! The whole economy just dey dis one man hand oo

Others still dey sleep.

All hail the king!

Dangote is the government we never had.

papaejima1:
Uda possibly.
Even in his inebriated state, he was sober enough to ensure you and yours fed on three square meals daily, petrol was affordable, rice within the reach of everyone and not just the elite etc.
Now compare and contrast with your ascetic and teetotaling oga who ensured he took all that the drunkard gave you and used it to import grass for his cows to the extent that even chickens now skip meals.

All that was a function of oil price... If you have a doubt on that, then you can kindly remind us of what happened when oil prices just began to crash? Naira crashed mercilessly from 160 to 220 in 6 months even though oil still sold above $65 and even though the CBN spent $10bn in 6 months to support the naira. Gdp growth rate fell rapidly, FG had started borrowing to pay salary, foreign reserves fell from $38-28bn within few months, Nigeria experienced the most acute fuel scarcity where even banks closed by 12pm for lack of generator fuel etc etc. That you did not notice these things does not mean they were not already happening under your lord Jona even though oil still sold above $65 then. Jona was just a very lucky man to have bailed out just at the point where the consequences of the oil crash (and his indiscretions) were about to start getting to the common man. If the okada men on the street dont know this or cant understand this logic, they cant really be blamed, but I'm sure you arent one.

The people on this thread blaming Oby or anybody for campaigning for the release of the kidnapped girls must be brain dead. How can normal humans be this congenitally stuupid?... Since when has calling for the release of kidnapped people become a crime or dishonorable thing?.. Because it affected the credibility of your political hero?... By devil's grace your own daughters would be kidnapped and I would love to watch as you accuse and insult people calling on the government to do something.

There's a proverb that says, "tree near tree, na wetin make monkey dey smart." That someone can manage a rich economy, it is not necessarily a guarantee that the person can manage a poor one. But then, how was the booming oil economy even managed?... It is quite shocking and appalling that even educated people cannot still understand that the Nigeria of 2-3 years ago when oil sold for over $100 is totally different from the Nigeria of today where oil sells for ~$40.

Was this same NOI not a part of the people who put us in the present mess by their inability to diversify the economy when the nation was enjoying an unprecedented boom in oil income?.....

Was NOI not part of the people who failed to invest properly in infrastructural projects which could have made life bearable for Nigerians at a bad time like this?

Was NOI not part of those who instead of investing in life and economy changing projects like building refineries, choose to give dubious duty waivers to importers of all sorts of luxuries costing Nigeria billions in lost income?

Isnt it sad that a lot of educated and enlightened people still use GDP growth or GDP size as a measure of progress even when it doesnt reflect on the lives of anyone but rather is just a directly proportional function of oil price?

Deep sentiments or sometimes just plain ignorance are the only reasons why a lot of even educated people cant still grab this simple logic. I'm sorry but we have loads of more qualified and untainted professionals, not some people who contributed to put us in this mess by their omission or commission; we still have people like the Soludos and the Sanusis.

Joavid:
Nigerians clearly don't know who an human right activist is

To most lowlife, morally depraved Nigerian youths, an activist has to be paid cash or compensated by government, else such and activist must be a fool to them. Such pathetic souls.

Obviously these Jonathanian wailers will never recover from that election loss for the rest of their lives, they might even pass the disorder (that's what it is now) to their children. To these frustrated plebs, it is not possible for an activist to fight for something she believes in without having ulterior motives; to these lowlives, she must be given a reward by politicians before they acknowledge she is fighting a good cause. So much for our morals.

I really dont care if 50% of Nigeria's forex is given to Dangote, if that man completes his refinery, the petrochemical/fertiliser plant and the subsea gas pipeline project, he would be solving more than half of Nigeria's present economic problems. Dangote is basically taking over the responsibility of government so I personally have no problems if the government invests in him.

For anyone who ignorantly thinks Dangote gets the favours he gets because of his tribe, how do you explain that Dangote has always enjoyed these same uncommon favours with every single regime from OBJ to Yaradua to GEJ? .... It means there is something Dangote does differently.

Congratulations to the SW and SE members of NCAN

BlackSeptember:
he was never a pastor

Because he didnt support your thief thief heroes, so therefore he is not a pastor. Clap for yourself!

What kind of senseless and needless statement is this?

To hell with any dissenting voice, judging from that first picture, I totally support her decision to enlarge her boobs.

tuniski:
Apc connote opposition parties. They only adopted the nomenclature apc in 2013 but, have been there since 1999 as opposition!

At the time in question, out of the 36 governors, how many were opposition?... Did one or two opposition governors act unilaterally?.... Did the so called opposition not also pressure and take OBJ to court to share these same funds?... Did the so called opposition not also pressure and take Yaradua to court to share these same funds?... How come only GEJ willingly broke the vault?....

Meanwhile one of the accusations of the governors at the time was that GEJ was illegally pilfering into the funds which he refused to share and I wonder whether that sounds like someone who even cared about saving. Finally, after GEJ eventually broke the vault and handed out 49% of the funds (which belonged to the states anyway), why could the FG not save its over 51%?... Did the governors also force or use voodoo on the FG to squander its own giant share of the fund on untraceable projects?

I'm surprised we still have people trying to argue over this issue; I would be so glad if one person can answer just a single one of the questions I've asked above.

Dangote please do quick and save Nigeria from these endless series of bad news.

Branzy:
how long sha we crawl.. India has start walking same with South Africa, Brazil nd Co ...... Should we continue to celebrate mediocrity..

We can actually crawl and walk and run within the same year, but we can't help but crawl first.

maddock:
This commentary is culled from someone post on facebook and I think its makes a whole lot of sense.

Anytime I hear Nigerian presidents, ministers,
governors, economists, analysts and
commentators declare that agriculture is the
alternative to oil, and that the solution to
Nigeria’s economic woes is to return to the
farm, I am tempted to jump up and ask at full
volume: “Who agriculture alone don epp?”
Some states have hilariously declared work-
free days for civil servants to go to the farm.
It would be nice to see those farms and how
well the emergency farmers are doing. We’ve
been told again and again that agriculture, as
Nigeria’s biggest employer of labour, is the
magic solution to unemployment, that we will
export agricultural produce and earn plenty
forex. Well done.
I’ve been hearing this fairy-tale all my life.
When I was a primary school kid, Lt. Gen.
Olusegun Obasanjo, then head of state, asked
Nigerians to tighten their belts because the oil
boom would not last forever. He added drama
by tightening his military belt on TV. He
launched Operation Feed the Nation. President Shehu Shagari did
Green Revolution. The structural adjustment
programme (SAP) of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida
was basically about diversifying into
agriculture. My dad then a manager in A.T. & P alongside
other management staff embraced farming in the mid and late 80s.
In different shapes, forms, sizes
and packaging, we have been talking about
agriculture, agriculture and agriculture forever.
Since we love glamorising our exploits in the
export of cocoa, coffee, palm oil and
groundnuts before the oil boom doom, I will
pick on just cocoa to dispel this ill-conceived
notion and never-ending campaign that
agriculture is the magic wand.
We used to be the biggest producers of cocoa
in the world. Chief Obafemi Awolowo utilised
cocoa revenue to develop the south-west
when he was premier of the region in the
1950s. But we dropped the ball along the line
and Cote d’Ivoire overtook us. And now we
are lamenting that we are nowhere to be
found. The solution, therefore, is for the south-
west to revive the cocoa farms. Oh, the good
old days!
Okay, let us talk about Cote d’Ivoire’s fabled
cocoa wealth. Cote d’Ivoire produces 33% of
world cocoa and exports to manufacturers
such as Hershey’s, Mars Inc. (both in the US)
and Nestlé (Switzerland). You know what Cote
d’Ivoire earns yearly from exporting raw
cocoa? A whopping $2.5bn. I repeat: a
whopping $2.5bn!
So Mars buys Ivorien cocoa and makes
several products from it: Bounty, M&M, Mars
and Milky Way, to name a few. You know
Mars’ net income from chocolate products
alone in 2015?
According to the International Cocoa
Organisation (ICCO), Mars made a pathetic
$18bn, compared to Cote d’Ivoire’s whopping
$2.5bn. Agriculture, indeed.
If you are wondering how just one company,
which manufactures chocolate, can earn
seven times more than a whole country, which
farms and exports the cocoa input, then you
are asking the same question with me: Who
agriculture alone don epp?
On ICCO’s list of the world’s top 10
companies in net revenue from chocolate, you
have three from America, two from Japan,
two from Switzerland, and one each from
Luxemburg/Italy, Argentina and Turkey. None
from Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Indonesia — the
world’s three biggest producers of raw cocoa.
There must be something that Hershey’s,
Mars and Nestlé know that we don’t know as
we keep planting cocoa.
To be fair, Cote d’Ivoire is waking up. In 2015,
French chocolatier Cémoi opened a plant in
Abidjan, the economic capital, to produce
chocolate. President Alassane Ouattara, on
touring the plant, said: “We want to be able to
make chocolate for Ivoriens, for Africans and
especially West Africans.” Ouattara
(pronounced Wa-ta-ra) understands what we
still don’t understand here: that agriculture
without industry is dead, being alone.
How could I buy cocoa worth $1m from you
and make chocolate worth $10 million from it
— and you think you are smart? If you are
smart, you will start making the chocolate
yourself and stop romanticising about the
“good old days”.
There was a video that went viral sometime
ago. CNN’s Richard Quest visited a cocoa
farm in Cote d’Ivoire. Come and see poverty
written all over the faces of the farmers, who
have been told for decades that agriculture is
the magic solution to their problems. Quest
gave the farmers bars of chocolate. They were
eating the sweet stuff for the first time in their
lives!
Compare their lives to those of the executives
of Mars Inc., who buy the cocoa beans from
Cote d’Ivoire. They are flying private jets and
holidaying in the moon, while the Ivorien
farmers are fighting off flies and bees in the
bushes of Koffikro. For your information, Mars
Inc. has no cocoa farms!
Don’t get me wrong please. If I have created
the impression that agriculture is useless, I do
apologise. That is not my intention. After all,
agriculture is our culture. Millions of Nigerians
are farming rice, beans, cassava and corn.
That is huge employment. Also, we certainly
can produce many food items that we are
importing and burning precious forex on. But
is that why governors are declaring work-free
days for civil servants to go and plant melon
and maize to solve Nigeria’s economic
problem and stop the dependency on oil? If
only these governors knew that Switzerland
does not grow one tree of cocoa, yet makes
the world’s most elegant chocolates!
Let us break this whole agric logic into pieces.
If we really want to diversify from oil and
create proper value, agriculture must give
birth to industry. If agriculture currently
employs, say, 5 million Nigerians, agro-allied
industry can employ 15 million in the value
chain. So why do we spend so much time
discussing farming and not industry? For
example, how many graduates can a tomato
farm employ compared to a factory making
tomato purée? The factory will employ or
engage the services of engineers, technicians,
chemists, marketers, accountants,
communicators, lawyers, administrators,
drivers, and so on. It may even have a sick
bay and employ doctors and nurses.
I’m not done. A basket of tomatoes sells for
N800 in Kaduna. A 400g tin of purée sells for
N300. Look at how many bottles of purée you
can get from a basket, and how much value
you will be getting. Who, then, is making the
real money? The factory will pay company tax,
its employees will pay PAYE and the
consumers will pay VAT. That is how
government will boost its revenue.
The purée bottle makers offer a different
business altogether that employs workers and
pays all kinds of taxes too. And if we are good
enough, we can begin to export purée to other
countries, and earn forex. This is just purée.
Think of a thousand agro-allied factories.
Think of our huge population.
Sure, agriculture is very important in a
primitive economy like ours. But we always
miss the bigger picture. One, we need full
optimisation of the sector to enhance
productivity. A country like the US knows this
much better: the percentage of the population
engaged in farming is insignificant, but it is so
optimised that the output is out of this world.
For instance, the US produces enough rice for
local consumption, for export, for aid and to
dump in the sea to “stabilise” market prices.
Two, processing is where you find the
massive job opportunities. The agro-industry
will yield far more output, more jobs and more
economic value than Benue Friday Farming.
These things look so simple and doable, but
commonsense is not common. Our
agricultural output can be far better in quantity
and quality than currently obtains. We can do
with better technology, storage, conditioning,
packaging and transportation. Most
importantly, our brains should focus on how
industry can bring out the real value of
agriculture and spark off a chain of economic
activities that will create millions of good jobs
and generate billions of dollars in revenue to
investors, employees and government. But we
seem excited only about preaching and
promoting the export of raw produce, and we
feel so smart we think this is the way out of
our oil dependency!
But how can we add value when, despite the
billions of dollars we have made from oil
since 1999, we don’t have the basic
infrastructure to inspire an agro-based
industrial explosion? Where are the roads?
Where are the rails? Where is the electricity?
Where is the security? Where is the finance?
Yet I can point to uncountable private jets,
mansions and customised cars that politicians
and their friends have acquired since 1999
with proceeds from the oil boom , while they
keep preaching stone-age agriculture to
Nigerians.
So if your governor joins this craze of
declaring work-free days for primitive farming,
just ask him politely:Your Excellency, who
agriculture alone don epp?

A very brilliant piece; however, a child must learn to crawl before it learns to walk.

The man definitely did what he did intentionally to provoke anger and a possible a breach of peace. What he did isn't a crime but an offence so he should have only received a stern warning (Nigerian police style).

attackgat:
That's the wrong question. Why should there still be tribalism and victimisation in the Nigerian Police force? If the senators and leaders should be rushing to save their own all the time, then what are we doing as 'one Nigeria'? We

Unfortunately, Nigeria is not a sane or civil society, the madness can only be matched. There's a law in Nigeria that says "the first to report the case is innocent." The man was arrested because someone reported him. Meanwhile if you report northerners even when they commit a real crime, within 24 hours, the suspects would be released. It's not magic, it happens because someone big made a phone call or someone big came down to the station to effect that release.

So next time a person like Chinakwe is arrested for a flimsy reason, someone big from his side should make that call too, that's how this jungle works; for how long are we going to keep whining and weeping everyday and blaming the north like we don't have our own leaders down south? If the northerners can release theirs, why can't we?... Oh I forgot, the only thing our leaders down south know how to do is to cater for their personal pockets, they only remember they have constituents whenever they are caught red-handed in some corruption case.

luvinhubby:
What a way to defend a cause you believe in.

Of course I was referring to GEJ.

Sometimes silence is golden.

attackgat:
What do you mean it has no bearing on the case? That's what the whole case is about! This man Joe Chinakwe has an Igbo surname and speaks Igbo as his ancestral language and he calls himself 'Deltan' and 'Anioma'. There is no tribe called Delta or Anioma in Nigeria. Had this man had the surname 'Abubakar', would there be no case today. The Hausa/Fulani community would have been more diplomatic and asked Joe why he wrote Buhari on the Dog. But because Joe Chinakwe is an Igbo man, he was victimised by both the Police and his accusers.

Where was his senator, his governor and other igbo leaders and elite when this was happening to him?

Icecomrade:
Address the level of implementation and not PDP budget.

All you do is to make silly reference to PDP to hide the failure and gross incompetence on this directionless government

You jumped out of nowhere and jumped into conclusion that the budget and apc were scam because of the low level of budget implementation. I pointed out to you that the budget year runs till May 2017 so in essence, we are in just the 3rd month out of the 12 month period and no sensible judgement can be made on the budget implememtation yet.

But obviously your mind isnt configured at this time for objectivity so you are incapable of discerning such info. Your mind is only pre-programmed at this time to just wail and insult, albeit baselessly. Sometimes actually responding to these childish tantrums is embarrassing.