₦airaland Forum

nuattitude74: Make una siddon for house dey take pot-shots and fire flaks at Jonathan. Truth is, farmers of Cassava in Nigeria are hitting the gravy train with the brilliant Agric Minister's initiatives. Cassava, that hitherto neglected crop, is in the news every other day. The other day, Nigeria signed a deal with China to supply that country with Billions of Dollars worth of Cassava chips. Y'all better find ways of keying into the Agric revolution currently staring you in the face. If you can access land in your village, just 5 to 10k can kickstart a Cassava farm. Before you know it, you go become supplier of Cassava to processing plants that produce Cassava flour. Bigger picture : in future, YOU could own a Cassava flour plant. You can benefit from the news above, if you are smart. Open your eyes and minds, people !

on point.. the youths of this country should learn how to look at the bigger picture..

if there's more demand for cassava products, more ppl will go into it.. more money..

maybe soon enough we'll overtake Brasilia as the highest exporter of cassava while reducing our wheat import leading to a positive import exporter ratio

bionicdude: i get pissed when u guyz say bring u-17 boys to d senior national team,we are not talking of u-20 or even d u-23 olympics squad.just imagine,do u think d quality of opposition they faced at u-17 is d same at d senior level?.Stop playing fifa and pes too much.You have to realise dat dose u-17 boys won't even be able to beat lesotho at senior level.what we should be talking about is how to graduate them to d u-20 den later d eagles.Dose boys are d future of naija football not the present when their time comes they will take over for now they should be developed coz they have not arrived the quality of top tier football

keshi and kanu played in 1994 world cup straight from under 17

Kingsley1000: Is his obligation,no credit for him doing it,if 'm in his position,i would have done more sophisticated one for every community in the state

with the 1,348.50 Naira in your first bank account ba?

Klinee: Nonsense!! Dis dsnt need comendation at all. Ordinary substation and they are praising him. God help us in this anambra state.

you Call it ordinary?

well when you aggregate marginal gains Obi made in different sections, you will notice that it makes a whole lot of difference..

it's better than awarding 101 Road contracts at once and none is complete..

remember there are other sectors to look after..

that's nice..

Fkforyou: Nice article OP but I don't think we offer history lessons in most of our sec.skul dis days talk more or less to even write in WASSCE......I think that should be the starting point.
Nice article...keep it up.

thanks bro.. even from primary school

Dreamflyin: Ideani, Odume Layout. Via Peoples Club.

ideani? that used to be my backyard.. lived in p Chinedu street up till 2006

I think APC needs to wake up from their slumber.. they are assuming that the masses are behind them because they want something different from PDP.

Yes the masses want something different but PDP, but not a collection of politicians worse than the PDP..

I thought they said they were freed.. well.. we'll get to the root of this matter soon enough...

www.nairaland.com/1525812/nigerian-civil-war-debt-must#19687133

can you imagine?

[quote author=Ngwakwe][/quote]Akpabio raised valid points in that statement. but as usual the Nigerian system will neglect such important questions and turn it into a tribal war.

I remember growing up in the east and the wisdom is that Yoruba hates ibos and so do the Hausas. that they are all evil we must avoid.. these statement always come right after my dad talks about the war..

in high school, I was Lucky to have gone to a secondary school that had virtually all the Nigerian tribe.. I developed personal friendships with the Hausas and Yoruba that I was meant to avoid..

I read a lot of books on the war because I wanted to really understand.

the truth is that for us to accept One another in this country, the war history needs to be clarified and taught in our schools.. so that the younger generation will learn from them

else, we are going to pass the prejudicial stories our fathers told us down to our children and the cycle continues

asha 80: ok no problems.....as for this topic the people that were at the helm of affairs immediately after the bungled whatever positives that could have been extracted from the war.

exactly.. the war was literally a power tussle.. a scramble for positions after the war is the reason why gowon's 3Rs never succeeded

asha 80: op..off topic...you stay in onitsha what is the feeling of the average person on the street over the election imbroglio?

Bros... there are so many threads on anambra elections all over nairaland.. when we meet there we talk about anambra elections

Specimen A: In the year 1861, civil war broke out in the country we all know today as the United States of America. The war originated from the attempted secession of the Southerners from the Union, a move which the Northerners perceived as a violation of the essence of the American republic and so, rejected. Ergo, war broke out between the Southern states which had formed themselves into the Confederate States of America and the Northern states which were called the Union. By the year 1865 when the war ended, casualties numbered over half a million on both sides.

Fast-forward to the year 1900, thirty-five years later, the United States had established itself as the world’s foremost industrial nation. Overall, the nation experienced a stunning explosion in the scale of industry and in the pace of production.[1]

Specimen B: May 30, 1967, civil war broke out in the country we all know today as Nigeria. The war was fueled by the attempt of the South-easterners to secede from the country Nigeria. The move was condemned by the Nigerian government as injurious to the country’s oneness and a catalyst for an extensive disintegration of the nascent republic. Ergo, war broke out between the South-easterners who called themselves the Republic of Biafra and the Nigerian government. By 1970 when the war ended, casualties numbered well over two million on both sides.

Fast-forward to the year 2013, forty-three years later, Nigeria is 40th on the list of 79 countries which have been marked as ‘hungry’.[2] On a daily basis, 29.6% of the over 150 million Nigerian population lives on less than N190 and 83.9% on less than a miserly N300.[3] Outside the shores, the nation maintains its 7th position on the list of oil-producing countries but also is one of the highest importers of refined petroleum.[4] Nigeria is also notorious for crime, corruption, nepotism and terrorism.

In analyzing specimens A and B illustrated above, similarities abound but a singular (major) difference exists viz one country built a bridge over all of the post-war debris, blood and craters while the other did not. While the United States, spurred on by memories of pain and loss from the war, promptly commenced an effective reconstruction agenda, Nigeria evolved a selective memory, a porous reverse-filter which retained the chaff and let all the seeds fall through.

Many people today, urged on by contemporary schools of thought, will preach a total annihilation of past experiences in favor of the present and hence, future - “throw away the burdens of the past so that you may herald the treasures of the now and future!” But the wisdom in that approach is yet to be seen. The past influences the present just as much, if not more, than the future does. Albert Einstein noted,

“The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion”.

With every passing second, the future becomes the present and the present, the past all within such short intervals of time that George Calin further posited thus,

“There’s no present. There’s only the immediate future and the recent past”.


Therein lies the secret of the richness of the American culture today. In the United States, children are taught about the civil war as early as the third grade, the Nigerian equivalent of Primary 3. They are taught to understand the institution of slavery prior to the Civil war and its principal role in the breakout of the war, explain the reason(s) for the states’ secession, and outline the course of the war among many other requirements. In an article published by Education news,

“(teachers) uses props like milk-cartons for boats and blue marbles for cannonballs to illustrate battles…” and field trips are taken to any of the Civil war sites which have all been preserved.

In Yale university, History 119 – The Civil war and Reconstruction Era, 1845 – 1877 is a course taught to freshmen twice a week for fifty minutes; it is also made available as an ‘Open Yale course’ on the internet for downloads by whoever is interested. It would be needless recounting the series of books, movies, documentaries, etc that are available with war accounts from both sides of the conflict. The US government went a step further by taking pains to preserve sites where some of the most eventful battles were fought and today, those sites are unique walk-through museums which also earn the country revenue.

This publication is not an effusive idolization of the US; if at this point you think it is then unfortunately but not for the first time, you have missed the point. Late Prof. Chinua Achebe’s There was a country is a book that was trailed by perhaps just as many harsh criticisms as it was by acclamations. One subject of one too many heated debates is the role played by the late Obafemi Awolowo in the starving of Biafrans, as alleged by Achebe. In arguing either side of this issue, Nigerians missed the point again. Achebe understood the relevance of written history in the building of any nation. As he noted in his introduction to the novel, “it is for the sake of the future of Nigeria, for our children and grand-children, that I feel it is important to tell Nigeria’s story, Biafra story, our story, my story”. Over time since the end of the war, the same has been done by others who played parts in this momentous conflict. Nigerians like Olusegun Obasanjo, Joe Achuzia, Wole Soyinka, Alexander Madiebo, David Ejoor, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu and even foreigners such as Frederick Forsyth, Holger Ehling, Laurie Wiseberg among others belong to this class. Unfortunately though, these men and women will have wasted their energies if the Nigerians for whom these books have been written continue to approach them with the sole aim of finding ammunition for inter-ethnic attacks.

The point right now should not be who was most wronged or which group of people must apologize to the other. The point right now should be about learning the truth exactly as it happened because with the objective learning of this truth comes acceptance, then reconciliation and eventually, a reconstruction agenda. Regrettably, the possibility of acquiring this undiluted truth has progressively dimmed as the currents of time have swept away many artifacts, landmarks and symbols. But late is not the end and nearly is a word that is yet to kill a bird. The government needs to stop banning movies and books about the war just because they ‘threaten national unity and integration’. We must realize that the real threat to national unity and integration is a student writing his West African Secondary School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE) whose response to a question regarding the extent of his knowledge of the Nigerian Civil war is “ummm…I don’t really know much shaa but it was a very bad war”. The real threat to national unity and integration is the absence of ANY landmark in honor of the brave soldiers (Biafran and Nigerian) who fought gallantly and died in Uzuakoli, Calabar, Abagana and Owerri. The war museum that was barely scrapped together at Umuahia deteriorates everyday fiber by fiber and the ‘Old soldiers’ day’ celebrated yearly on the 15th of January has about as much influence on the Nigerian populace as does the ant on the hide of the elephant. These are the real threats to national unity and integration.

This reconstruction project is an all-encompassing one which must either be taken on wholeheartedly or not at all. The pervading bugs of white-elephant projects and ghost organizations must not be allowed near this sacred task. Historians worth their salt need to be engaged by the government in a fact-finding mission; every document or artifact belonging to those thirty months of conflict must be collected and preserved. The ‘Biafran pound’ frames, Nigerian army uniforms and Ogbunigwe at the National war museum in Umuahia need to be dusted off, shined and showcased in glass with renewed pride. Gen. Yakubu Gowon continuously appears in recent news pleading for the attainment of a peaceful Nigeria but he is yet to publish a documentation of his personal memories of the war, as principal an actor as he was in the affair! And every day, so many neglected old men and women die, enriching the soil of the graveyard with the precious stories that are our history. The documentation of such memories is not a nicety to be engaged in at one’s leisure, we must understand; such a task is a mandatory assignment placed upon the actor by the gnarled hands of history. It is a task of so much importance that I envisage the Creator stopping whoever fails at it from proceeding beyond heaven’s gates. Because separated from their history, a people cease to exist.

The climax of this reconstruction agenda would be attained when all of this knowledge and wealth of experiences have been collected together and are then fed to every Nigerian child. From as early as primary education, the Nigerian child should be fed information and facts about the war that played no less than a crucial role in the molding of the country he or she has been born into. The NYSC (which was indeed created as a healing balm for post-war Nigeria in 1973) could be employed as the culmination of these lessons. The information taught would include the facts of events leading up to the war starting with pre-colonial Nigeria to the coup and pogroms of 1966; the reason(s) for the break-out of the war; the primary and secondary actors of the conflict, the various roles they played and the significances thereof; a timeline chronicling all significant events that occurred during the war; post-war attempts at reconstruction, why and how such attempts failed and the relevance thereof to the country’s present situation.

As Rick Warren aptly notes in his book, The Purpose-driven Life,

“pain is the fuel of passion – it energizes us with an intensity to change that we don’t normally possess”

So far, the pain of the Nigerian Civil war, excruciating as it was, has been lost to us all. It is our responsibility therefore, as a nation of people hungry for growth, to resurrect that pain or more aptly, the memories of that pain so that we can fully cash into the strength of its passion.

“…we fall.

All casualties of the war,
Because we cannot hear each other speak…
Because whether we know or
Do not know the extent of wrong on all sides
We are characters now other than before…”


- J.P. Clark, The Casualties


Bibliography

[1] – Microsoft Encarta Premium 2009;
[2] – cumulative Global Hunger Index rankings for 1990, 1996, 2001 and 2012;
[3] – World Bank Reports 2010;
[4] – Petroleum Insights: OPEC’s Top Crude Oil Producers, 2011 – January, 2012 by David Rachovich;
[5] – The Purpose-Driven Life, by Rick Warren.

http://www.inspirenaija.com/2013/11/a-debt-that-must-be-paid-by-chisom.html

Donmams: These PDP sponsored laptop agents just don't get tired. They are trying by all means to tarnish the image of APC and APC stalwarts everywhere on social media. Well, Reno Omokri, i have news for you, you shall all be jobless in 2015. Only the very lucky ones among you will receive 100 year sentences in jail.

bros pls shut up.. a friend Of mine served in imo.. 2012 batch c.. and okorocha no pay anything.. just a one time 10k.. and the girl served in a government parastatal..

for those saying he might pay after POP.. It's been more than 1 month my friend passed out.. no alert

berem pls come and defend your amicable governor..

op.. we all know what okorocha is.. Sweet talker that can't get anything done..

don't worry, the APGA fowl under a PDP umbrella will evacuate Okorocha and his APC broom from Owerri government house in 2015..

just watch and see..

nyere84: To be sincere to myself, and also to evrione.

Yea, i do keep malice.

Once u are in my bad book, u will remain there 4eva. Even, wen i forgive, it can neva be like before.

exactly..

especially when the crime is "betrayal"

I'd forgive you but at least 1 star drops from your rating

AtlanticBreeze: If I could get a dollar for anytime I'm called freeglobe on nairaland I'd be as rich as stupendous right now. How you claim to know about my state more than me is what I rather find amusing. Only a foolish or hired urchin does not realize Peter obi is unpopular in Anambra

you are freeglobe .. the death of freeglobe coincided with the birth Of your moniker.. and I never told you I'm from enugu on this thread.. so how did you know?

and as for being from anambra? I'm not sure you live here... if you do.. maybe you don't move around

chukwudi44: bros idemili north is 89k and not 113k the other nos are from the other three lga.Besides what makes you think that we will have 100% voters turnout with them all voting for Ngige.Did Ngige win 1005 in Idmili south?

chukwudi nwannem.. nara M aka.. e bu dike.. e nwere uburu ndi anambra.. uburu chinua achebe

AtlanticBreeze: 16/21 massively flawed poll. Even Tony Nwoye (The master rigger admitted he has not seen it in this form) lol. The courts will decide. You and I know how it went. Despite that, 176k to 92k without idemmili his stronghold with 113k voter strength

you Data is wrong.. idemilli north is actually 180k voters.. and about 90k already exercised their franchise.. leaving you guys with 89k votes to grab out of which I'm sure you won't grab up to 40k

idemmili South voted with their full strength on Saturday and nothing happened..

AtlanticBreeze: I don't understand, you are not from Anambra state but you keep spreading lies about the obvious in the state, why not face your Enugu. If Peter obi performed more than Ngige, he wont find it hard beating him even with a 'yoruba party' Simple logic

freeglobe My dear.. I was born in Onitsha and I still live here.. so that makes me an anambrarian by residency..

and yes, Peter Obi wouldn't have found it hard beating Ngige and Apc if not for the relentless media propaganda by you and your cohorts that succeeded in confusing a few anambrarians.

I give you credit for that.. the PR would've succeeded if only you extended it to the remote corners of anambra.. that population that isn't interest in Nairaland that's if they will buy it.

I hope you don't make such costly mistake in your next PR job.

and meanwhile, that my job offer is still on the table

berem: That does not qualify him to be a good governor. There are some governors who attained higher qualification and had better experience than Obiano before they became governor and they are great disappointments to their people. If he like let him be the former prime minister of England, doesn't stop him from failing like his predecessor.

employers judge job seekers with their CVs.. and that's his CV.. and the employers which are ndi anambra likes it..

blackky100: Abayaya,

Please tell them.

nna eh.. these Ppl dey read only newspapers.. and they swallow everything without investigation

asha 80: ngige made a fundamental mistake which is never take your popularity for granted.

Gbam!!! instead of growing it, he was busy engaging in stuffs that put his popularity in a decline..

anambra will always remember how he fought the Ubas.. but he has proven over time that his motives for doing that isn't for the good of ndi anambra.. it was for selfish interests..

he did those lil constructions he did in idemmili to gain legitimacy..

[quote author=bashy_demy]Tinubu has been the chairman of Mobil oil before 1999, once a Senator of Nigeria.[/quote]bros.. calm down!!! chairman of mobil oil? you mean the downstream mobil oil Nigeria? never heard of that..

I know no Nigerian was ever chairman of upstream mobil producing Nigeria.. I don't know much about downstream.. will ask

chamboy: I dnt doubt d guy is it not d same obi that was giving ppl 2,3k for vote w

lmao... bros.. that's not how to argue..

FYI, money was First shared in nteje by a PDP stalwart called wowo.. in ukpo Arthur Eze was dishing out too.. ifeanyi was doing his own in nnewi... in Onitsha, Lp agents actually started with buying beer.. then PDP came with 1k.. APGA finally joined with 1k5.

and trust me, APC would've shared Too if they had a strong party structure here..

and like I said in an earlier Post.. money was shared only in some polling units in the cities.. nothing like that happened in the villages

ILIDEFI: Guy, you shld speak for urself alone. Ngige outperformed Obi by far. Ngige took over from Mbadinuju wit nothing on ground: huge debts, unpaid salaries, pensions and gratuities, terribly bad roads and he did much to start transformation of Anambra state. Even wit a budget roughly 2/3 of Peter Obi's current budget, and d fact dat he spent barely 3yrs in office, he still delivered d dividends of democracy to Anambra state. Tell me wat ur Peter Obi has achieved in 8yrs, dat we shld give him anoda 8yrs. He simply wants to install a puppet in office, and dat is y I detest Obiano so much. Or is der any gud reason y he disqualified Soludo? Had Soludo bin in dat race, Ngige wud not hav got up to 30k votes.
My bro wz on ground during d election and confirmed dat APGA bought most of their votes for 2-3k per vote. Same for PDP, and dat explains y Nwoye was able to garner those votes. Now some ignoramuses are here celebrating a fake victory. D worst is dat dis Obiano of a guy has no single evidence of excellence in administration of any sort. Why shld we den trust him wit our beloved state? Rigging and votes-buying apart, Ngige will beat Obiano hands down any day any time.
Ndi Anambra, plz let's b wise.

bro.. evidence Of excellence in administration and he rose steadily to become Chief auditor at Texaco and director at fidelity bank? both in the private sector where competition is very strong?

bros.. you don chop?

and Peter Obi's achievement dwarfs Ngige's in all ramification.. So bros... now is a good time to soak that garri

[quote author=bashy_demy]Oga this is no matter of having sympathy, Ngige was loved by is people and despite canceling over 200k votes from his strong hold he still poll 90k plus votes. Let assume the over 200k people vote and about 150k plus voted for Ngige what will happen? Mind you his people like him so much cos he never let them down and i believe they will never let him down either so they will come out to vote for him.[/quote]bros, Ngige just have photons of supporters in the major cities and then his Home lga where he developed very well when he was governor..

but in other parts of state, the lil support he has is actually born outta sympathy from what he went through in the hands of the Ubas.

but he wasted all that political goodwill.. I live in anambra.. so I know..

AtlanticBreeze: How can someone govern over 5 million people with less than 200k votes out of 1.7 million registered voters and 400k votes cast. Nigeria I hail! This country must be broken!

Lagos has more than 6million registered voters.. less than 3 million actually voted in the last election..

the Nigerian average in voters turnout is between 30-40% it was only exceeded in the 2011 presidential elections in the south east and South south.. and we all know why

Kingsley1000: ...Ngige needs to do his home work very well,his strong-hold"idemili north"has 180,000 registered voters...if the supplementary election as inec promised 'll be conducted(in awka south,idemili north/south,dunukofia and ihiala) ,i don't see any jupita stopping him.

only 160 polling units in idemmili is participating in the supplementary vote.. and that's 89k votes.. out of which, the Nigerian average of 30-40% voters turnout will still come into play.

let's assume he gets the maximum votes from here we are looking at a figure less than 40k.. and that will make no difference..

why do you think Ngige is shouting.. he knows the situation..

even if he wants to manufacture fake voters, I can assure you that PDP will be planning their own rigging too.. and inec wouldn't let that happen because they are trying to redeem themselves..

there's no way out for Ngige... none whatsoever.. the court is his only option

AtlanticBreeze: Believe me if Ngige can get a competent lawyer, the election will be nullified. There are a lot of evidences. The electoral officer who delayed the idemili election in police custody said Peter Obi's ADC bribed him with 60m. The register, many people couldn't vote. etc. its a pity you have fallen victim to the antics of Peter obi hired urchins online. This election is just starting, unless Ngige and Nwoye give up like you but from what nwoye said on twitter yesterday, its far from over!

said Peter Obi's ADC bribed him? where did you get that information from?