₦airaland Forum

ba7man: I find it sad that they'll exchange their votes for mundane things like umbrellas.

Finding it sad doesn't make a difference to the results of elections. The onus is on the opposition to do something about it.
Umbrellas might be mundane to you that doesn't need it, but it might mean the whole world to someone else.
When you realize that the worldview of a market woman or bus conductor or a farmer is very different from that of a banker or an administrative staff, you would begin to understand why PDP wins elections and you'll stop screaming rigging every time they win.

A rural farmer wouldn't vote a politician who has beautified the city and solved its transport gridlock. It has no bearing on his well being. He would vote the one who gave him tractor for his farm or the one who provided him with fertilizer. Thats what impacts his livelihood.
PDP knows that educated urbanites never go out to vote. They are the ones who read newspapers. They vote on e-polls and write opinions on newpapers. But they never go out. So PDP can't be bothered about newspapers. Rather they go to markets, Motor parks, villages, farmers associations, Teachers and those very strong voting blocks. And that is how they win elections. The only reason Buhari has a stronghold on the core north is because of the network of mosques that support him. You can't win elections without these kind of massive networks. Period.

Truthfully, I sympathize with the opposition first because they don't seem to understand what they are up against. PDP is a very popular party at the grassroots. I mean extremely popular. While the opposition runs to the pages of newspapers(by the way the average newspaper sales just 20-30,000 copies daily) the PDP has a chain of supporters running all the way down to the doorsteps of the average masses.

Secondly I sympathize with the opposition because they don't have a national understanding. They bring SW or Katsina mindset and expect to win in the SE, SS or MB. PDP on the other hand is a decentralized party.The PDP in Kogi is local to Kogi and the PDP in Bayelsa is local to Bayelsa. The opposition cannot win outside its strongholds and its sad that they don't get it.
Iheard someone say on the thread that the elections were rigged because the margins were very wide. Eyaaah. I wish you understood that many people were hearing APC for the first time in their lives on election day.


Now let me share a story. I flew into Warri on Friday went home and realized that since there will be no movement till 4 pm the next day I would have to stay hungry if I don't get cook-able food at home. So I decided to go to a small open market near my estate. About 100-150 women traders selling all the things you need to hook yourself up with a meal. A few men selling meat. It was around 7pm and the market was still buzzing. While I was there I realized the women were unusually happy. Then suddenly two traders started discussing about the next days elections. They spoke glowing about why they like PDP any why they will be punching umbrella tommorow.
They said and I quote: "na only PDP they remember us. Rain dey disturb us for this market since. Anytime wey rain fall we go begin run like malu they find wetin we go use cover our wares. But see, everybody don get this big umbrella now. Na PDP bring am come"

@Cranky
You might be a practicing farmer, but do you consider that you might not be practicing properly. While experience counts for so much, it also has a way of hindering progress especially when we choose to close our minds to potential for improvement. Its common knowledge that farming practices in Nigeria are very outdated and expectedly would result in poor yields. Do you consider that you practice might be outdated?
What kind of seedlings do you plant with? What kind of spacing do you apply? What kind of nutriets do you feed your soil with?


Now I ask these questions because from all I have seen, Olushowunm hasn't said anything different from what is the standard internationally.
Most farmers plant between 30,000 to 50,000 plants of corn per acre. Based on your conversion at approx 2.5 acres= 1 Hectare, that should give you between (30,000- 50,000) x 2.5= 75,000-125,000 plants per hectare. Now if each plants averages 1-2 ears that leaves us with an average 150,000 and 250,000 ears per hectare. So how is that different from what Olushown has postulated. The links and googlecut outs belwoe show what average per acre planting is.

Africa has been punching below its belt for ages and producing yields that are about 25% of world averages. Do you consider that your farming practice might just restricted to African standards which implies that there is huge room for improvement?

http://varietytrials.tennessee.edu/weightsmeasures/pdfdocs/conversions.pdf

http://www.uwex.edu/ces/crops/CornPlantDensity04.htm

Would be needing qunatities of high quality palm oil soonest and on a regular basis.
Please state your location and price.

fineboy2: I think the level of success attained by the founders of Jumia, Raphael Afaedor and Tunde Kehinde, can be attributed to what they were taught at Harvard Business School. Both met at Harvard and came up with the idea of setting up an online retail shop in Nigeria. I also think Harvard Alumni plays in role in financing most start-ups created by Harvard graduates.

Exactly. Its not as much what they are taught as it is the networks that come with it.
My younger brother is a harvardite and by virtue of that has met personally with and has phone numbers of a good number of alumni, Bello Osagie inclusive. Its kind of like a club. Plus the name sells like water.

This thread has been an immensely great inspiration to me. My personal opinion is that this might be the most educative thread on Nairaland. I learned a lot here which has inspired me to start something in this line.

One of my biggest lessons here is that long term Agriculture is tedious, risky and very capital intensive with so many pitfalls either stirring you in the face or hiding away, waiting to hit at you on the slightest opportunity. However, it is not only extremely rewarding eventually, it has the potential to secure your future way into your old age if done properly. And also, it is more lucrative than almost all other forms of investment.
I did the calculations of farming Oil Palm vs Real Estate vs Stocks vs Bonds vs Fixed Deposit vs a whole lot other investment types and I found that Oil Palm plantation is not only lucrative, it actually gives you far better returns and for a much longer period than any other investments.
However, it is not something I am willing to go alone on. I currently have 8 hectares of land, but I have a different idea on how to go about this.
I call it Value Chain Strategy. Add value and you'll earn ten times over vs raw materials




To cut my speech short, let me go straight to the outcome of my inspiration. This thread has inspired me to set up a cooperative called THE TENERA COOP which would seek to CONNECT like minds, COLLABORATE as a team and CREATE some outstanding products derivable from PALM OIL.
The goal is to engage in the entire value chain of Oil Palm. Not only would we own oil palm plantations(running in hundreds of hectares), we would engage in adding high value to everything oil palm. From packaging of Palm oil to production of Animal Feed to Soap Production to Margarine and a host of other multiple derivables of Oil Palm.



Now, I have started work on the easiest part. PACKAGING PALM OIL.
95% of all Palm Oil consumed in Nigeria is sold retail in disused drinking water bottles with no brand attachment nor any form of identification. I did the calculations and found that this market(Cooking Palm oil) is worth over 100 billion Naira annually. And yet none of the big companies are packaging this stuff. Biiiiiig Opportunity. Massssssive!! Remember the days before pure/bottled water? Drinking water was sold in non branded sachets. Like seriously, why is no one packaging Palm oil properly? Afterall, vegetable oil is well packed.


Anyways, I am taking advantage of this stuff. And I have started serious work on it. From my little calculations, the potential income is in tens of millions monthly. Yes, I said tens of millions monthly. It is huge because it's a blue ocean. No other parties so I determine my prices plus the high quality packaging makes the product stand out.

From packaging palm oil, we would use the profits to develop large hectares of Palm Plantations and afterwards we would develop other by products from Palm oil.

[size=13pt]Below is a picture of what I am working on. From time to time as my work progresses I'll update the thread.[/size]

https://eswama.com.ng/assets/images/ban-5.jpg


https://eswama.com.ng/assets/images/ban-4.jpg


https://eswama.com.ng/assets/images/ban-2.jpg


Enugu is working.

This hotel is nicer on the outside than on the inside.
I saw some interiors of the hotel and wasn't too impressed.

Gorrbachev: STFU. What transformation? She simply awarded renovation contracts to herself and hand picked airports were repainted. Whe Isa Yuguda said the death of Youth corpers was the will of God, igbos were allover the internet crying for his head. Pack well abeg. hypocrites.

IF Fani Kayode did as little awarding himself contracts to at least renovate the toilets at MMA only, he would have had some credit to himself. But as it stands today, the man did nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even one policy. Not one toilet contract awarded. Not a single equipment purchased. So the man went to work for 7 months everyday(over 200 days in all and couldnt even do a single thing.

And he is a man who has the mouth to speak to a woman who is remodelled 22 airports,and building 5 brand new terminals all in one.
Surely some folks are on their way to Doom. FFK SHOULD WATCH IT HIS SANITY.

It's only illiterates that would not understand what the Aviation minister said.

To those that don't know, that phrase is a legal term

tpacalipse: I wish Oga at the top can be this vocal. On point man, but go and sin no more.

And what does vocality have to do with performance and development??

theshadyexpress: fani kayode is a fool unimaginable proportions.
he should be ignored and not dignified with a response.

Maybe he isn't a fool. I suspect he needs help. He should be a drug addict.

A man who was minister of Aviation for a year and left us nothing to remember but a N19bn fraud has the mouth to attack a woman who in just two years has heralded the transformation of the Nigerian Aviation sector with the re modelling of 22 airports and the building of 5 brand new terminals.

Men who go around looking for women to fight all the time are usually tended towards homosexualism. Femi Fani Kayode should check his status and protect his children form the eventual embarrasment that would befall when it's finally discovered he is gay.

And he couldn't deliver Lagos from the rot. Fashola achieved in 1 year, more than what Tinubu achieved in 8 years. He is a great politiciuan and should be a party chairman. As per service to the nation, kindly leave him out of it.

The big question now is will Buhari allow his daughter to marry Jim Iyke. I thought they said the man is an extremist. Oh, I get it. He is trying to appease Christians to vote for him in 2015 so he is giving her out to show that he is a liberal. Nice thinking Buhari.










[size=5pt]And some folks will actually assume I meant what I wrote.........[/size]

And the culprits are:

1) The Federal and State Governments that failed to fund Education over the last 40 years. This administration inherited the rot and should be encouraged and coerced to fix it and not the stupid situation where its made to look like it is responsible for the rot.

2)The Academia who have failed to come up with innovative ways to sustain the system in the absence of funding. So called illiterates founded and took Nollywood to the international scene with funding from anywhere. Dbanj, Psquare, Tuface, Wizkid and the like are trending globally without collecting a dime in Government support.

3) The Students who keep accepting the status quo and going on with life as though all things are normal. Not oinly do they live in fear of the academia, they act as though they have been done a favour by being permitted to be in the university system. They get bullied, extorted, under trained and confused by their lecturers that they end up empty at the end of their studies. Well, majority of them cheated their way through so surely, they are being done a favour. They shouldn't be there in the first place. If they were wise, they would have known that the academia is only fighting for its pocket. This strike should be by the students and not by the academia. The strike should be about better learning environments and not more pay for Lecturers. I though they said our reccurent expenditure is already too high at 70%+. Why seek to increase it with more salary increases.

4)The Rest of the system including we the people, the media,the private sector, the civil rights groups, the religious organizations and all the other bodies that have a voice. They failed to lend their voice for the right causes. We have a headline mentality. We don't dissect issues well enough to come out with the right kind of speech. If we spoke truth, we would have asked ASUU what they did with all the increased salaries and funding that accrued to the system over the years. We would ask ASUU why they havent like Nollywood and the Nigerian music industry been able to break barriers without the required support. We would stop discussing rubbish like Amaechi vs this and New PDP that and discuss things that have a direct impact on our progress.

bloggernaija: Pensioners protested unpaid benefit-
1 i hope you are not ignorant of the fact that the federal government has not paid the states their allocation.the money has been factored into the budget of Lagos state .this mismanagement by Abuja is mostly responsible has disrupted the plans of the states

In the USA , there are many cities and booming towns.right now , the Dakotas are booming because of the Shale gas revolution .the rural -urban migration of the illiterate type happened early in the century when rural poor moved to urban areas to fill a demand in the manufacturing sector.there was another wave in the 1940's to fill the booming armament industry because of WW2.

A first class health facility does not come cheap .
Skilled manpower is the single most important component of medicine.
an experienced nigerian Medical professional earns £70,000 in the uk and $200,000 per annum.
That is between 15million naira and 30 million .
Employing just 100 will cost Lagos state ,over 1 billion naira monthly.
Despite this, it is still a long way from taking care of over 22 million inhabitants
Lagos gets less than 10 billion monthly.
We are not even talking about the building,maintenance,equipment ,generators and diesel etc.
NOW TO COME TO THE MAIN ISSUE.
THE RESONSIBILTY FOR THE HEALTHCARE OF THE NATION LIES WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
THE STATES ARE SIMPLY SUPPOSE TO COMPLEMENT AND NOT DUPLICATE THE FED'S EFFORT.

What you are saying in a nutshell is that Lagos is not working because making a city work doesn't come cheap. I totally agree with you for stating the obvious truth. That is, the Lagos state Government can't afford paying Doctors 70,000 pounds/annum hence the failure to build state of the art medical facilities.Very interesting!
In a nutshell, Lagos state which has all 25 bank headquarters as well as all Oil Company headquarters and telecom company headquarters and the likes is too poor to function effectively despite all the taxable income these companies generate. I get it. Lagos state should be pitied. It has 16 million people to cater for with just N497billion in budgets in a landmass of barely 1000sqkm with fully built infrastructure dating back in the days of the FEDs. Now compare with the FEDs with just 10 times the size of Lagos budget and 1000 times the landmass and 12 times the population with multiple times over in responsibility. If Lagos should be pities, the FEDs should be even more pitied. Or vice versa.

Now since when did the responsibility for the healthcare of the state become solely or mainly a function of the FEDs? The states are to complement? So running a general hospital which is the function of the state is meant to complement running an Mental institution like Yaba Psychiatric?? Like are you serious?? Obviosly, you aren't aware at all about the responsibilities of your state and local government, exactly why you are easily deceived that the FEDs are responsible for all the failures around you.


Truth be told, Lagos is punching way below its belt. This same team/party in 14 years hasn't been able to deliver the state from the shackles of extreme poverty and squalid living conditions and it has nothing to do with population growth as cities like Abuja, PH and a good number of others have experience greater percentage growth in population than Lagos and minus Abuja, haven't had the kind of infrastructural priviledge that the FEDs bequeathed on Lagos.

Fact is Lagos is working excellently only in the minds of the gullible. Fashola is a good administrator but one lacking in vision that is capable of disruptive transformation. At the pace Lagos is working, in another 50 years, the changes would only be very minimal.

Now Channels news should go back there and do a report. They started this and they should go back there to finish it and take glory for their effort. That particluar Journalist especially.

Nice one by the president.

Maybe the mallam believes we are united right now!!
Maybe he thinks because he has southern politician friends that are laughing with him, hence all is well.

payless: Charade! If 500 APC members truly decamped, what is the population of that particular local government? PDP members pretending to be decamping from APC. APC is spreading like wildfire across Nigeria. PDP is the party dying a slow death as we know it. The remaining PDP members are still there to grab what they can grab from national treasury. PDP now has three factions, namely; nPDP, GEJ PDP and Obasanjo's PDP. APC remains one party.

So you travelled accross Nigeria and saw APC spreading like wide fire. Or you read it on APC sponsored newspaper.

In my region, there is almost no presence of APC anywhere.

Uncle Tinubu is trying to rebuild his image that was dented badly because of his last letter when the state of Emergency was declared.
This time around, he says no to playing politics with the security of the nation.
This his holiday seems to be putting senses into his system.

I hope his followers can read between the lines and understand the meaning of patriotism. You don't wish you country bad because you don't like its leader. Nigeria must move forward no matter who is at the helm of affairs.

Boko Haram is an enemy we must all hate. We must all come together to fight the terror they represent. Criticizing the Feds to score political points would only seek to strenten the enemy.

Nice

bloggernaija: On the education front,
They may be catching up fast in enrolment but when you are talking about share quantity of quality professionals, the rest have a long way to go .
I am both happy and sad to see many omoluabis doing their thing in Europe and America .
In the last year, I have been attended to by 5 doctors of omoluabis extraction during routine medical checkup in the same hospital.
Many nurses , ODPS etc.
The funny thing is that there are few minorities around here.
Thousands of IT professionals (project managers,software testers,database administrators,programmers etc)
Hundreds of engineers
Hundreds of managers,businessmen,accountants,tax adviser, etc
Many students and graduates doing the odd jobs in order to complete their studies or get a foot on the ladder of the corporate/professional world
Most of these people left because they cannot just stand that culture of mediocrity.
So mr, The best of omoluabis are not in nigeria.
You are comparing our B team .
our A TEAM is not in nigeria

Keep living in the past man. Keep living in the past.
If you want to know, then check the facts.

Medical Field: Well, Edo State produces the highest number of Doctors in the country.

Media? Well Check the owners of ChannelsTV(Edo), AIT(Edo), Silverbird(Bayelsa). Check Vanguard(Delta), Thisday(Delta), Guardian(Delta). These are the largest in the media sector.

Oh and Education again. University Enrollment figures from Edo, Delta, Imo and Anambra present higher numbers. . . . .

And a lot of other areas.



This article by Simon Kolawole actually refers to your like whether they be Yoruba, Ibo, Hausa or Niger Deltan or other tribes. You are leaving in the past when you stay stuck on Awo, Ojukwu and Ahmadu Bello.

Femmyfamous4u: GEJ just revealed in the ongoing media chat that he only agreed to a single tenure for a 7 year regime that he has in mind. GEJ knows quite alright that the constitution allows 4 year for a single tenure and 8 years for a re-election.[b] When he observed that seeking a re-election would negate the provision of the 1999 constitution, [/b]he was so quick to propose a 7-year single tenure which was given a vote of no confidence and disallowed with vehemence. When 7-year single tenure failed, then, he seeks a re-election. All I see here is narcissism and megalomania.

Are you seriously serious? Seeking re-election would negate the provisions of the constitution?? What country are you from??
Please state you name and Local Government area lets be sure you are Nigerian.

[quote author=Chima_Adeoye]I used to be so mad at Gov. Uduaghan for not doing enough for Delta. But if you look at what Uduaghan has done just on roads in only Warri since 2007,it more than surpasses what Amaechi has done in Port Harcourt roads within the same period !

Yet Uduaghan is also developing Asaba, Agbor, Sapele and Oghara as other cities in Delta State with less budget than Amaechi posts! Amaechi has ONLY Port Harcourt to develop and make a world class city, yet Port Harcourt still looks the way it does. Now i truly and seriously wonder where all the Rivers State money have gone since 2007 ?[/quote]I Totally agree with you. Uduaghan is very critisized but Warri and Asaba have changed in greater Quantum than Port Harcourt has changed in the last 6 years.

In Education,
Amaechi has built schools, yes. But Uduaghan is also renovating to very high standards all secondary and primary schools in the state.
www.nairaland.com/attachments/821188_St_Patric_College_Asaba_jpga7fc367eadcbbd3c1be3a70ee153919f

www.nairaland.com/attachments/1255653_398414110_883680_jpgcbf42cee34ccae89d9082cd23c690397

In Infrastructure.
Uduaghan has 6 big cities to deal with: Warri, Asaba, Sapele, Ughelli, Agbor and Abraka. Amaechi on the other hand has to deal with just Port Harcourt. And yet, Warri is catching up with Port Harcourt in all ramifications. Warri was previously no match for Port Harcourt. Uduaghan has built roads in the same way Amaechi has built, but Uduaghan has had to do it in 5 different cities while Amaechi deals with just 1.
ENERRHEN JUNCTION, Warri (Those living in Warri understand why this is a big deal)
www.nairaland.com/attachments/1330683_402020916_801395_jpgf0a1f789045b9e5b5e14ac9dd3053c6d

https://s9.postimg.org/ilrafx0vz/enerhen_junction.jpg

In Aviation.
While Uduaghan built a Full Fledged already function Airport in Asaba. Amaechi is out there complaining that the FG doesn't want to complete PH Airport because of him.
[img]http://www.alumetal.ch/images/asaba_big.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.alumetal.ch/contract/asaba.html#[/img]

In Transport
Uduaghan has had, I think the best Transport policy in the country. This is one area where you can hardly fault the man. Amaechi on the other hand didn't do anything despite banning bikes to alleviate the hardship in the trasporetation sector. His Light rail project is light years ahead of completion and has been since abandoned.
[img]http://2.bp..com/-3sRf0_Yi3XU/UIhDSO2zPWI/AAAAAAAADGw/4fbuhoQLLAE/s400/toyota%2Bfor%2Bdelta%2Bstate.jpg[/img]
[img]http://3.bp..com/-eamWlS30iIc/UIhDUWeXUxI/AAAAAAAADHU/CdzgZp62EYg/s400/toyota%2Bfor%2Bdelta%2Bstate4.jpg[/img]

In Healthcare,
Uduaghan completed what I think is one of the best teaching Hospitals in the country. Fully equipped to the teeth.
https://api.ning.com/files/xtc9asnGjuqqNzdyU3UKj4m4BO5MyS9GQ9c3Gpzqo3dbh4Ddq-NfzrnAtgb8acqDWiS6TF1IiY0M8DXWaPaUXXI49cA9n4rG/20100421228.jpg?width=737&height=552

www.nairaland.com/attachments/1178266_394213401_236993_jpg1232e0feccdee489bd3971cda5527097



So I don't understand why Amaechi makes all the noise he makes when a very critisized Governor like Uduaghan has performed better than he has despite having bigger challenges.

kingoflag: Does this include the N1.3Billion/Yr or $32,000/day GEJ claims is not enough for his meals as it only affords him to eat only twice a day?

Been ridiculously silly in an online forum doesn't equate in anyway to being smart. There is a positive increase in Rice production and a resultant decrease in rice imports. Whether you like it or not, if saving $3billion in rice imports is a resultant effect of your assumed $32,000/day feeding, then we should double his feeding allowance to enable us reap more bountiful agricultural benefits.

Good news is good, no matter your opinions!

Messi j: the simple analogy of wht they are saying is that import of rice through the nigerian port has decreased, nt actually the influx of foriegn rice or imported rice has decreased. If we are really serious about rice sufficiency, we would see fully processed rice (to healthy standard) in nigeria and it wont be hidden. No one will hid his products. If D govt is serious they either buy or make standard processing plant 4 rice farmers as most are peasant farmers and even D bigger ones dont have d money to acquire proper rice processing plants. Whn the farmers are competent in rice processing then D govt shuld closed importation fully. All through D market, u still find foreign rice even to villages. Summugling of rice through D border is nt an excuse. It shows further D failure of government in all ramfications. Rice importation reduce 95% whn D farmers are just recieving fertilizer.

Negative mindedness allows you to see only the smuggling despite reading the fact that production has gone up considerably.
FYI, government is already in the process of installing rice mills across the country. I personally don't know the modalities involved but I hope it would be run by the private sector.
Truth is the agricultural sector is experiencing a revolution right now and its evident in the number of young people suddenly seeking to get involved in Agriculture. Everything from Rice to Cassava to Plantain to Palm Oil is receiving immense attention from entrepreneurs of today.

Government under Adewunmi is working terribly hard to succeed in Agriculture and the results are pretty obvious.

I think smuggling would die the moment local rice becomes available in large quantities such that the price becomes cheaper than the smuggled brand. Smugglers would suddenly find it too expensive a business to engage in and automatically back out.

This is good news. Let Osogbo rise. They've been in the doldrums for far too long. A state that has my alma mater, one of the best Universities in Africa- OAU has been punching below its belt for far too long. It appeared like development stopped since the death of Awo.
Osun and the rest of the 4 states in the South West should rise and not be left behind by the rest of Southern Nigeria.
Finally the SW should have a befitting international Hotel brand.
Finally, Change is coming to the SW.

As an Aside, Benin City already had a Best Western Hotel since 2010. And Port Harcourt. And Lagos=3. And Abuja.

[size=13pt]Rice imports down 95% on local production, smuggling[/size]

The volume of rice imported through the five major dry bulk terminals that handle rice in Lagos seaports (Apapa and Tin-Can Island ports) has been dwindling in the last nine months, BusinessDay investigation has revealed.

According to the Nigerian Ports Authority’s daily shipping position, an estimated 87,750 metric tonnes (MT), were brought through the seaport between January and September this year, as against 1.78 million metric tonnes in the corresponding period of 2012.

BusinessDay learnt that the volume of rice produced domestically is slightly growing on the back of the incentives rolled out to farmers by the Federal Government to achieve the target of reducing the quantity of imported rice by 50 percent in 2015. Some state governments, like Ebonyi known for the processing of Abakiliki rice, are also investing in the cultivation and processing of rice in their states.

Specifically, statistics from Federal Ministry of Agriculture revealed that Nigerians consume about 5 million metric tonnes of rice annually, which amounts to about 100 million 50kg bags of rice. Currently, the minimum price of 50kg bag of rice is about N10,000, showing that rice consumption in the country is in excess of N1 trillion annually.

Also, about 2.9 million metric tonnes (approximately 58 million 50kg bags of rice) are expected to be the quantity for domestic production, while the remaining 2.1 million metric tonnes (about 42 million 50kg bags) of rice are imported into the country through the seaports annually at a value of N360 billion.

Joseph Mbah, an Abakiliki-based rice farmer and dealer, who sounded pessimistic about Nigeria’s ability to meet the 2015 target of reducing the volume of imported rice, said the biggest problem to domestic production was the poor volume of domestic processed rice. He confirmed that the volume of rice grown locally had been growing slightly in recent times, but was yet to impact on the processed volume.

The scenario has created a loophole for smuggling business to thrive as the larger chunk of imported rice that is currently consumed by Nigerians is smuggled through the land borders. Here, importers avert duty payment and illegally bring their goods into Nigerian market through the land borders with Benin, Cameroon, Niger and Chad. This is happening at the time when there is a ban on importation of rice through the land border.

Reacting to this, Vicky Haastrup, the executive vice chairman of ENL Consortium, a leading dry bulk cargo terminal in Nigeria that handles imports like rice, wheat and others, said government import policy has succeeded in chasing away much of the expected cargo throughput at the nation’s seaports to the ports of neighbouring countries of Benin, Togo and Ghana.

According to her, the current import policy on rice resulted to high duties and levies paid on imported rice such that Nigerian importers now prefer to divert their cargoes to ports where it is cheaper for them to clear and smuggle the product into the country.

“Importers who patronise ports of neighboring countries are doing so because of policies of government. As at the month of August, ENL Consortium had only handled one shipment of rice throughout this year. Ordinarily, people will not go to Republic of Benin and others to take delivery of their cargoes if our ports are much cheaper and more efficient,” she said.

Tony Anakebe, a renowned clearing agent, believes there is need for the country to protect her agricultural sector through favourable fiscal policies, suggesting that the Federal Government needs to find a meeting point between importation and domestic production of rice.

Anakebe notes that pending when Nigerian farmers grow the required capacity to produce the quantity of rice that can feed at least 90 percent of the entire population, the government needs not cripple the import market and lose revenue to other countries.

By: AMAKA ANAGOR

Abagworo: Before Amaechi came in 2007, several of these roads you see today as highway were worse than this picture. The Roads were also narrow like your posted picture and that will explain the level of demolition and amount of compensation involved. Let me give you a list of those roads.

1- Ada George Road which is now an 8 lane.

2- Rumuola Road

3- Old Aba Road

4- Rumuobiokani-Oginigba-Trans-Amadi Road

5- Okporo Road

6- NTA-Choba Road.

7- Market-Elekahia-Trans-Amadi Road

Abagworo, you've proudly just listed 7 roads that Amaechi has done. These roads collective arent up to 100km in length right?
Now at an expensive 500 million per KM, that should be 50 Billion MAX. Now can you kindly inform me what Amaechi has done with 3 Trillion Naira?
3 Trillion Naira in 5 years. Please show me where all the money is going.

Nice!!!!
What state is your plantation located. And how much did you buy 7 hectares?