₦airaland Forum

Kobojunkie:
So, I should completely IGNORE the fact that MOST OF THE SITES CONTENTS STILL ARE FROM 2009 then, which is what I posited and go with movies from April? Are you sure I am the one who feels that he has to opine on everything when it is all too clear there that you do it clearly without making sure you even UNDERSTAND what you are responding to?

Off course as a Socialist, Kobojunkie would definitely be against projects of this nature. If the video from April that shows massive sandfilling works going on doesn't appeal to you, nothing else about the project will. But then again, I understand. Its socialism!

Asides, please tell me what kind of updates you want on the website. . . . sandfilling updates abi

Onlytruth:
Believe me I actually did a study on this project with high hopes, was actually bragging about it to friends here in the states only to be thoroughly embarrassed when I came up with nothing.  
Nigeria is a very funny country. We don't know how much we embarrass ourselves.

You failed woefully in your research. Your inability to come up with anything has zero to do with the project nor its organisers. It has all to do with your incompetence (^{no disrespect intended)} and inability to conduct a simple study.
A project that has been on CNBC, CNN, BBC. . . .you name it. . . . and you are telling me there is no information about it Please!!
Please tell me the exact kind of info you were seeking that you couldn't find. . . .be specific. Because I didn't do any detailed study or research, yet I have much or even all the info I need to know at this time about the project.

Paddy_lo is a very patient fella so he goes out of his way to politely answer the very disjointed questions you are asking.

This is a great project and it would definitely change the perception of Lagos. It would create jobs and serve as a magnet for international finance which in turn would be very beneficial to Nigeria's development.

deor03:
With the interest of the country NOT personal interst

Interest of what country. Is the private sector not part of this country?? Has the public sector ever shown itself to ever protect the interest of the country??
The guys protesting are doing so for their own personal interests and not for the interest of this country.

The beautiful thing about the private sector is that promoting their own interests automatically translates into promoting the interest of the country.
The private telecom sector promoted its own goals of garnering massive income. In so doing, they built massive infrastructure for us to use and pay and we are all beneficiaries today.
These PHCN workers are enemies of this country.

We really don't have to go through the stress of voting them in. Lets just put out vacancies and hire foreigners. I bet you, they'll do a better job.
Infact lets replace the Dimeji Bankole with Lagerback. Lagerback will make a great speaker of the House.

Shameless people. They have been Holding power from Nigerians all this while, now some experts want the get things done and they are chasing them away. How shameless. We should all go there and chase out those PHCN staffers. They are a mess.

For all I care, they should all be sacked. Let the private sector take over everything including their salaries and benefits.

^^^^^
Nice observation. I saw it and was wondering why they insinuated no one had scores between 40-80%.
13 people score 80-100%. Nobody scores 40-80|%. Then, 18,887 people score 0-40%.
The whole thing is creepy jare.

[quote author=~Sauron~ link=topic=466034.msg6274244#msg6274244 date=1277384641]Don't mind the hypocrites. . . . . .
No one out there sets up his business to make losses - HOTELS are not charity organizations and besides, they don't hold customers at gun point to pay exorbitant rates. If you can afford it - goodie!!!

If you cannot afford it, then go to a 1 star Hotel where electricity is not guaranteed and mosquitoes will suck 50% of your blood content.
U might also be lucky to get a short visit from the men of the underworld - they make a good company.[/quote]Sauron. . . .U speak ignorantly. The real reason why the hotels became over priced was because there was over patronage. Actually, if you go to many of these hotels, especially those ones in VI, they are usually fully booked. Infact there was a time that Protea Hotel in VI was fully booked ahead for about 3 months despite its exorbitant price. It has little or nothing to do with Diesel Costs or whatever you've said.

The Oil, stock market and Banking boom of 2007/08 had a huge role to play in influencing those prices.
Its a simple case of demand overtly outwitting supply.
If you notice, a lot of classy new hotels are springing up on the Island. When these hotels are completed, you will see how prices will crash dramatically despite the fact that they will still have to pay for their own electricity generation.

It is exploitation, simple and short. Five years ago, many of the hotels in VI charging 30k per night were charging around 7-10k per night. At that time they still used Generators as they do today. So lets cut the crap about diesel costs.

Look at that crap of a hotel in VI charging 58k per night.

Way overpriced. Some creepy hotels in Victoria Island charge as high as 30k per night. The better ones can go for 50k per night.
Its horrible. In places like Dubai, New York, Frankfurt, you don't get to pay these kind of prices on hotels that are way better than those shitholes they offer on the Island.

[quote author=~Bluetooth link=topic=468113.msg6273090#msg6273090 date=1277370740]exactly.if he has never intervened in the internal affairs of the pdp,why is he intervening now ? Why this unnecesssary comment from him?[/quote]He did not intervene until the group 150 Northern "leaders" decided in their meeting to invite Buhari and[i] Shekarau.[/i]
His statement is a response to their decision to bring him into their group.
Always check your facts b4 you make comments.

sayso:
such bravery is the only way to fight the government and let the nation know what is happening to them.

Reporting stories that have no reliable source whatsoever is not the same as bravery. Tabloids report lies about anything or anybody without any fear. I wouldn't regard them as brave. I like Saharareporters, but I have noticed lately, they have little or no news at all. Looks like they have to cover up their short comings with these kinds of articles.

Wasn't this some scam by the state. They charged 2000 naira and they had 19000 applicants and only 13 passed. They would make 38 million naira and employ a paltry number of people. Isn't this just pathethic??

[size=14pt]13 pass Imo’s 10,000 jobs test[/size]

WRITTEN BY JOHNKENNEDY UZOMA, OWERRI
THURSDAY, 24 JUNE 2010 04:47
Results of the aptitude tests for the 10,000 jobs organized for unemployed youths by Imo State government have been released with only 13 applicants passing the test.
Commissioner for Information and Strategy Dr. Kelechukwu Okpalaeke announced this at a news conference in Owerri yesterday after an executive council meeting held at Government House.

He said out of the 19,000 graduates that sat for the aptitude tests, only 13 passed by scoring above 80 per cent while the rest scored below 40 per cent.

The commissioner said considering the poor results, government resolved to bring down the score to 40 per cent in order to accommodate more people.

He said the interview for the successful ones would be conducted in the state by the Civil Service Commission in collaboration with the technical committee with detailed briefing by consultants. He expressed shock that in an examination of 19,000 graduates only 13 could scored above 80 per cent, adding that the situation on ground spoke volumes on the state of education in Imo State.

He said the state would not go anywhere with kidnapping and armed robbery if youths do not go to school. The commissioner further disclosed the resolve by government to retire 14 serving permanent secretaries under the current down seizing exercise in the state ministries.

He said the exercise was targeted at ensuring that those due for retirement give way for the younger ones and to sanitize the ministries for better performance.

http://www.news.dailytrust.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=21023:13-pass-imos-10000-jobs-test&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=214

^^^^^
Thanks for your brilliant observation


Its good to read through and understand an article before making comments.
The heading of this article connotes falsehood. Nigeria is not in anyway one of the most illiterate countries in the world.

If you look at the countries listed as E9, you'd find that they are all high population centers with over 80 million persons. That should tell you that it is the quantum of uneducated rather than the percentage that the UNESCO used in lumping up the E9 together.
Brazil for instance has a 90% literacy rate, Indonesia has 92% and China has 93%, yet these countries are listed in the E9.
Ghana with 59%, Nepal with 48%, Senegal with 39% and Mali with 24% are all missing from the list.

Infact, Nigeria has pretty fair literacy rate compared with many other developing countries. For southern Nigeria, the rates would be comparable to the best amongst the developing world. The pathetic state of illiteracy in the north pulls back the figure for Nigeria, yet collectively, we have a 69% literacy rate.

If there is one area that Nigerian leaders haven't done horribly, it is in the provision of Quantity Education. We have so many education outlets. It is in Quality Education that the Nigerian system is horrible. In the North though, there definitely is major problem with illiteracy.

Its good to read through and understand an article before making comments.
The heading of this article connotes falsehood. Nigeria is not in anyway one of the most illiterate countries in the world.

If you look at the countries listed as E9, you'd find that they are all high population centers with over 80 million persons. That should tell you that it is the quantum of uneducated rather than the percentage that the UNESCO used in lumping up the E9 together.
Brazil for instance has a 90% literacy rate, Indonesia has 92% and China has 93%, yet these countries are listed in the E9.
Ghana with 59%, Nepal with 48%, Senegal with 39% and Mali with 24% are all missing from the list.

Infact, Nigeria has pretty fair literacy rate compared with many other developing countries. For southern Nigeria, the rates would be comparable to the best amongst the developing world. The pathetic state of illiteracy in the north pulls back the figure for Nigeria, yet collectively, we have a 69% literacy rate.

If there is one area that Nigerian leaders haven't done horribly, it is in the provision of Quantity Education. We have so many education outlets. It is in Quality Education that the Nigerian system is horrible. In the North though, there definitely is  major problem with illiteracy.

Its great that the Government has finally gotten the courage to privatize power. Finally our power problems are about to be over, just like our telecommunications palaver has been solved by privatization. Barth Nnaji is an advocate of Privatization!!

We left everything in the hands of Nitel and all they could deliver is failure and 450,000 decrepit lines. We introduced MTN, Glo, Zain, Starcomms, Multilinks Visafone and all the rest and Kabooom! overnight we have 70 millions lines!!!

With PHCN abi NEPA, we have just 3000+ Megawatts, privatize power and overnight we would have 30,000- 50,000 Megawatts.
Finally the government is doing something right. Thats the reason why Jonathan must be supported to stay on. If not, someone else(most likely a Babangida, Buhari or an Atiku) will come and reverse everything.

Bestglo:
u are right jare, the same reason u see most of them giving phone numbers & email addy instead of sharing info on thread, and when u eventually call, they try to milk u of your hard earned money,. it's

The thing is tiring! Too many opportunists around.

[quote author=~Bluetooth link=topic=465707.msg6247444#msg6247444 date=1276992328]roflmao.what practical are you talking about cuz me no understand o.ok practicalise this one,would you have the same disposition if jonathan were a yoruba man.[/quote]Of Course I would have the same disposition anyday anytime. I have no time for all these tribal nonsense. El Rufai is a northerner and I will support him over 99.9 percent of any southerner that would run against him. So FYI, I would never make tribal choices, but meritorious ones.

Ok Kobojunkie! Here, you are detaching again from practicalities!!
Let me ask you a simple question. If there was a zoning formula in PDP all along, how come in 2003, Solomon Lar and Abubakar Rimi, both Northerners ran in the primaries and were officially allocated votes. How come Southerners like Rochas Okorocha ran in the 2007 primaries and went ahead and officially was declared by the PDP leadership scored the second highest votes after YarAdua?? Why are we deceiving ourselves??
OBJ claims there was no agreement and I believe him because as at the time the PDP was formed, the man was probably still in jail or just getting out. So all this nonsense talk of agreement is for the ears of those without a thinking faculty of their own.
Sincerely, my number one choice for presidency in 2011 is a northerner(El Rufai) but if at all, then it has to come via merit and not under some silly zoning formula agreed upon by 20-30 old hags who have r.a.p.ed. this country dry for way too long.
As regards political parties, truth is that there is no national political party in the country asides PDP. The rest are just paper tigers and in the freeest and fairest elections PDP would still carry the day.

Kobojunkie:
Na wa ooh!! We are in a democracy and have been for almost 12 years. The North started their own turn WITHIN the PDP in 2007 with the selection of Yar adua as their candidate of choice. Yar adua went on to win the presidency(thanks to INEC) and due to circumstances beyond him, his presidency ended earlier than he, and probably the PDP North may have wanted it to.
We find ourselves now in election year, and the PDP NORTH states their turn is not over, which based on the PDP Party’s agreement is likely the case. But YOU ARE HERE RAMBLING ABOUT WHAT?

Are there no Southern members of the same PDP Partner? Is Jonathan himself not a PDP member? Was he not aware of this agreement when he joined the party? Why are you now arguing as if it all caught you unawares? What exactly is the new revelation in all this?
And what exactly is impractical about urging minority groups, many of whom probably make up less than 0.5% of the population of the nation as a whole, to form a party of their own and build up from there rather than continue to whine that they are MALIGNED by the MAJORITY in a DEMOCRACY? THINK! THINK! THINK!!!!

Look to the APGA for example of how it ought to work rather than dismissing it all as being IMPRACTICAL when there are already groups out there doing exactly the same. Since when did the PDP become Nigeria and PDP agreement replace the Nigerian constitution? We need to start using our brains more rather than letting our sentiments run the show over and over.

Kobojunkie:
The minority groups can always form their own party and send out a candidate to run against the PDP candidate. All this "WE ARE MARGINALIZED/WE ARE VICTIMS BECAUSE WE BELONG TO THE MINORITY ETHNIC GROUPS" nonsense needs to end. If you do not like how the other party is doing things and want your own person on the ballot, then unite and send your own candidate already.

As usual, your contributions are always very theoretical. . . . . . never practical! Always detached from the reality on ground.
In a country where the largest ethnic group which has ruled and ruined for 75% of the time. . . is still clamoring for a comeback on the strength of some sick zoning formula that was agreed upon by a maximum of maybe 20-30 people. . . . in that same country, you area asking the minority groups to form a political party! How practical!
Its seems your natural default position on political issues is a bit faulty. Try to connect a little bit with practicalities.

Warri is a very good place to do business. I think in the whole of Nigeria, the only other cities that have more money than Warri are Lagos, PH and Abuja. Warri is packed with cash from the oil industry and awash with business opportunities. If you choose the right business, you are sure to make some good money on your 500k investment.
Another good thing(I'm sure you know that already) about Warri is its liveability. You can get anywhere from the city in the shortest possible time because all Trunk A roads are free from pot holes or hold ups.

The best business opportunities would involve areas where there is an overwhelming need, and such a need is not been met adequately. One thing to consider would be mass appeal of the service or product you seek to render. And also very importantly- your skill set. How capable are you to deliver in the area you have chosen to operate in.

Considering the points given above, let me mention 3 areas where there is an overwhelming need in Warri and where such need has not been met adequately. In these areas, you can supposedly start off business with your 500K.

1) Number one business opportunity is Food. People eat everyday and in Warri they pay good money for food items. So go into anytthing that has to do with food and you'll make good money.
Areas to consider- Food packaging, Restaurant or even Farm produce supplies. Anything thing food is big big business.

2) Information Packaging- Package information, put it in magazine form, sell adverts on it and sell the booklet also. You'd surely make good money this way. But you have to be very well informed and select specific areas to work with. Imagine you had a booklet or magazine that comes out on a monthly basis and has in it all the contracts tenders(Oil Industry, Government, Private sector)  that would take place in the State for the period. Now, Warri is a contractors haven, so you would surely have loads of contractors buying your booklet on a monthly. There are other sectors to consider like information on Property sector, Business sector etc.

3)Security systems- There is a huge market for security products in Warri as there are loads of luxury houses been built on a regular basis. CCTVs,Video Intercoms, Alarm systems etc can be sourced directly from manufacturers overseas and marketed across the length and breadth of the city. This is a good business area but surely wouldn't be as Fast moving as others that would appeal to the mass market.

4) Recharge card marketing is good, but you must find a different method to appeal to customers who already have existing channels through which they purchase their goods.


There is a whole lot other areas you can start a business on with 500k, however, you must ensure that there is a market for your product or service Don't just venture into areas because others are successful in such areas.
I can list a whole lot other areas if I knew your skill set- that is what you are good at doing. That way, I'd be able to tell you the exact business opportunities in Warri that would suit your person.

Poster, Ignore all the folks telling you to invest in their business. It is a thing I really don't get. Someone asks for a business advice in a specific location and peeps are here telling him to invest in their business! That's silly folks, we can be better than that.

. . . . .And they both know very well how to make catastrophic decisions at very critical moments!!
Plus they were both born in Kano!!

There you go. All the info you need is on the link below. Learn to use Google or Wiki.

http://www.nassnig.org/senate/members.php

@Hatch
I agree with you oh. 10 Billion is a humongous waste to pour on a 50th Birthday that we have nothing to show for.

However, to call Yar Adua a prudent saint on financial matters is something I would disagree with you on,

For two reasons:
1) The Julius berger contract for the Abuja Runway. That contract has been reduced from  about 88 Billion to 49 Billion without the quality of the project being affected.
2)The Abuja Airport road project which is been done for N257 Billion.

The corruption involved in these two projects alone would supercede any corruption Ibori and Odili combined can accomplish in their lifetime.

I think though that Jonathan should be man enough and slice that budget rather than send Akunyili to start pointing fingers at Yar Adua

Nigeria has a long way to go!!! 20Billion dollars for something they've been doing everyday in the Niger Delta and paying peanuts for!!
Kai! Nigeria!
This case would give militants more and more reason to burst more and more pipelines!

[size=14pt]BP agrees to $20 billion spill fund, cuts dividend[/size]

(Reuters) - Under intense pressure from President Barack Obama, BP Plc agreed on Wednesday to set up a $20 billion fund for damage claims from its huge Gulf of Mexico oil spill and suspended dividend payments to its shareholders.


The deal gave Obama his most tangible success since the crisis began 58 days ago and came after weeks of criticism of his handling of the disaster. It also eased U.S. pressure on BP, whose share price has withered amid uncertainty over the spill's cost to the British energy giant.

Obama announced the agreement after White House officials held four hours of talks with BP executives, who emerged to offer an apology to the American people for the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

"I do thank you for the patience that you have during this difficult time," BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said. "I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies who don't care. But that is not the case in BP. We care about the small people."

Svanberg promised to make sure damage claims are handled swiftly and fairly.

Chief Executive Tony Hayward, the public face of BP's response to the disaster, will appear on Thursday at a congressional hearing where he will face intense scrutiny over events leading up to the spill and BP's cleanup of the mess.

An April 20 explosion on an offshore rig leased by BP killed 11 workers and ruptured a deep-sea well. The ensuing spill has fouled 120 miles of U.S. coastline, imperiled multibillion-dollar fishing and tourism industries and killed birds, sea turtles and dolphins.

"THEY'LL NEED MORE"

While Obama stressed the agreement would not cap BP's total liabilities, Wall Street appeared to cheer the small dose of clarity the deal provided, driving up the company's share price by 1.5 percent in New York.

Under the agreement, BP committed to pay $20 billion into an independently managed fund over four years, suspend dividend payments for the rest of the year and pay $100 million to workers idled by the six-month moratorium on deep-sea drilling that the Obama administration imposed after the spill.

The $20 billion figure is roughly equal to BP's average annual profits over the past four years. BP is expected to report net profits of $18.9 billion in 2010, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S consensus estimates.

"We will continue to hold BP and all other responsible parties accountable," Obama said at the White House. "And I'm absolutely confident BP will be able to meet its obligations to the Gulf Coast and to the American people."

The fund will be administered by Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration official who oversaw compensation for executives at companies that received federal bailout funds.

Obama had pressed BP to set up a fund administered by a third party after hearing first-hand complaints from Gulf Coast residents that BP's claims process was too complicated and the company was paying out too little money.

With thousands of Gulf Coast commercial fishermen largely idled by the spill, Louisiana shrimper Clifton Bartholomew, 21, wondered whether $20 billion would be enough.

"If you add it all up together -- everybody in shrimping, fishing, the whole industry -- by the time this is all gone I think they'll need more than $20 billion," Bartholomew said.

BP said in a statement it would cut three quarters of dividends, significantly reduce its investment program and sell $10 billion of assets to create the fund.

The commitments are harsher penalties than most investors had hoped for. They had not expected BP to be forced to sell assets and cut investment -- moves that would curb its growth.

BP said it would cancel the first-quarter dividend due for payment on June 21 and would not declare interim dividends for the second and third quarters of 2010. The payouts were expected to be about $2.6 billion per quarter, in line with recent quarters.

"STRONG AND VIABLE COMPANY"

Obama stressed BP was "a strong and viable company, and it is in all of our interests that it remain so."

The oil giant represents a large part of investment portfolios in Britain. Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron talked about the issues around the spill last weekend.

BP's shares gyrated in volatile New York trading, dropping as much as 5 percent before swinging to positive territory on news of the agreement on the fund, known as an escrow account.

"It's a step in the right direction for BP but unfortunately I cannot say the same for Tony Hayward because it is going to get tougher for him," said Fadel Gheit, managing director of oil and gas research at investment firm Oppenheimer & Co in New York

"Tomorrow he's going to be in the hot seat under glaring lights and tremendous animosity and criticism" at the hearing.

The BP chief executive will tell lawmakers the entire oil and natural gas industry needs to be better prepared for deepwater accidents, according to his prepared testimony.

That is an apparent response to attempts by rival oil companies to distance themselves from BP's disaster at a hearing on Tuesday.

As BP stock saw some relief, shares in Anadarko fell 3.69 percent and Transocean lost 3.09 percent in New York. Anadarko is part owner of the blown-out well and Transocean owned the rig that blew up.

Back in the Gulf, BP said it started a second system to siphon oil from the leak on Wednesday, a day after a team of U.S. scientists raised their high-end estimate of the amount of crude oil flowing from the well by 50 percent to between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels per day.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1416392020100616

Speculation is rife that many American and British Police Departments engage psychic detectives to help solve crime cases.
Now, while I am not in support of the use of such tactics, I'll advise all those calling Nigeria backward for the action of the Oba to type the word [b]"Psychic Detectives" [/b]in google. When you are through, you'd would find that such supernatural applications to crime solving are also supposedly used in the most advanced countries!

^^^^^Courage89,
I agree in total with your analysis. However, there is a factor you haven't considered.
In the event the Chinese free up the Yuan, the subsequent appreciation would definitely have immense impact on Chinese exports. Currently, the Yuan is undervalued by over 40%. Free up the yuan, and you would see the price of Chinese goods rise by even more than that 40%. Now, the effect of that is definitely going to be catastrophic for the Chinese as nobody is going to buy a "Made in China" good that sells for the same price as a European or American made good. Price is the only competitive advantage the Chinese have over the rest of the world.

Bottomline is the Chinese would not free up the Yuan as it would definitely impact them negatively. If at all they free it up, then sometime in the near future, when the impact starts biting they would be forced to devalue at which time anybody who has speculated on the Yuan would have himself to blame.

RichyBlacK:
PapaBrowne,

Thank you very much for this article. We need more articles like these to shed more light on what happened in 1897 Benin.

Thank God for the printing press and the internet for making it possible to peer back into the past in search of truth.

Sure. Thanks for the thanks!
Lets remember also that this piece is very biased as it is the viewpoint of a colonial journalist who saw black people as savages. Its a pity he wrote the article with so much bias.
After reading this,I must admit that the Benin Kingdom was truly a great kingdom- I think one of the greatest in Africa at the time.

tkb417:
@Papabrowne

first off, where did u get your info from that the Yuan is pegged?
are you for real and whats the meaning of what you typed below and the closed bond thingy in China
where do u get your stuff from?

Haba tkb417! Everybody knows that the yuan is pegged nooow!
China doesn't sell bonds outside China and all the bonds are Yuan dominated. The first ever sale of Chinese bonds outside mainland China was in November of last year when 6 billion yuan worth of 2, 3 and 5 year issues were sold in Hong Kong.
Usually, Foreign exchange reserves are kept in highly liquid assets so that when a sudden need arises for its use, you can have access. Placing your reserves in a barely liquid currency like the yuan leaves you at risk of China's whimsy attitude.

Ibime:
It would not be 50%, 40%, 30% or even 10%. .  . . more like 1% and less because of the relative illiquidity of the Yuan. . .  . . . hence the caption is wholly misleading. . .

Are you really trying to take a snipe at the caption or at Sanusi?? You've confirmed that the Yuan option is a bad idea "because of relative illiquidity". If you say more like 1% and less, the question then is why should we seek to convert such a small amount of our reserves when it wouldn't solve the problem of declining value?? Ask yourself that question and you would understand that Sanusi is more interested in his own personal ideologies than Nigeria's economy. His anti western/american ideologies is what is pushing him to seek to support the Chinese yuan against the dollar. The guy is just really cheap!