₦airaland Forum

vicenzo:
Even though the book credited to obi of owa has proved beyound all reasonable doubt that ika is igbo and therefore ikaland just like ngwaland is part of igboland,we are still aware that there are bini slaves who settled among original igbo people in ikaland  and indeed all aniomaland,we have already seen some of their descendands in this thread,our message to them is to pack their bini must go bags and go back to bini as slaves they once were,or stay in aniomaland as igbo and be free from slavery,it is not a must to stay in igboland,enough is enough,for the bini must go bags,they should come to my shop in alaba.

There were never any Bini slaves owned by any non-Bini group you clown. Why do you constantly spew so much rubbish? If you have a problem with someone claiming to be Bini instead of Igbo or claiming not to Igbo, then prove to him that he is Igbo with facts and logic as others in this thread have already done, don't resort to fabrication. Binis never sold their own as a rule and were only ever defeated by the British, so talk of Bini slaves in any land outside Benin-Igbo, Yoruba, Ijaw, Ashanti, Habesha, Boer, or Martian- is nonsense.

Why does every market boy with access to the internet now think he can start falsifying history?

At no time, in no land, in no place, in this world or the next was there ever anything like what you are claiming here.

Some Igbos were right next to a very influential culture and some of them acquired aspects of that culture. No different than some Yorubas in Owo of modern Ondo state acquiring aspects of Benin culture without actually being Bini. Fairly tales are unnecessary to prove to people that Ikas are Igbo.

Talk of so-called non-neutrality of Midwestern region just because Gowon in far away Lagos moved soldiers not from the Midwestern region, commanded by a soldier also not from the Midwestern region, to be stationed in Midwestern region in disregard of Ejoor's declaration of neutrality is laughable. After the beginning of hostilities between the federal government and Biafra, Lt. Colonel David Ejoor walked right into Biafra and attended Ironsi's funeral, with multiple Biafrans watching. He waltzed right out unscathed evading a weak attempt by Ojuwku to kidnap him. I wonder why Ejoor and the Biafrans at Ironsi's funeral were oblivious to the fact that a supposed enemy officer was right in front of them performing reconnaissance or some other supposed enemy activity until Ojukwu orchestrated Biafran aggression against him?


When federal soldiers led by Igbinosa were ordered out of the Midwest by a Midwestern officer, did they protest that the Midwest was subordinate to Gowon and that Midwest soldiers' salaries were paid by Gowon's government and therefore the decision for them to be moved into the Midwestern region should have been complied with? Did Ejoor protest that reinforcements from the federal government should be sent and overrule Nwawo's order (as someone with higher authority that Nwawo)? No. He was quite content with no federal takeover of the Midwest yet some people would have us believe the Midwest would just sit there with only a few soldiers and refuse reinforcement if it were intent on joining the move to "crush Ojukwu and his rebel gang." The so-called conquest of the Midwest which simpletons claim could have allowed Biafra to take out Gowon in Lagos had Banjo and others not betrayed Ojukwu was a direct consequence of Midwestern overtures towards neutrality toward Biafra and efforts not to fight Biafra.

Did Ejoor suddenly just forget that he was some sort of supposed enemy of Biafra when he waltzed right into Biafra to attend Ironsi's funeral? Did Ejoor suddenly suffer an attack of selective amnesia?

Did Samuel Umweni and Joseph Imokhuede suddenly forget that they were enemies of Biafra and supposed to be supporting the "crushing of Ojukwu and his rebel gang" (in the words of Gowon), when they heartily accepted and waltzed right into Biafra itself after being arrested (for what?) by Biafran soliders after the Biafran takeover of the Midwest? Why would they allow themselves to be forced straight into the lion's den itself when, as deliberate and incontrovertible enemies of Biafra, they would assume that they would be subjected to imprisonment, interrogation under torture, or death? I wonder why they didn't refuse arrest and die on the spot or be detained in the Midweset, being such known sworn and long established enemies of Biafra as some people would have us believe.

These fanciful rationalizations of unnecessary aggressive actions are no different from those offered by the other side.

What some Biafrans didn't get or admit then and now, is that they deliberately made enemies where they had none in a gambit to use neutrals as a launch pad for attacks on possible actual enemies.

This egift/macjive01 tag team tactic is not very subtle. How much is the Enugu gov. paying you, mr. egift?

Bennyboy11:
Ok nice try but now you are really starting to struggle. You are trying to defend the indefensible and I must commend you for even making an attempt.  Unfortunately safariman leaves you with nothing to work with.
Culture and environment might affect perception in different places but that’s irrelevant to this argument. He is what he is in spite of his supposed ability to identify with differing viewpoints.

Who says he's identifying with differing viewpoints by expressing his viewpoint as an American when he is, in fact, an American?

Your argument is based on the false premise that the more security a place provides the safer the place.  The reality is that a lot of the time high security just serves as evidence that a place is not very safe.  You could go to a remote isolated village where the concept of security is nonexistent and feel completely safe because the worst you get there is petty crime. Take Israel on the contrary as an example, they probably have the most advanced security apparatus on the planet. Even buses have detectors, however Israel is simply not a safe place because of the constant threat of terrorism. So don’t confuse two separate issues. A place is not unsafe because of the absence of security it is the presence of criminality that makes it unsafe. The presence of Western standard security like you said has absolutely nothing to do with anything.

^^^
The above is based completely on the misinterpretation of "standards of security" to mean security operatives. Now I know I'm not talking with an Ghanian American, but rather a Ghanian since your mind immediately to went to soldier stuff at the mention of standards for personal security. It's amusing to see someone think any kind of reference was made in my earlier post to Americans having standards of security in the sense of having standards for security personnel, armed guards, armored convoys, etc. The average American outside of government or law enforcement knows nothing about what standards these security operatives/apparatuses  are supposed to have and rarely, if ever, sees such high security operatives so I would certainly not have asserted and did not assert that by merely being an American he could come and start pontificating to Jamaicans or Ghanians or other groups about what kind of armed guards, what kind of bomb squad, what kind of high security apparatus, etc. constitutes a quality security apparatus. That's another matter entirely.

It's a bit funny that someone immediately of thinks of guys running a security apparatus when standards of security are mentioned within the context of observations on safety. Let me make it plain and unequivocal since you completely misunderstood my earlier post: the average American has higher standards for what constitutes a secure or safe atmosphere or environment. It's that simple. I wouldn't even be found anywhere where petty crime was abundant and a police force was not vigilant or could not be relied upon to do something about that (still) unacceptable crime or make a significant effort against it, and neither would the vast majority of Americans. That's just one of several things that makes an American's standard for security higher than that of a Nigerian who's never been outside of Nigeria or lived long in the West.

The other issues you raise regarding moving words around and what it could then mean is purely semantics and I think you were starting to struggle there. If the guy was misquoted he would have said so.

He was not misquoted and I never said he was. Rather, his very literal use of words was misinterpreted and he immediately clarified what interpretation (the completely literal one) he meant for his words the minute someone (bkbabe) misinterpreted them.

It's a bit worrying that some people would distort simple English to fit whatever they want to hear. It's a sign of some sort of persistent delusional world view. The man never showed regret for being anti-Biafra or apologized for fighting the rebels. Rather, he said Nigeria turned out badly so multiple countries consisting of multiple ethnic groups might have been better since one unified Nigeria produced nothing to be proud of, in his opinion. Thus, he thinks the most important action of his life was a waste. Anyway, there could have been different countries after 1957, but that was nipped in the bud by a handful of people as passionate about one Nigeria back then as Akinrinade was in 1967. I wonder whether any of those people apologized either.

vicenzo:
Yes becomerich,i know he is a descendent of bini slaves in igboland(aniomaland) and we have made provisions for a bini must go bag for him and his likes.

There were never any Bini slaves clown. Why do you constantly spew so much rubbish? If you have a problem with someone claiming to be Bini instead of Igbo or claiming not to Igbo, then prove to him that he is Igbo with facts and logic, don't resort to fabrication. Binis never sold their own as a rule and were only ever defeated by the British, so talk of Bini slaves in any land-Igbo, Yoruba, Ijaw, Ashanti, Habesha, Boer, Martian- is nonsense.

tpia1:
never heard of vikings being black.

the moors, however, clearly had some obviously black people among them.

Of course some of the Moors were black. That's quite a different thing than what's being claimed in this thread and on various sites containing the same kind of misinformation.

As for black viking claims:

http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/british.html

http://www.africaresource.com/rasta/sesostris-the-great-the-egyptian-hercules/the-bla-maors-the-black-vikings-and-the-black-danes-compiled-by-invasion2012/


Everyone should read the discussion following the article of the second link I posted. It's interesting. Some racists on both sides (black, white), though.

One person even tried to claim a 500 B.C. Nok sculpture depicted a proto-Viking because the face had horns like those on a viking helmet. Fanciful. I wonder why the people so interested in making these kind of claims don't pursue archaeological research to prove their claims. If there was a seafaring culture situated, strangely, in central (not coastal, for some reason) inland Nigeria, research could be conducted to find the caches of tombs and/or artwork showing evidence of these seafaring exploits. It's not like the area is so developed that archaeology would be impossible.


This thread however, is basically just a rehash of most of Ivan Van Sertima's books.

All of these Ivan Van Sertima/J.A. Rogers/David MacRitchie propagandists need to sit down, shut up, pick up real history books on Europe and acquaint themselves with reality and then see how these "sources" for their claims stack up against mountains of documented history to the contrary. Next I'll hear about how the Nubians conquered Spain in 300 AD and how all vikings and all Picts were originally black. Next the claims about "Black Douglas" of Scotland. Then more crap about black Moors running Spain. All of these "Black Africans ruling Europe" claims are old invalid conjectures that have been laughed out of academia for a reason. I place it with the Black Athena and Black Chinese claims.

Source?

Cause if I see saharareporters I'll definitely chuckle.

And what's this about Anenih's wife going operatic in the middle of a high powered political meeting? Sounds ludicrous.

Onlytruth:
I really won't want to argue you on this because I don't want you to spam this thread.

What I feel more sad about is that Nigerians (even the educated ones) are so ignorant and can't even seem to see beyond their tribal lines to see a foreigner ridiculing them.

I'll keep it brief. As I said in another post, there are ways to go about ridiculing groups of people. The OP's wasn't one of them in my honest opinion.

His argument is just simple -Nigeria is breeding with little land and nothing more to boast of.

This guy already acknowledged Nigeria's economy was no.2 in Africa, so I don't exactly see this.

]Instead of asking him  some hard questions about his own failed nation, I see some characters here falling over themselves wagging tribal wars, stoked by a guy from the worst banana republics in Africa. 

^^^
That had better be a reference to fstranger and the wars he starts, because I was involved in no tribal wars and threw no dirt anybody's way.

I really suspect the combination of being in a complete state of dependency after colonization (so few schools established), followed by dependency on later political bosses unaccountable to the people, combined with the easier earlier historical lifestyle of Ijaws as traders and fishermen is part of the reason for Bayelsa having greater failure than other Nigerian states. When I think of the Kalabari kingdom, and of Nembe, I don't think it's at all a problem of aversion to commerce or of failure to build up strong centers through hard work. Rather I think this is a case of a group, for reasons of politics or environment, having difficulty making the transition from a previous lifestyle.

When I think of people like Ernest Ikoli, Gabriel Okara, J.P Clark-Bekederemo, I know it's not a problem of originality, lack of a drive to pioneer (i.e. the supposed lazy dependency they have been accused of), or competence, so it does surprise me that the state is doing so bad though.

I guess I just don't get it.

Some developing countries simply reproduce at higher rates. Saying "bonk like rabbits" may seem like a vulgar, and denigrating way to phrase the question of higher reproduction rates to some people but it kind sounds like humorous way to phrase the question in plain, common, language more than an attempt to insult to me. The poster probably isn't particularly tactful in real life either, but one of those frank, straight-to-the-point kind of people if the other posts are anything to go by. If I wanted to insult a group of people and call them randy, lascivious, or too lustful for their own good, or whatever else people might be reading into that, I wouldn't ask them  "are you guys so Hot and sex-obsessed that you make so many babies"? and actually sit back and wait for a response. That makes no sense as a way to go about insulting somebody, in my opinion. I guess I just see something else. I'll agree to disagree.

I don't see how ZIM DRILL insulted anyone. She asked a simple, yet rather interesting question.

[quote author=ochi-aha link=topic=569870.msg7355188#msg7355188 date=1292592647]Strangerf, The Ibos are repubicans by nature, like the Greeks were too,and so did not need any tyrant in the form
of a King to rule over them.

You have to appreciate that God created different tribes to foister diversity on mankind. Can you imagine what the world have looked like if we all spoke the same language, had the same customs and tradition and the same system of administration?  Everything will look drab and ordinary without any new thing to learn !!!

When you say the Ibos do not have the intellect to run empires, I laugh so much my ribs ache. Its the same Ibos who after the civil war have been able  carve out  financial empires from little or no resources. Go to Lagos and see the empires they have built, go to Nnewi, Aba etc.

From your write up, I guess you are a benin guy, my advise for you therefore, as well to all Benin people, is that they should stop living on past glory. Yes, your benin empire was once strong, but today, its a mere ceremonial entity with an Oba as its head. Ibos have built new and modern financially relevant empires, while you guys are still living in a past of backwardness, unemployment, etc. Wake up from your false sense of achievement. [/quote]You're obviously quite brainless to think strangerf/fstranger is Bini so there normally might not even be a point responding to this as I would be conversing with a dullard, but I actually suspect that you know full well that he is not Bini but have some insecurity issues about the Benin empire that make you feel the need to go out of your way to put down another group out of nowhere (making you no different from this same strangerf that you are criticizing, who does the same thing out of insecurity). What is this supposed stagnation and backwardness? What particular backwardness is found in Benin city that is not in other parts of Nigeria? Edo state is still a major educational center of the country. And what unemployment is there in Benin that is not in other parts of Nigeria? Benin is still one of the financial centers of the country. You probably couldn't recognize a Bini name if it was staring you in the face unless it was one of the most common ones, but a simple google search or linkedin search of even the most common Bini names would make you see how foolish it would be to suggest that Binis were some particularly backward group relative to others in Nigeria. The doctors, lawyers, professors, engineers, business managers, entrepreneurs etc. that would pop up for locations within Nigeria and without would be enough to put that idea to rest.


familarize yourself with a few of the posts in this thread: https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria?topic=557357.msg7225572#msg7225572

And get a clue. Edo state, and Benin city in particular are still one of the most forward marching components of this thing called Nigeria and that's despite the fact that Edos have even less political relevance and influence and less oil wealth than many other Southern Nigerian groups, including Igbos.

And with a competent governor (Lucky Igbinedion is out of the picture now) introducing ID cards, road construction and renovation, traffic lights, and actually putting up the state budget online, among other things, this will only continue.

Bennyboy11:
You attempt to defend the guy but invalidate your points in the same sentence so I guess your points make my points. Basically you are beating about the bush!
Yes he isn’t a young child born in America like you rightly said and one doesn’t need to live in America to know what African American typifies. Context is everything , this is a Nigerian forum and he is talking about comparing Ghana to Jamaica as an African American, what the hell is that all about? He isn’t the only Nigerian living in America on this forum so please save it, your argument is baseless.
You also realise he is making a very annoying argument with no facts about Ghanaian crime. It is actually ridiculous comparing Ghana to Jamaica in that way so what should I think? why is it unheard off for a Nigerian to hate on Ghanaians and vice versa?
So what if he didn’t say Lagos was worse than Accra, he could be ashamed of being Nigerian and also hate Ghana, the two are not mutually exclusive!

"What the hell is that all about"? Calm down, son.

It's about distinguishing between being a Black American- somebody who's observing from an American perspective- and being a city or village Nigerian from somewhere who's never lived in the West and whose observations on safety don't have the standard for security that an American does, period. He made a mistake by not saying that he was a naturalized African American and commenting from that point of view, but he didn't take into account the need to be precise. Where he should have said something like as a "non-African American black American" (think how awkward, unwieldy, and strange that sounds and you'll see why you wouldn't say anything like that either) who's familiar to some degree with a few parts of both countries, I think such and such.

In fact I'm not even certain it's clear that he even made the mistake of conflating what he was trying to identify as (Nigerian American) with what you or bkbabe assumed he was (AA) because he said "as African American" which could be distinct in interpretation from saying "As an African American" and instead just mean an American who is African. It was probably his assumption that the phrase "African American" could be interpreted literally, in which case what it states- an American of direct (recent) African origin- is exactly what it means and describes him exactly, rather than interpreted by the Africans on this board the way it is used by Continental Africans to distinguish between themselves and real AA. This should not be too hard to understand. Some phrases are ambiguous and what they are describing can be misinterpreted if not used carefully or replaced with something less ambiguous.


As for Jamaica being safer than Ghana, I completely disagree, but I simply haven't seen the slightest bit of anti-Ghana statements from him or jealousy though I can see how someone could be embarrassed about Nigeria and then try to throw subtle jabs to downgrade Ghana without being able to brag about Nigeria in that particular area. I just don't see it in this case. It seems he really believes that certain parts of Ghana have a more dangerous atmosphere, but once again, I think he needs to see more of the non-tourist Jamaica for a significant period of time. People aren't making up the known statistics.

Who said Japan had a small population? They're 127 million strong and then some. Not small at all. Even on that tiny island. If they have a lower modern reproduction rate it would be due to a higher level of development. Lower reproduction rates can be seen across basically all developed nations ('1st world" countries) There's no  relationship whatsoever between land mass and population density.

And Nigeria is large for reasons of arbitrary colonial demarcation. If the map of Africa had been drawn differently we wouldn't even be discussing this. As for why the groups inside of this arbitrary colonial demarcation have a high population, Nigeria was a seat of kingdoms and empires. True kingdoms and empires thrive and flourish and produce more densely populated centers, from which new populations can spring and start new centers. This proliferation of developing city-states is bound to have far more population than the proliferation of unchanging loosely dispersed hunter-gatherer societies sprinkled with occasional and usually small kingdoms that are found among most of the rest of the colonial demarcations composing African countries.

Now what are these kingdoms and empires of Nigeria?

1. Benin Empire
2. Ife civilization/kingdom
3. Nri civilization/kingdom
4. Kanem-Bornu Empire (this spread across much of Nothern Western Africa but it's center eventually became Borno state of Nigeria)
5. Hausa city state of Daura
6. Hausa city state of Kano
7. Hausa city state of Katsina
8. Hausa city state of Zazzau (Zaria)
9. Hausa city state of Gobir
10. Hausa city state of Rano
11. Hausa city state of Biram
12. The Sokoto Caliphate which took over all those Hausa city states and other centers.
13. Oyo Empire/Ibadan Empire
14. Kingdom of Warri
15. Calabar Kingdom
16. Kalabari Kingdom
17. Kingdom of Bonny
18. Aro confederacy
19. Onitsha kingodm
20. Ijebu kingdom
21. Owo kingdom
22. Igala kingdom centered at Idah
23. Kwararafa confederacy
24. Nupe kingdom
25. Okpe Kingdom
26. Ekiti kingdom
27. Iwo kingdom
28. Ondo Kingdom
29. Borgu Kingdom
30. And even part of the Songhai Empire contributed to the population of Northern Nigeria.



Truly, a nation of descendants of royalty, probably that's why we're always bickering amongst ourselves and too proud to yield power even to the detriment of our own progress. In fact, this union of "too many chiefs without enough indians" might be one of the major reasons for Nigeria's previous downward trajectory.

Of course the relevant question at this point may be why all of these centers developed there in the first place (had the population to develop) and that is probably due to environmental advantages of the areas (climate, rivers, lakes, crops, etc., or in the case of the North, location near trade routes between older African empires and North Africans and locations near some arable land (compared to the desert immediately north) and the probable greater geographical dispersion of migrants from Chad (where some of the oldest human remains were found) or East Africa to more fertile areas in Nigeria rather than anything about the specific groups in Nigeria or their proclivity to reproduce at ludicrous rates. Basically the fertile environment, which allowed certain crops to be grown there, combined with the migration patterns of the earliest Africans took, which probably had a greater push toward Nigeria because of these environmental advantages, probably resulted in an initial larger concentration of populations in the Nigerian area and the development of the city states multiplied this initial population. I can't remember which book I read this in (I desperately wish I could recall it because I recall it being a very interesting book) but apparently most of the major crops grown in Africa before the introduction of Eurasian crops were centered around West Africa (which most of Nigeria was part of) and the Sahel (from which Northern Nigeria's kingdoms/population centers sprang). Africa has never had really large populations but Nigerian groups together composed a large section of sub-Saharan Africa's population probably for these reasons.

I can't even begin to comprehend how one can say that we "have to totally put ethnic differences to one side" and from the other side of one's mouth attack the Hausa-Fulani oligarchy. The Hausa-Fulani oligarchy might be part of the reason (but not even the main reason) for the backwardness of much of the North, but the military is the main reason for Nigeria's ills and only a minute number of the major characters in that structure were of Hausa-Fulani oligarchic extraction. The rest, whether Gowon or Obasanjo or IBB were commoners.

And if Thomas Sankara had been born in Nigeria, we would be calling him a Hausa-Fulani, the same way Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was considered one. The North is a burden, but not for ethnic reasons.

[quote author=oyinda. link=topic=567700.msg7337294#msg7337294 date=1292381911]nice thread. these are 99.9% men. Are there female professors?[/quote]Yeah,


Katherine Adebola okikiolu (b. in 1965), is half Nigerian and half British. She is a brilliant mathematician and is currently an associate professor of Mathematics at the University of California. She becomes the first Black to win Mathematics' most prestigious young person's award, the "Sloan research Fellowship".

Katherine Adebola Okikiolu was born in England in 1965. The schools she went to include Cambridge University and University of California at Los Angeles. At Cambridge University, she received her BA in Mathematics, and went to graduate school at University of California at Los Angeles where she earned her Ph.D. At UCLA, she worked with two others to solve "solve a problem concerning asymptotics of determinants of Toeplitz operators on the sphere and a conjecture of Peter Jones, characterizing subsets of rectifiable curves in Euclidean n-space and she has been exhibiting first rate mathematical abilties."

Two years later, she was a teacher and an assistant professor at Princeton University for another two years. Right after, she was a visiting assistant professor at MIT. In 1997, she became a resident of the United States. In June of the same year, Okikiolu became the first Black to get the Sloan Research Fellowship, the most prestigious award for young math researchers in the US. She's an associate professor of mathematics at University of California at San Diego.

Her family is also very math oriented. [b]Her mother is a high school mathematics teacher and her dad George Okikiolu who is from Nigeria, is a mathematician.and inventor He has written more mathematics papers than any African mathematician. [/b]Katherine Okikiolu is married to mathematician Hans Lindblad.

Okikiolu's achievements and honors include earning a Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles and doing postdoctoral work at Princeton's Institute of Advanced Study and MIT. [b]In 1997, she was awarded the prestigious Sloan Research Fellowship and was a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (500.000 dollars). In 2001, she became the first black woman to publish an article in the Annals of Mathematics, a journal of research papers in pure mathematics founded in 1884. [/b]As a research mathematician, Okikiolu has achieved success and contributed to the development of mathematical ideas in the twenty-first century.

Gabriel Uwaifo, MD

Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine, Section on Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, LSUHSC

Adjunct Professor, Joint Program on Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, Pennington Biomedical Research Center

1542 Tulane Avenue
Room 457A, Box T4M-2
504-568-2380
504-568-2127
guwaif@lsuhsc.edu

Degrees

MD, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Oyo State Nigeria
Bio

Dr. Uwaifo is a board certified Internist and endocrinologist who completed his undergraduate medical training at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria in 1990. He subsequently completed general medicine residency training at the University College Hospital Ibadan Nigeria before completing an internal medicine residency at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington CT. After serving as a Chief resident, he completed a clinical and research endocrinology and diabetes fellowship at the National Institutes of Health. Since then he has worked as a clinical research endocrinologist with the MedStar Research Institute in Washington DC as well as a clinical endocrine attending at both the Washington Hospital center and the Georgetown University Medical Center both in Washington DC. Most recently he had been a faculty member of the endocrinology division at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and the endocrine and diabetes section of the VA medical Center in Jackson MS before joining the faculty at the LSUHSC.

Dr. Uwaifo’s clinical interests span the wide area of endocrine disorders with special emphasis on diabetes, hypertension, obesity and other aspects of the metabolic syndrome. He is an experienced Clinical trialist whose research interests include the recognition and management of pre-diabetes states as well as the pharmacotherapeutics of diabetes, hypertension and obesity.

Dr. Uwaifo has several publications in his areas of clinical and research interest and serves in the clinical, educational and clinical research missions of the endocrine division here at LSUHSC.

Oh. Well that makes sense. But money is always going to be the real issue, more than structure.

@ DapoBear, you don't seriously believe universities in Nigeria could be privately funded, do you?

Kinglsey Idehen- Kingsley Idehen is Founder, President, and CEO of OpenLink Software, a privately held company founded in 1992. Born in Manchester, England  in 1965, of Nigerian heritage, Idehen was raised in both Great Britain and Nigeria. In the mid 1990s, he relocated to the USA, where OpenLink is now based

from Wiki:

Founded in 1992, OpenLink Software, Inc., is a software company headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, USA. The company develops and deploys standards-compliant middleware  products that cover:

   * Transparent access to SQL data sources via ODBC and JDBC drivers, and OLE-DB, ADO.NET, and XMLA data providers;
   * Enterprise Data Integration of heterogeneous SQL and XML and RDF data sources;
   * Web Services Composition and Deployment;
   * Business Process Management and Integration.

OpenLink Software is creator and owner of the Universal Data Access drivers suite (comprising OpenLink ODBC Drivers, OpenLink JDBC Drivers, OpenLink OLE-DB Providers, OpenLink ADO.NET Providers, and OpenLink XMLA Providers); the Virtuoso Universal Server; the iODBC driver manager; the OpenLink AJAX Toolkit for RIA development; OpenLink Data Spaces; and other leading-edge middleware products.

With approximately 50 employees spread over 7 countries and 4 continents (figures from September 2007), OpenLink Software products are used by enterprises of all sizes from sole proprietorships to Fortune 100 companies. The company's products are in use in over 10,000 production deployments worldwide.

OpenLink Software revenues derive from selling support, consulting services, and training for their open-source products, as well as licensing fees for their closed-source and dual licensed products.

As an example: OpenLink Software makes the Virtuoso Universal Server (Open Source Edition) available under the GPL at no charge and also sells it under other 'more traditional' licenses to clients who do not find the GPL suitable for their purposes (such as inclusion of OpenLink Software technology in a closed source product).

Other sources of revenue for OpenLink Software include providing support and consulting as well as training and certification for the Virtuoso Universal Server and their Universal Data Access drivers. OpenLink Software products are also embedded in products by other companies including: Apple, Avaya, Lucent, Sungard Bi-Tech, North Plains Systems, Open Text, and others.



From infoworld.com:


2003 InfoWorld Innovator: Kingsley Idehen
OpenLink Software's CEO followed his scientific instincts to build Virtuoso, a wildly innovative virtual database for SQL, XML, and Web services
By Jon Udell | InfoWorld
Print | Add a comment

Kingsley Idehen had planned to become a genetic engineer. But when he wound up in the business world instead, his instincts led him straight to the heart and soul of business: accounting. While learning the ropes, he became fascinated with IT infrastructure.

A formative influence, Informix intrigued Idehen with its ability to pull information from a database and pump it into a spreadsheet that an accountant could analyze. At the same time, he couldn't understand why "the simplest things cost a hell of lot of money and take an inordinate amount of time," he says.

After he mastered Xenix, SQL, and Informix's Uniplex business software, Idehen began to see what was wrong: The vendors didn't understand the business problems their products were meant to solve. So he became a programmer in the late 1980s and, before long, was working for Unisys as a database integration expert.

Working with the Progress database, Progress has a rich language and an environment for creating business applications, although other databases such as Oracle and Informix were more popular. Database middleware was the missing link. With his new drivers, Idehen demonstrated using Excel on Windows and on the Mac at a show in Munich, Germany, in 1992. Idehen found the opportunity that would eventually launch OpenLink Software in Burlington, Mass.

"My cheap little table was crowded," Idehen recalls. It was clear he had a talent for writing database drivers. The skill, he says, is "to make a driver represent the community that it serves." In other words, a Progress driver had to behave the way a Progress programmer expects it to.

At the same time, Microsoft's evangelization of ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) was taking root. Whereas ODBC got a bad rap for being slow, OpenLink built a reputation for making high-performance drivers. Idehen still wasn't satisfied, because ODBC could only connect to one database at a time. As the Web emerged, it became clear that businesses would increasingly need to connect to many different data sources.

"Knowing all those databases intimately, it was easy for me to visualize the concept of a virtual database," Idehen says. Idehen went shopping for an engine on which to base such a product and settled on Kubl -- a fast, portable, ODBC-aware SQL database. Never heard of it? That's because Idehen snapped it up as soon as he found it.

In 1999, OpenLink emerged with the concept that has since evolved into Virtuoso 3.0. At the core, it's a SQL engine that not only supports ODBC but can attach foreign databases through ODBC. Then came the layers: an e-mail server, a news server, an application server, a SOAP stack, Java and .NET bindings, a WebDAV server, and XML storage, indexing, and transformation. The goal was always business process integration, but that was difficult to explain. Then in January of 2003, IBM "decided to regurgitate Data Joiner -- and they used the magic words 'virtual database,'" That was the validation Idehen was looking for.

"Heterogeneity is a fact of corporate life," Idehen says. Now that he's built a platform that consumes and provides SQL, XML, and Web services, Idehen has come full circle. He's finally ready to make business data represent the community that it serves.

alj harem:
we are 8 billion in the world

According to google there are 6.7 billion. 8 billion is a decade or so off.

This spambot is getting irritating. I remember when I posted about David Blackwell, Percy Lavon Julian, and Vivien Thomas, in an "Unofficial Black History Month Thread" I got banned. I gotta keep everything brief now.

Hmmm, and some crackpot journalist had the nerve to insinuate that Clarke's hatred for Uduaghan was because of the Ijaw-Itsekiri clashes of the 1990s. Uduaghan is clearly a crook.

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-564907.0.html

FEARS ABOUT MILITARY
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¶7. (C) Jonathan said “everyone, including the Army Chief of Staff (COAS) [LTG Abdulrahman Bello Dambazau] and Chief of the President Guards Brigade [BG Abdul Mustapha]” are concerned about the confusion over who is the executive of the nation. The AgP said the military chiefs are making sure no politicians are reaching out to the rank-and-file, and encouraging the military to stay in the barracks so that the uncertain political situation does not generate coup-like behavior emanating from the mid-ranks because of the confusion. As the Ambassador began her meeting with the Acting President, he had just concluded a meeting with COAS LTG Dambazau (see reftel A for Ambassador’s conversation with the COAS February 24).
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USG ADVICE: BECOME A NATIONAL FIGURE
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¶8. (C) Based on points developed telephonically with Assistant Secretary Carson (ref B), Ambassador encouraged Jonathan to change the perception that he is a regional figure, and be seen, rather, as a national figure who has the best interest of the nation at heart. Ambassador expressed that given that the U.S. and Nigeria are very best friends, we feel the need to share our concerns, as any good friend would do, and that we are counting on him to steer Nigeria through this troubled and uncertain period. At the moment, Jonathan’s detractors believe he is a surrogate for former President Obasanjo. Ambassador advised the AgP that he needs to publicly demonstrate that he is the sole executor of national issues, not being directed or serving a political purpose for Obasanjo or others, so that his leadership would not be in question and the polity would accept that he had the best interest of nation at hand. The AgP said he appreciated our advice, including publicly holding Obasanjo at arms length. He said he would consider taking steps, including possibly convoking the entire diplomatic corps to brief them on the current political climate, using this and other events to demonstrate that he is his own man,
and diminish the appearance he is a regional leader.
¶9. (C) Jonathan noted that the Northern politicians would always be uncomfortable with him as president, and he understood the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) picked him as Yar’Adua’s running mate in 2007 because he represented the Niger Delta. Jonathan said he was handling Niger Delta issues until the Ministry for Niger Delta Affairs was created in September 2008, allowing him to distance himself from being viewed as someone who could only work on that issue. [b]“I was not chosen to be Vice President because I had good political experience,” he said. “I did not. There were a lot more qualified people around to be Vice President, but that does not mean I am not my own man.” However, he said, with the changed circumstances, the AgP said that his sole focus is to leave a legacy of both electoral reform and credible elections, including changing the entire Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). [/b]The AgP said he was appreciative of the Ambassador’s remarks made during the National Day reception February 25 and Assistant Secretary Carson’s February 24 statement because both provided him with the courage to press forward.
¶10. (C) Jonathan shared initially, he had the intention to dissolve the Cabinet early the week of February 22, and had planned to make that announcement at the February 24 FEC meeting, but found out that Yar’Adua was returning, and thus dissuaded him from acting. He said the last Cabinet meeting was disastrous and included yelling and screaming, and it is totally dysfunctional. He said he is “not a politician” and had very limited experience as an administrator, but concluded, “I will not tolerate a brawl.” Jonathan said he will dissolve the Cabinet once he knows people are more comfortable with him being the Acting President or if the current strategy to convince Yar’Adua surrogates and family members to allow the ailing president to resign.

The bold part sounds like sheer honest humility. I don't see how anybody could possibly ever interpret it as admission of some sort of incompetence. Then again the original poster in this thread selectively quoted statements in exactly such a way as to make silly interpretations possible and people in this thread completely fell for it. Context is important people. Inform yourselves before leaping into conclusions.

As for no plans for 2011, he had already said that if the people wanted him, he would go for it. But he definitely had plans to conduct better elections.

¶13. (C) Jonathan said he does not anticipate standing for elections in 2011 and that he is not working towards being a presidential candidacy. He wants to put into place an electoral structure that will be ready for national elections. He did, however, note that, “if they want me to run, that will be something to consider at that time.” However, he stressed that his focus now and for the next 12 months will be on “doing a good job and witnessing respectable and credible elections in 2011.”

This thread was full of morons. Particularly this EzeUche guy. Why did I even bother to read this garbage.

It's also humorous seeing some people in here whining about the South South but completely ignorant about the origins of that arrangement.

Zik doesn't explicitly state so or even admit that the NCNC opposition is about the COR state not having an anti-Igbo agenda but note that what preceded (what he said in that book I quoted) is basically political doublespeak (somewhat like Awolowo concerning his supposed "support" for the Midwest state) and doesn’t make much sense since the condition for the release of the minorities (creation of COR) has the arbitrary (irrelevant to the resolution of the main minority-majority problem, that is) requirement that each minority state must be formed independently rather than all at once into one mega state, a state which just so happens to "arbitrarily" exclude most Eastern Igbos, hence the reason for the (reasonable) interpretation of Azikiwe's statement given by the author of that book (the author interprets the NCNC opposition as basically being founded on accusing the breakaway minorities of only calling for separation out of anti-Igbo sentiment.

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Onlytruth:
Zik was arguably Nigeria's best NATIONAL leader at the time and all you did was provide evidence that he had conceded creation of some states under STRICT conditions. If he was not Zik, he would have opposed it everywhere in Nigeria. Yes, Zik was liberal (to a fault if you ask me). On this issue, Sarduana was more resolute in his defence of a united north. He understood the dangers of conceding it under any circumstance.

I would have liked to think Zik was looking out for other people’s interests as well, but on further examination of the statement, I see why the author of that book (R. Sklar) claimed that opposition to the realization of the COR state by the NCNC was due to their perception of the COR state movement as being based only on anti-Igbo sentiment.

Onlytruth:
Zik was arguably Nigeria's best NATIONAL leader at the time and all you did was provide evidence that he had conceded creation of some states under STRICT conditions. If he was not Zik, he would have opposed it everywhere in Nigeria. Yes, Zik was liberal (to a fault if you ask me). On this issue, Sarduana was more resolute in his defence of a united north. He understood the dangers of conceding it under any circumstance.

I would have liked to think Zik was looking out for other people’s interests as well, but on further examination of the statement, I see why the author of that book (R. Sklar) claimed that opposition to the realization of the COR state by the NCNC was due to their perception of the COR state movement as being based only on anti-Igbo sentiment.
Zik doesn't explicitly state so or even admit that the NCNC opposition is about the COR state not having an anti-Igbo agenda but note that what preceded (what he said in that book I quoted) is basically political doublespeak (somewhat like Awolowo concerning his supposed "support" for the Midwest state) and doesn’t make much sense since the condition for the release of the minorities (creation of COR) has the arbitrary (irrelevant to the resolution of the main minority-majority problem, that is) requirement that each minority state must be formed independently rather than all at once into one mega state, a state which just so happens to "arbitrarily" exclude most Eastern Igbos, hence the reason for the (reasonable) interpretation of Azikiwe's statement given by the author of that book (the author interprets the NCNC opposition as basically being founded on accusing the breakaway minorities of only calling for separation out of anti-Igbo sentiment.

Furthermore the state could break up later if there were "minority problems" and Zik’s statement ignores the fact that even if these not yet extant "minority problems" were to be created, in the Eastern region there was currently a "majority-minority problem" when one had not previously existed . It should be noted that being anti-majority group is not necessarily the same as having an inherent dislike for a whole ethnicity and culture. This can clearly be seen by the fact that when Igbos were seen by the neighboring peoples as fellow minorities, such as the Ikwerre, Ekpeye, Ndoni, etc. they were in no way discriminated against or asked not to be in the new proposed states (Rivers or COR). Basically the NCNC completely misread the situation. It wasn't truly an anti-Igbo agenda, it was anti-majority/anti-domination. However, the NCNC Eastern Igbo would not even have been in a position to understand, so they can't even be blamed for "not getting it."


As for Ahmadu Bello, he was an anti-Southern feudalist. He did not want a situation where the educationally advantaged Southerners took over the North (consider as his comment about "Northerners first, then Expatriates (British, Indians, etc.), then other (Southern) Nigerians" when filling positions in the Northern region) and even sent Balewa ("I bring a message from the Sardauna. . . to those in the South who think that they would dominate the politics of this country . . . especially the Igbos . . . who come as invaders . . .etc.etc." to say so.
The Sardauna realized that to check Southern economic, social, and political domination he had to have the North dominate the politics of the country and to do so he would need a large population. Even though the census figures were no doubt distorted, the fact was, actually having the Middle Belt be counted as part of the North gave the North more seats, more representation as a political unit than it could possibly have had otherwise, and once it lost NPC dominance in the Middle Belt areas, it would lose out to the West and the East and was not merely finished politically, but more importantly, it was finished economically, socially, financially, developmentally, and would have been unable to ever taste power again off of merit, being so far behind the whole country in so many areas. For the North the dangers were real, and from the perspective of Northerners these dangers may have outweighed the importance of the Middle Belters having a voice or more autonomy, but I don't think that this example can be extended to the East.