₦airaland Forum

A militant boat quickly sped off past them without raising their hands to signify they are unarmed, as is the custom on the Niger-Delta. The 4-member military escort considered this a threat and fired at the militants.

By this time the nine people in the boat had prostrated as is also the norm when civilians hear gun shots on the river. The militants started shooting at the escort soldiers, who fled when they ran out of bullets.

Disgraceful. All of it.

dmainboss:
I dont agree that it was a neutral move. It looks like an endorsement for Oshiomole. The Oba can have his preference of candidate because he is still an individual with choices, but I know what I am saying when I tell you he should be neutral. The Oba has always had ways to let people know who he supports.

People can come on here and shout their throats out in support just because they like Oshiomole but the truth is that most of the people posting here have no clue of politics. They say PDP is this and that, but they have no clue. All the members of PDP during Lucky's time are now in the ACN with Oshiomole. Does it mean they are different people now? They are certainly one and the same. Even Lucky is one of the biggest backers of Oshiomole. Everyone in Edo state knows that. Lucky's father is eating steadily from Oshiomole's government. Nothing has really changed. The only difference between Oshiomole and Lucky is that the latter has embarked on some good projects while Lucky did nothing for 8 years and just threw parties around. But in terms of eating the state dry, nothing much has changed. But dont forget that while Lucky was throwing parties for 8 years, another PDP governor, Donald Duke was developing his state. The point is that it is not a PDP or ACN issue. It is the issue of bad Nigerian politicians, no matter the party. During that same 8 years, Tinubu was eating Lagos to the bone. His massive wealth today attests to that.

Oshiomole is a good politician, I must give that to him. He has done a lot of settlement including settling the Oba seriously. Again he has to do that because he is from a very minority tribe and without that, he has no chance. But the bottom line for the Oba is, when you start to engage in politics, you are setting yourself up for a big downfall. He should have just wished everyone well and act as a neutral father

"Settling the Oba"? You started off coherent, but then degenerated into spouting nonsense. You even brought up the governor who initiated the failed (from inception) Tinapa project as an example of good governance. Any governor anywhere is better than Lucky Igbinedion regardless of party affiliation, so that's not even relevant.

I can't comprehend how "wishing everyone well" (neutral) is better than "wishing that Edo state get a good governor" (neutral). The latter is clearly better than the former and just as neutral.

There was no expression of support for Oshiomhole or ACN in those statements.

The problem here is assuming that any possible pre-existing support for Oshiomhole as a performing governor is equivalent to some sort of political orientation towards ACN and against PDP.

Olalekan 0:
The Oba was probably angry because the PDP candidate did not seek his consent/blessing before going on T.V. He feels he should be the first person to get wind of the man's political ambition,that way,he can claim to have installed him when and if the PDP candidate wins. According to the Oba "i started watching you on Tv and i'll continue to watch you on Tv.

This Obas are always wanting to be needlessly relevant!

The Obas in Oyo state were partly responsible for akala's below par performance and am sure they won't allow Ajumobi fare any better than his predecessor! Watch Out!

Are you insane? This post is so dumb I'm at a loss for words.

dmainboss:
Not a good move at all. A traditional rular must be politically neutral. Once you start to get involve in politics, you are gone. This is the main reason SE and SW obas don't have any respect again. I grew up in Benin and am saddened by this news. This is the beginning of his troubles. The same politicians that clap for him today will be the same peeps that will sell him out. By this action, he has just brought himself to their level

What happened is the perfect example of remaining politically neutral. If he had given them his blessing, I have no doubt that they would have tried to spin it to make it seem like they had a special royal endorsement. That's how politicians are.

I'll be back later, probably tomorrow, if there's more to be discussed on this thread. Ciao for now.

Onlytruth: Yes, but notice that a country like France supported Biafra (though lightly) and it never changed Biafra's status internationally.
I've seen that "game" more than 20 times played on the world stage whereby one "big country" supports an idea, and another "big country" opposes it, and at the end, one big country almost always has her way. It is just what it is. No two countries have the same clout internationally. So, even if 50 "third world" countries supported Biafra, without the support of one strategic first world country, it would NEVER be a country. I really think that this is very simple enough to understand.

I don't think you actually understand the real conditions Biafra had to meet to get full French support, so I suggest you read up on the specifics of that. Had the rest of Africa supported Biafra, the French would have been solidly behind Biafra instead of the lesser support they gave. They needed to see greater support within Africa, but it never came.

The Fulani are masters of using other people to rule other people, and they oftern enforce their rule on the first people violently and resolutely. Smart but very efficient way of ruling bigger tribes. That was what Nzeogwu and his team wanted to stop in January 1966. Almost all non-Igbo Nigerians still don't understand what they tried to do, even till today.
The game is a very high stakes game.

I could accept that Ifeajuna wanted to do that, but not Nzeogwu. Nzeogwu doesn't seem like somebody with the requisite intelligence to think in such ethnic conquest (of Fulanis) terms. He was naive and he was a one Nigerianist.

As for what they wanted to stop in Jan. 1966, I'm not going to get into another discussion of that. But let's just say that my opinion of both 1966 coups is fairly negative.

Perhaps Ifeajuna and co. did make it a priority to kill Fulanis but they ended up killing leaders that were head and shoulders above most of the politicians of Nigeria. If the Sardauna had played a prominent role in the North for another 20 years, it might be an almost entirely different place.

The point I'm trying to make is that the Fulani basically insulted and walked over all of the south in their counter coup (I hope you know that the counter coup is a fulani coup, if you follow my logic above). They were operating in the west and mid west as if it was their backyard. Nothing happened. Not even a simple caution or warning by Ejoor or Yoruba for instance came. Everybody basically accepted the situation, except the Igbo.

lol, you didn't read what I wrote? There were even some southerners involved in the July coup!

The western region premier was killed because of his buddy status with Ironsi and possibly even with the Jan. 1966 coupists. The other leader was killed for siding with Ironsi's old regime.

I DO NOT see Ironsi as a representative of the south in any way. The kind of decisions he made would not have been condoned by the entire south if they had a say, but probably only by his own group of followers and advisors. I reject the notion that, had he not been granted power after the January coup, other southerners if put in the same position would have taken the same actions he took.

They are basically the same people. The analogy is wrong.

Did you understand the point I was making there? If the world will deny Ethiopia access to the sea, and not even let it engage in modern colonization of Eritreans who are almost "the same people" (as you and me both agree), then there is no possible reason it would allow a later incursion by virtual strangers (ethnically, culturally) from the far north into other territory (whether Yoruba, Igbo, or southern minority) without remaining neutral or siding against the invading strangers. It wouldn't support the incursions, when they have no political legitimacy or justification.

The Fulani/Hausa would not just walk away without trying their darndest to gain access to sea. Like I said, once the Igbo are in an Igbo only country, anything can happen to the rest of the southern minorities and Igbo would simply turn a blind eye.

lmao, trust me nobody who deserves their freedom would be silly enough to ask the major groups to do anything for them (although they shouldn't even be in the position to have to consider such, if not for the British).

As Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam said, "As for me, I prefer to sniff French sh1t for five years than to eat Chinese sh1t for the rest of my life".

Trying to win a far flung war in Ogoniland or Ijawland or elsewhere would be a catastrophic waste of time and resources, and the North could never successfully maintain control of these places. It would take even less than 5 years before the tide would turn if they were initially successful anyway. You're implicitly granting them capabilities that they have never come close to possessing.

Onlytruth: I don't think that is the whole truth. If so, there are many other countries with semi-autonomous nations within their borders that can unleash literally hundreds of "countries" into the world scene. There was a time the USSR was one, and even they could only send ONE team to FIFA.
Let me not be diverted by this topic anyway; but I'm sure that sensible folks would wonder why other countries can't enjoy the same British special representation at FIFA, which basically gives them three EXTRA opportunities at FIFA. I know that most countries are green with envy.

If those countries are green with envy, then they're not thinking.

A victory for Scotland is definitely not a victory for England and vice versa just because they are in a union.

And why on earth would the USSR want to send more than one country to FIFA? To promote ethnic nationalism and divisiveness in their republic? That would be a terrible idea.

The "old rules" I mean is what made it impossible for Biafran currency and stamps to be accepted as a legal tender anywhere in the world, even as the war raged.
Even the name "Biafra" has basically been expunged from the thesaurus. Any time you type it, the computer pretends as if it is a strange new word and underlines it in RED. smh   Grin That is what I'm talking about. So, you cannot have a country (no matter how legitimate or fair your intensions are) if you are not accepted into that international system. Simple and short.

The majority of nations decided to support Nigeria rather than Biafra. That is entirely different from a situation where Nigeria dissolves legitimately, and after dissolution, some Northern state makes a power play to grab any lands in the south.

The bolded tells me that you have not been studying the Fulani very carefully as I have. They may be in minority in the Jonathan's "government", but the REAL government is the Nigerian military, especially the infantry. They don't need intellectual abilities really. They have been ruling Nigeria without it.

The Fulani were not more than 1,000 of the soldiers in the Biafran-Nigerian war. They were a minority of the soldiers then, and they're a minority of the soldiers now.

You keep referring to Nigeria's military as if it is top notch and indestructible, but I would wager that a solely Northern military would have serious problems conquering elsewhere in Nigeria and maintaining that hold without the tides turning against them.

The bolded is a pure fallacy because the Fulani has been doing the same thing in all parts of the North even before the white man showed up.

If we're going to take this to "before the white man showed up" then this is a bad example, because the Kanuris thrashed them when they tried expanding into Borno. The Tiv never submitted to their attempts at conquest either.

They basically see the whole North as their private estate. They killed a sitting Nigerian leader in Ibadan and killed the premier of western region too, nothing happened from that side.

That same July 1966 coup had a few Yorubas in it as well. It was not really anti-Yoruba in any way, actually. The premier of the western region was Ironsi's buddy and that sitting leader chose to side with the old (Ironsi) regime.

If Ojukwu didn't stand up in the East, they would have continued their conquest unchallenged.

"Conquest"? The fact that you see it as a conquest shows a detachment from reality in my opinion. It was aimed mostly at a destruction of the Ironsi regime and all that that entailed. Had that been allowed to occur, there would never even have been a civil war.

Even Ejoor of the Midwest never raised a voice in opposition when Northern soldiers kept killing Igbos in midwest as part of the counter coup. Anyway I digress!

I don't know what Ejoor said or didn't say as I was not there, or how much he knew about any killings in the prisons, but I do know that Ejoor was not in a position, militarily, to stop anybody from any other part of the country from doing anything. This was a temporary state of affairs, but one which could not have been avoided.

I would also not use Ethiopia/Eritrea situation to compare with Fulani and others in Nigeria. Both Eritrea and Ethiopia are almost the same normadic warlike people.

Most of them are not nomadic. Sedentary culture goes back to before Axum in that part of the world.

I guess the Ethiopians simply decided what the heck we are same people.

The point is that the attempt at colonization of Eritrea totally failed, although there would be much more justification for a Greater Ethiopia than for a Greater Sokoto Caliphate.

They attacked northern parts of Edo state recently didn't they?  The fact is that southern minority lands lie farther southerly than majority lands, so they have to pass Igboland for instance before they can attack certain parts of  Ijaw, or Ogoni or Ibibio and so on. The Fulani are arguably one of the most tricky tribes you find in Africa. The biggest mistake you make is to assume that they are attacking arbitrarily. That would be the biggest miscalculation.   Cool

No. They didn't attack the northern parts of Edo state recently. Didn't happen.

A bus coming from Akoko Edo into one of the southwestern states was involved in a collision:

"In the Ilesa-Akure Expressway accident, reports said two 18-seater passenger buses had a  collision and instantly caught fire, trapping the occupants of the two vehicles.

Eyewitnesses were said to have told the press crew of the Ekiti State governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi,  that “an unidentifiable 18-seater bus, which was heading probably to Ekiti State or Iwaraja swerved from its lane to avoid hitting a motorcyclist, who was allegedly being pursued by officials of the Federal Road Safety Corps.”

The reports added that the vehicle that swerved “hit the oncoming bus, which belongs to Akoko-Edo council, and which was said to be coming from Igarra in Akoko-Edo Local Government Area of Edo State.”"

What did actually happen recently is that some people claimed Hausas were attacked or even killed in Benin during the fuel subsidy protests, a claim which I still view with skepticism.

That said, when they do attack a part of Edo state, am I suddenly supposed to see that as part of the grand conspiracy being carried out by semi-literate herders?


@ the part in bold, now you're starting to see what one of the problems with your analysis is.

How the heck can Fulani maintain control of Ogoni? Do they have the technological capability for that? No. Can they culturally co-opt the Ogoni into their fold using religion or other things like they have in parts of the North? No.

Onlytruth:
Believe me, I really want to agree with you, but I would be unrealistic and naive if I do that. The whole international system we enjoy today, you name it: UN, UN agencies, International Money regimes and protocols, Commerce, Migration, basically EVERYTHING international, has laws and protocols. Even more unfortunately (if you like) some countries have more say than others in that international system. That is why Britain can send FOUR soccer teams to the FIFA would cup, but France cannot.
The international system is OLD, so it forecloses any chance of newer countries ever changing anything substantial. So, in essence, the newer countries have to fall in line with old laid rules. One of such rules is why you may not have as many countries out of Nigeria as you would want.

1. Britain can send four soccer teams to the FIFA world cup because there are multiple officially recognized nations in Britain. There are no four French nations. The French would not be silly enough to give the Basque people even the slightest excuse to develop a sense of nationalist/separatist pride and feeling if there's a possibility that it could swell the ranks of the terrorists.

2. What's the relevance of FIFA here? Nothing. Soccer conventions are not important.

3. Nigeria is NOT an old country. And there are absolutely no "old laid rules" with regard to disintegration of countries except the ones that you're possibly imagining to support some imaginary three countries out of Nigeria that would dissolve almost overnight. I don't know what so-called "old laid rules" about the disintegration of countries are that you keep referring to, and I strongly disagree with the idea that any such rules actually exist, but just know that the Holy Roman Empire came before all that modern crap in Europe and nobody there, whether from a large or small "tribe' or "nation" would want anything like that back.

International legitimacy only becomes relevant if the international community don't accept Fulani rule. Where are they today?
The Fulani won't need the intellectual ability to rule, they only need brute force.
Nigeria's history shows that for almost 100 years, only the Igbo have ever attempted (as a group)  to stand up to the Fulani aggression in Nigeria. For that, we lost more than 2 million. In the absence of Igbo "never say die" attitude (because Igbo must have seceded and minding their own business), I wedger to guess that there may not be enough motivation or guts left in Nigeria to fight Fulani rule.

1. "International legitimacy only becomes relevant if the international community don't accept Fulani rule. Where are they today?"

You think anyone in the international (NOT Nigerian) community thinks the Fulanis are ruling (even if some of us claim that they are actually ruling indirectly)? Fulani are a minority in Jonathan's government and the current system is rotational (between north and south) governance.

2. When I referred to intellectual ability, I mean the intelligence to convince far off peoples that they are better off in a union with the Fulanis than by themselves or the intellectual ability to keep a rebel group or rebel groups under constant suppression. The Fulanis have the capability for neither of these things. In the face of the glare of the international community, Ethiopia, whose inhabitants are superior in almost every conceivable manner intellectually to the Fulanis, could not even suppress and co-opt Eritrea which it could much more reasonably claim as natural constituents of a Greater Ethiopia than the far north could claim any of the southern minority groups as natural constituents of a country with them in it.

3. The Northern "aggression in Nigeria" was confronted by the Igbo because it was specifically targeted at the Igbo. Nobody else had anything to really stand up to, nor were they directly affected by what went on between Igbo and Fulani, Igbo and Kanuri, or Igbo and Shuwa Arab.

You talk about "guts left in Nigeria to fight Fulani rule", which presupposes a serious large scale conflict between Fulanis and non-Igbos which I have seen no evidence of ever even existing in modern Nigeria. But if the disintegration of Nigeria made it necessary for different groups of non-Igbos to fight Fulanis, I wouldn't put my money on the Fulanis. They don't have the resources, the connections, the technology, etc. Brute force by numbers is a fool's approach. The Hutu can't beat the Tutsi on numbers alone, the Hausa couldn't beat the Fulani on sheer numbers alone, and half of Europe couldn't beat either France or Germany on numbers alone or brute force at different periods in history.

And if you missed the part about "maintaining" control of these supposed future Fulani colonies, let me reiterate: they would face an insurrection that they have nowhere near the capability to suppress.

If the Ethiopians who are 10 times as competent as the Fulanis could not successfully grab Eritrea in order to reach the sea, the Fulanis have no chance.

4. I feel you're basically just fear-mongering. You would be surprised to find out that upon the disintegration of Nigeria, the Fulanis would have no interest in fighting far off wars that they know that they cannot win or even finalize, and even more surprised to find out that they would probably spend their time and money digging deeper into the Chad basin in search of their own resources.

I still stand on my ascertion that they are avoiding core ancestral lands of majority groups. As far as I know, there has only been one clear incident in the outskirts of Abia state.
Someone from Abia state told us here that the youths of that area have been doing a silent lynching of Fulani's there. I know there are Fulani cattlemen along Enugu -Akwa expressway. They have never attempted any nonsense. As for the Yoruba side, I would admit that I may not know the whole story, but still the attacks in the west can never be compared to the attacks in Benue/Plateau axis.

The Fulani herdsman have attacked the ancestral lands of the majority groups in the south more than they have attacked the ancestral lands of the minority groups in the south. That's just the reality. This is not to say that they have not attacked any minority groups in the south, but most of their attacks so far seem to on the lands of the majority groups. There's no plan or reasoning to it. It's just random devastation.


As for Benue/Plateau, that whole situation will be interesting if Nigeria disintegrates because I want to know whether the Tivs really dislike the Fulanis, or whether they would go along with the North of their own free will. I don't have confidence in the ability of the Fulanis to take and keep Benue against the will of those groups, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Hausas together with Fulanis could take Plateau.

@ humblebee

I am man enough to fully admit when I'm wrong (unlike Breezy, who assaults people and then starts threads trying to justify it or gain sympathy for it), and in this specific instance, I rushed to a conclusion too soon without looking at all available information. And my humblest apologies if I referred to any of your friends or acquaintances as fraudulent riff raff.

The "international" will or dimension keeps being mentioned, but what I'm trying to point out is that it's precisely that Western/European naivete and ignorance that led to the amalgamation and it should be ignored, since it is not guided by logic, but by mere convenience. If Nigeria splits, let it split the way its actual inhabitants want it to split. Whatever the West wants is basically nonsense.

And what people forget is that a situation where the North colonizes some southern minority group is not just untenable in terms of international legitimacy, it's untenable in terms of the North being able to maintain a hold on that group. They don't have the cultural, intellectual, or technological capability to do so.

Hearing or reading about some supposed Northern conquest of southern minority groups is hilarious to me. The kind of bloodbath that would follow would be regrettable, but it would at least be useful in terms of humbling the Fulanis, who I think are at the root of Northern obnoxiousness.

As for the Middle Belt, some (but not all) of the Middle Belt are basically Northerners and they have a natural inclination toward the people of the far north. Those groups will ally with the far north without anyone in the far north or from outside Nigeria asking them to do so.

As for the Fulani herdsmen, so far they have attacked Tiv, Yoruba, and Igbo ancestral lands, and some others. I have no idea what you mean about them "carefully avoiding majority ancestral lands". These guys don't think or carefully do anything, they just direct their cows to where ever they want to graze and eventually cause havoc. They're idiots, basically. There's no rhyme or reason to it.

Guerilla warfare and terrorism would start if people tried to impose that kind of stuff on the other groups. With Ijaw nationalism running high, I can't imagine them joining any of the three groups when they could stay to themselves and become an oil-rich nation of a few million like some middle eastern countries. It would be highly illogical to do anything other than stay to themselves, in fact.

Almost as soon as those three countries would be created, they would disintegrate among easily predictable ethnic lines.

The thing people forget is that the "big three" perspective was created by the British.

Trying to reimpose it on the basis of some imaginary international (read: western) will would just be doing the exact same thing the British did when they created the provinces, and then the protectorates, and later lumped the north and south together on the basis of geography and blackness.



By the way, I didn't literally mean 100. I was just picking a larger number to point out that 3 is basically arbitrary. I can see a group like Ogoni being its own country seeing as how there are other countries already existing that are smaller in land mass and population.

I just asked a rhetorical question and gave you some advice on what you really needed to focus on.

If I actually wanted to discuss that issue (domestic abuse), there's a topic on the front page about it right now by some poster called edie mafio and I would just post in that thread.



As for the increasing disrespect toward Nigeria, I can assure you that if legions of Nigerians flood every country with fake travel documents, fake vaccination documents, and fake everything, the disrespect will only increase. My contempt for anyone who went to South Africa with fake documents hoping to beat the system is unlimited.

Onlytruth:
The near best solution would be to divide Nigeria into three countries, each with a sizeable minority population.

If Nigeria is to be divided at all, it might as well be divided into 100 countries. No reason whatsoever that it has to be three.

ekt_bear:
Haha

So why are the Yoruba the Greeks? I reject that in the name of Jesus. We are the Germans or at least the French, not frikkin Greece

Though if this recent story of my governor's spending is true, maybe there is some accuracy to that

Only two centuries ago, the French and Germans were still worshiping the accomplishments of the ancient Greeks.

Now people are mocking them as decadent and lazy. Funny how things have changed.

birdman:
generalize much?

There are lots of Nigerians in South Africa legally already.

If some of these guys had fake yellow fever vaccination documents, then I don't see how they're not questionable characters that should be deported. If they were too lazy to find out that they needed yellow fever vaccination documents before traveling all those miles, and they didn't have them upon arrival, then they can try again later and they aren't really the ones I'm talking about.

The ones I have an issue with are the fraudulent ones. If Nigerians have a bad reputation in South Africa and some other countries around the world, it's mostly because of fraudulent characters. Let these countries keep deporting them. Better that than for them to settle in there and start committing some crimes.

Nigerians in general are far from the awful stereotype they're seen as in many countries around the world, but the exodus of Nigerian criminals to other parts of the world has ruined the country's image. I can't help but feel contempt for those that continue this trend of ruining the country's image.

@ OP

So what are you going to do about it? Go over there and beat their women?

Worry more about respecting yourself, and respecting your female counterpart, and less about some unknown riff raff deported from foreign countries for having fraudulent documents.

The average Nigerian IQ is not 67. That's nonsense. Let's leave that pseudo-scientific crap out of this thread.

AjanleKoko:
India is one of the oldest and greatest empires on the planet, way before the British showed up.
They also have Sanskrit, the oldest writing language, way before your Roman numerals. Africa, Nigeria . . . well, you said it all. It's just a mashup created by the British.

Not to get too academic here, but just for the record, the writing system used for Sanskrit does not derive from Indians but instead from Northeast Africa/the Middle East.

The Indus valley script, if it is indeed a script, has not been deciphered, and ALL of their other scripts for writing (such as that used for Sanskrit) derive from the Phoenician characters (just like the Latin alphabet). And Sanskrit is not the oldest written language.

The Mauryan, Gupta, and Maratha empires were indeed great though and they did invent the Indus valley script (although nobody has deciphered it).

bittyend:
There were more competent civilians but would they have been elected?? There was Awolowo but the people preferred a Shagari that performed woefully - despite living in denial with his aladdin hat . It's not about the availability of "competent civilians" - it's about electability. The question is: would these "competent civilians" be elected?


That's not a military symptom - that's more of a Nigeria thing. Right now, we've a Deizani as the Minister of Petroleum, despite being a geography major in college and SLS, who has a MSc. in Arabic as the head of CBN. The same can be said of all the civilian regimes we've had. Despite putting "square pegs in round holes" like you said - the Buhari regime made more impacts on Nigerian lives - than the present regime, and Yar dua before this.

What makes you think Ekwueme would've done better?? Ekwueme was the vice president during the Shagari regime, and he was a FAILURE.

GEJ hired big names but what has he achieved? NOTHING!!  No even a single road has been built since he became president - his promises are never ending. And about corruption - GEJ is most corrupt man in the country! You're defending a guy that feeds himself with $1billion a year; the same guy that inflated the price of fuel subsidy from $700billion to $1.3trillion within 24months. GEJ is arguably the most corrupt president we've ever had apart fron Babangida - and he's clueless as well. The guy is a slowpoke!!!!

SLS is competent. He has a Bsc and and Msc in economics, in addition to the sharia stuff, just for the record. The problem with him is that he's a chauvinist and that there are probably people more qualified for the position. If not for Yar'Adua, I don't think he would have been appointed to that position by any government.

Yar'Adua was kind of like Shagari pt. 2  and he was foisted on the country by OBJ, who as I said before, should never have been president as nobody wanted him, and he was not equal to the task (as his first 4 years proved).

As for Ekwueme being VP, the VP is virtually a non-entity in most governments in the world and has no significant role in deciding the direction the government takes with regard to development. There was even a book published a while back  called Veeps: Profiles in Insignificance because of this reality.


GEJ, as I said earlier, is too meek and timid to tackle corruption effectively, so I'm not defending that aspect of his government. I just think some of his appointments in government show a level of seriousness especifically with regard to development not shown by Buhari's government or most military governments.

bittyend:
I concur 150%!! Being book smart is so overrated!

Being book smart is not overrated, but there are other qualities that are important.

ojogbontomoye:
Very obvious you have never lived in Nigeria. If appointing people to cabinet level positions is how we want to judge our leaders, even  Abacha did better in that aspect than Odechuckwu. How anyone could defend the appointment of people like  Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke ( someone who spent 6 yrs in a 4 yr Archy program at Howard)  to Petroleum is beyond me.

Diezani Alison Madueke being there is merely about federal character. It's only defensible within the regrettable idiosyncratic system of Nigeria - in other words, it's not really defensible.

But Buhari's cabinet was worse. As for Abacha, I don't deny that he may have appointed some competent people in his government in his quest for legitimacy, but that doesn't mean that his government was actually serious about development or long-term planning. What's the legacy of Abacha's nearly 5 years in office?

And I actually did live in Nigeria in the period in question here (the Abacha regime), and what I remember as a kid is frequently not having electricity, and then when the power went on and then off soon after, my father would raise his fist and curse NEPA and Abacha.

ojogbontomoye:
Whats wrong here? people do it ll the time, even in advanced countries. These are administrative positions  that need absolutely no technical input from their head. The President of the World bank has no background in money. Does that mean the POTUS is incompetent for nominating  someone with no monetary background to such a sensitive post?

Well I'm not sure that with regard to the specific developmental positions I'm talking about that this actually does happen frequently in advanced countries.

President of the World Bank? Is that really an appropriate comparison? How many chairmen of the federal reserve have no background in economics?

Anyway, the fact that advanced countries are developed enough to employ lawyers instead of technocrats in certain positions does not necessarily mean that developing countries should toe the same line.

ojogbontomoye:
Too simplistic a conclusion to come to IMO. A democratic Nigeria spanning the era of Military rule your are referring to would not have fared any better.

Zik? Awo? the Sardauna? Wouldn't have fared better than Gowon, Murtala, and Buhari?

The problem isnt the system per se. The problem is with us as a people. Our psyche is messed up.

What's the specific problem with the Nigerian psyche? What caused it?

That said, coming to a conclusion as the one above is , for lack of a better word, stupiddd really.  How valid and reliable is the conclusion you reacted to? By validity, I mean how reproducible is the research itself and with respect to reliability I want to know how applicable it is to the broader society from which they picked their focus group and  to other cultures/democracies?

We need to ask questions before jumping to conclusions like some have done here ( *Wink* Kilode?). Democracy isnt that bad if only we allow it work, but in Nigeria where every election is rigged on a massive scale, how do you even begin to asses its efficacy.

I'm not concerned that much with the validity of the computer simulation, since very few details were given about the specifics of it by Nagel.

What interests me is the validity of the theory - that democracy, when practiced properly, prevents extremely sub-par leaders (the Mobutu Sese Seko types) from governing a country. That theory makes sense to me, even if I can't prove it or demonstrate it across all cultures. I think it's a good rationale for avoiding military rule.

I am still a big believer in the power of the Average; that is, the average of the over 150 million of us is way better and would result in a better outcome than the result of decisions made by the super-duper intelligent few.

I actually agree with this, although it seems counter-intuitive.

High intelligence is not the only thing necessary to be a great leader or decision maker. Empathy, compassion, wisdom, humility, tact, sensitivity, and a willingness to compromise all come into play and the people with highest intelligence do not always have the rest of these qualities in high amounts (for example, Lawrence Summers in the U.S.). Opinions/ideas informed not just by intelligence but by these other factors are why just putting a bunch of brainiacs in a room and giving them free reign isn't always the best idea.

bittyend:
I partially disagree with that statement - Buhari and Murtala were better than all the civilian rule we've had in this country since 1966. Their regimes were kinda short - but they both made instant impacts on the lives of the populace. The same can't be said of the our so-called democracy. Badluck Jonathan has been there for a year now - and the guy has done absolutely NOTHING.

Babangida destroyed the boys in khaki - the guy did nothing all through his tenure - he robbed the country blind; legalized corruption; opened the borders to drug smuggling; and institutionalized 419. Abacha on the other hand tried a little bit, but no one gave him a breathing a space - there was pressure from everywhere, and the guy went nutz because he couldn't handle the pressure. The west was on this case; Yorubas wanted their June 12 mandate; Nigerians were angry and hungry after suffering eight disastrous years under Babangida; and inflation was like 54%.

if not for Babangida and Abacha to a fault - I don't think military rule in naija was as bad as people are saying it is.

During the regime of Buhari and even the short regime of Murtala, there were obviously more competent civilians who could have governed the nation and who probably would have taken a more serious approach to development and hired competent technocrats to improve the country.

Take a look at Buhari's cabinet, for example. In addition to having a bunch of military guys - soldiers rather than technocrats - holding sensitive developmental positions in his cabinet, he also put some square pegs in round holes: a veterinarian as minister of agriculture and a virologist as minister of energy. What was he thinking?

An educated civilian politician would be too embarrassed to make such bizarre appointments, as he would not be able to defend his choices when criticized about them repeatedly in the media. Isn't it the case that Buhari also censored some of the media and some criticism of him in the media? That's never good for any government.

Prior to GEJ, Nigeria had a military man, OBJ, in government - which should never have happened. His first 4 years were a big failure. Ekwueme or some other educated civilian would almost certainly have done better. Ekwueme is an architect and GEJ is a zoologist, and neither of these professions have anything to do with good governance, politics, diplomacy, economics or even social planning, but I have no doubt that any educated civilian would at least be competent enough not to appoint soldiers to sensitive developmental positions or do something like appointing a virologist (Tam David-West) as minister of energy.

In the case of GEJ, he has actually hired quite a few competent people already. His real problems are corruption and the deteriorating security situation in the country. Both of these things are problems that he is too meek and timid to tackle effectively. But in terms of economic and social development, I would put more trust in any educated civilian than these military guys.

Nagel concluded that democracies rarely or never elect the best leaders. Their advantage over dictatorships or other forms of government is merely that they "effectively prevent lower-than-average candidates from becoming leaders."

That's a pretty good reason to opt for democracy. Look at the era of military rule in Nigeria. More than 2 decades of national development lost.

Great thread.

https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/ao/web-large/vs1978_412_304.jpg

Figure Fragment: Leopard Head

Date:
early 17th century (?)
Geography:
Nigeria, Court of Benin
Culture:
Edo peoples
Medium:
Brass, pigment (?)
Dimensions:
H. 8 5/8 x W. 7 3/8 x D. 4 1/2 in. (21.9 x 18.8 x 11.4 cm)
Classification:
Metal-Sculpture

https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/ao/web-large/vs1992_394.jpg

Sword

Date:
19th century
Geography:
Nigeria, Court of Benin
Culture:
Edo peoples
Medium:
Iron
Dimensions:
Length 28-3/4 in.
Classification:
Metal-Implement

https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/ao/web-large/1991.17.153_a.JPG

https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/ao/web-large/1991.17.153_b.JPG

Ritual Object

Date:
16th–20th century
Geography:
Nigeria, Court of Benin
Culture:
Edo peoples
Medium:
Brass
Dimensions:
Length 10-1/2 in.
Classification:
Metal-Sculpture

https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/ao/web-large/vs1991_17_56.jpg

Figure: Leopard Head

Date:
18th–19th century
Geography:
Nigeria, Court of Benin
Culture:
Edo peoples
Medium:
Brass, iron
Dimensions:
Height 8-3/4 in.
Classification:
Metal-Sculpture

https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/ao/web-large/vs1991_162_8.jpg

Staff Fragment: Seated Oba

Date:
18th–19th century
Geography:
Nigeria, Court of Benin
Culture:
Edo peoples
Medium:
Brass, iron
Dimensions:
H. 13 1/2 x W. 2 3/8 x D. 3 3/8 in. (34.3 x 6.1 x 8.6 cm)
Classification:
Metal-Sculpture

https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/ao/web-large/vs1991_17_98.jpg

Staff: Seated Oba

Date:
18th–19th century
Geography:
Nigeria, Court of Benin
Culture:
Edo peoples
Medium:
Brass, iron
Dimensions:
H. 25 1/4 x W. 3 1/8 x D. 3 1/8 in. (64.1 x 7.9 x 7.9 cm)
Classification:
Metal-Sculpture

https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/ao/web-large/DP231458.jpg

https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/ao/web-large/25b%20Cat.%20no.%20I.08R1_98S.jpg

https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/ao/web-large/25a%20Cat.%20no%20I.08%20detailR1_98S.jpg

https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/ao/web-large/DP231459.jpg

https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/ao/web-large/DP234550.jpg

Rattle Staff: Oba Akenzua I Standing on an Elephant (Ukhurhe)

Date:
1725–50
Geography:
Nigeria
Culture:
Edo
Medium:
Bronze, copper, iron
Dimensions:
H. 63 1/2 x W. 1 7/8 in. (161.3 x 4.8 cm)
Classification:
Metal-Implement



'In the Benin kingdom of southern Nigeria, rattle staffs, or ukhurhe, are an essential feature of Benin ancestral altars, whether for kings, chiefs, or commoners. These staffs have a hollow rattle chamber near the summit, and they are shaken while uttering prayers at the altars to attract the attention of the ancestors. Ukhurhe may be made of wood or brass, although the brass examples are found only on royal altars.

This staff was created to memorialize Akenzua I, an oba (king) who ruled the Benin kingdom in the early eighteenth century. A rebel chief called Iyase n'Ode challenged Akenzua's reign and civil war ensued. With the help of his military commander, or ezomo, Akenzua ultimately emerged victorious, and the iconography displayed on this ukhurhe refers to this military triumph. In Benin, elephants are a traditional symbol of chiefdom and, according to Benin oral literature, Iyase n'Ode had the ability to change himself into an elephant to vanquish his enemies. Here, Oba Akenzua stands triumphantly on an elephant holding a miniature ukhurhe and a stone axe head, an object associated with warfare and death. Leopards, the preeminent symbol of royalty in Benin art, flank the elephant on either side to suggest the oba's ability to regulate the power of his chiefs. Swords of authority called eben appear in relief along the shaft of the ukhurhe, and toward the bottom a crocodile, representative of the water deity Olokun, indicates the importance of overseas trade to the prosperity of Akenzua's kingdom. At the base of the staff, a second elephant most likely represents the ezomo; his trunk ends in a human hand holding medicinal leaves, a motif in Benin art representing victory and power.'

https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/ao/web-large/DT6584.jpg

Rattle Staff: Three Figures (Ukhurhe)

Date:
19th century
Geography:
Nigeria, Court of Benin
Culture:
Edo peoples
Medium:
Wood, pigment, cowries, brass bell
Dimensions:
Height 60 in.
Classification:
Wood-Sculpture