₦airaland Forum

obaaderemi:
You are a regular Jekyll and Hyde case,Tayser.One moment you are lucid,another moment you derail completely like an indian train.Do you people just argue for the heck of it?[b]BTW,India's percapital is lower than nigeria's percapital but like it's expected,higher than kenya's percapita.[/b]Develop your economy and stop being a $70bn economy for 40m ppl.Why should bumbling India have a higher HDI than a supposedly well run smaller kenya?just curious.

popizaino:
I heard Rawlings wife bought nsawam cannery how true is that?

Hbuyosh:
Very good observation. However, tht shld more be said about Nigeria and not Kenya.
You u have correctly pointed out that your Gdp per capita is higher than both of India and Kenya (fyi, the per capita of India and Kenya are almost equal), yet they both have higher HDI than Nigeria and lower poverty index as well.

Kenya is 80 arid, with well over 80% of the polulation concentrated in, and depending on the smaller 20% portion which is fertile. Kenya, until the oil was discovered recently, had no mineral resources, mining contributed below 1% to its economy.
Contrast that with Nigeria......what exactly is Nigerias's excuse?

DonnieTheGreat:
Baba abeg can you give me suggestion to similar Youtube channels i really enjoyed Hind's videos.I've been binge watching her channel.Thanks

iamord:
very true there, they are not saint's either

freshest4live:
Lol, assuming a strong nation from any region wanna conquer Africa beginning from their region, Ethiopia would stroll through East Africa, with uganda and kenya resisting to no avail, but in the North there is Egypt with an army funded by the U.S, and then Algeria. In the South there is South Africa who faces no threat from their region. Angola with oil money and a stubborn Zimbabwe maybe, but both of these nations would be flattened by southafrica in a matter of days.
In central Africa, Congo should lead Cameroon but both combined stand no chance whatsoever.
In the west, Benin, Chad and Niger would surrender before the battle even begins.
Hmm in the context of an African take over by any country or group of countries without allies outside Africa, it would be bloody and there may likely be no victor. Just thinking for fun though, lol.

Hbuyosh:
Very good observation. However, tht shld more be said about Nigeria and not Kenya.
You u have correctly pointed out that your Gdp per capita is higher than both of India and Kenya (fyi, the per capita of India and Kenya are almost equal), yet they both have higher HDI than Nigeria and lower poverty index as well.

Kenya is 80 arid, with well over 80% of the polulation concentrated in, and depending on the smaller 20% portion which is fertile. Kenya, until the oil was discovered recently, had no mineral resources, mining contributed below 1% to its economy.
Contrast that with Nigeria......what exactly is Nigerias's excuse?

obaaderemi:
You must be Ghanaian.The rot of the Rawlings years sent many Ghanaians to Nigeria.I grew up with Ghanaians in Ibadan.Ghana and Nigeria are joined at the waist.At times I don't understand the rivalry between our two countries.

freshest4live:
Your excuses for Kenya still do not cut it. Kenya's HDI is not also high in Africa and many smaller nations with little resources have better HDI than Kenya, so what is Kenya's problem?
Note also that Zambia has a better HDI than Kenya despite a lower GDP per capita sthan that of Kenya.

freshest4live:
Lol, how many developed nations have oil? Nigeria was doing better before oil, our talents showed in various sectors within that short period, we were diversified. But the oil came and with money and the good life, we relaxed.
Corruption today was magnified on a larger scale partly due to this oil bloom. With the greed of politicians, the economy sank, but those at the top kept looting, many youths began to believe it is all man for himself, it doesn't matter as long as you make the money. In my opinion Nigeria with our population would have been much better without oil, if we had achieved political stability also.

freshest4live:
You have misunderstood my argument, l'm not saying Nigeria isn't living under her weight or saying the British caused all problems, but rather you can't compare Nigeria's foundation to that of western countries and not even to south Korea. Japan colonizing south Korea is child's play, they are still alike and understand themselves better than the Nigerian- British relationship.
You are also making excuses for Ghana, there are smaller countries in Europe doing much better than Ghana and with lesser resources, by your logic, this shouldn't be so.
Resources do not make nations but education and ideas. Congo has far more resources than we have, l also used to think Ghana was called the gold coast because of gold correct me if l'm wrong though.
So my point is you give Ghana far too many excuses if we are to go by your standard against Nigeria and you underrate the continual effect of colonialism especially from the French on the continent. There was a time ECOWAS was about introducing Eco as the only currency for west African states, the francophone nations kicked against it, because they valued the French currency, Nigeria had no power to face the French who would never easily give up her colonies completely and so the idea was abandoned. This is why l say Africa is still colonized indirectly and the comparison with South Korea is out of place.

iamord:
school of thought. do you know that Ghana had More millionaires in achempobg time than in Rawlings. this is not to criticize​ the house cleaning exercise but I think was a lot of witch hunting that could have been avoided in the process. there were great Ghanaian owned companies that should have been sustained till now. am talking about the likes of rothmans cigrattes, the first cigratte company in West Africa.I bet people dont know that this brand was owed by a Ghanaian before he got his property conifscated. and sold off to bat.the nsawam cannery etc. I think in the process of the house cleaning he damages the entepreneurial spirit of well meaning Ghanaians to an extent

Hbuyosh:
This is about Kenya vs Nigeria.....2015, we were ranked in the Medium table, u were ranked at the Low table.

http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/HDI

And in that "Low" list are several small countries of Africa. Your notion that smaller countries are easier to develop ia challenged right there.

Nigeria is mucj wealthier, but what is the problem? You think your population sizs is the problem? Look at India!

vaxx:
not at all. You blame colonialism for nigeria underdevelopment. I said it is wrong to do so. Well south korea is a good example. You need to read about her ordeal in the hands of japan. It is far worst comparing with nigeria during the day of colonialism.Theriefore it is a good example.

as i said earlier ghana too needs to be blame. but she perform better in citizens welfare comparing to nigeria currently. i belive it shouild be the opposite. why？ nigeria has a larger population which she can use for her own advantage. ,she possess a larger quantity of natural resources, Enough phd holder than any african state , A ballon of respected scholars more than any african state and so many positive example. Second largest bitumen deposit in the world behind canada.

yes some countries are performing better than ghana not only in europe. even in asia. singapore is a good example. singapore does not even own enough land talkless of arable land for agriculture yet she is able to grow enough food for her consumption and even for export.

both Ghana and nigeria are not doing well using the advantage of what they have at their disposal .i belive nigeria by now should be compare to advance world in terms of development not ghana or kenya becuse she has more resources to be in that position than kenya and ghana in combine. Ghana too should have go far not her present position.

you cant neglect the role of natural resources likewise education. sound education begat
good idea. UAE is one of the weathy nation today becuse of natural resources. saudi arabia ,kuwait and qatar alike. good education buttress natural resources. nigeria is bless abundantly with the two. So what else do you need？ is the education not sound enough to pull the nation out of underdevelopment with her abundant natural resources. UAE has oil and nothing more. What was use in developing dubai today comes from oil. What is stoping nigeria. The same question to ghana. What is stoping her from development with her abundant land and fertile soil.



t
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shervydman:
ok......no excuses for both Nigeria and Kenya as we're still developing nations. so, when talking about HDI's, we need to understand that HDI's not like GDP whereby a country can be the 1st,2nd,3rd and so on.....HDI's ranges from VERY HIGH to VERY LOW.

now, Africa being a developing country automatically guarantees a low HDI unlike the developed countries. as a matter of fact, Africa's highest rated country will be considered lowest if it was an European country.

India having a higher HDI than both Nigeria and Kenya doesn't mean we aren't growing, it only mean we're still undergoing 'metamorphosis' and our poverty index is also reducing drastically.

popizaino:
ok.there were early signs of resurgence of the cannery when she newly acquired it but don't know why nothing is happening there yet making blue skies the only saving grace of the youths in the town.

Rawlings came to power first through a popular uprising in 1979 as a military man. He led the AFRC junta and handed over power to Hilla Liman after a few months in office. On December 31 1981, Rawlings led a coup d'état which overthrew the democratically elected government of Dr. Hilla Liman. He ran a military dictatorship under the PNDC government between 1981 -1992 before putting off his military uniform to run a pseudo democratic government for another eight years until the year 2000.

Before grudgingly handing over power in the year 2000, Rawlings attempted to perpetuate himself in power for much longer but his sinister moves were resisted by members of his own government. In recent comments, Rawlings confessingly said, '"we (NDC) could have stayed on for another eight or sixteen just to work to consolidate situations very well and proper."

"I made a suggestion to my colleagues that considering that people are becoming saturated with us or with me, let me let Justice Annan take over and I can be his number 2 or step aside. He can serve four years or eight years then I could come back, and that will be sixteen years of consolidation because what we had noticed was that these characters will destroy anything and everything so let's not allow it."

He continued, "Some of my comrades said no and that, it's never been done before. Is that not what Putin did recently? We would have been the first to do it here. That would have helped to consolidate because quite often we make reference to institutions but the institutions rely on the human factor and if those human entities are not bold enough to defy that which is wrong, that institution will be weak; am I lying?" he asked.



Today, We can say that Rawlings wanted several more years to consolidate the killing of local industry and the forcing of foreign goods on Ghanaians,and therefore the destruction of the local industry.



During these nineteen (19) odd years, Mr. Rawlings and his wife Nana Konadu Agyeman – Rawlings governed with terror using what he himself describes as the 'shock effect' and the 'fear factor'.



He did this through several extra judicial killings, imprisonment, torture and seizure of private properties and enterprises. Also killed or imprisoned anyone that he considered 'enemy of the revolution'.



This 'reign of terror' targeted at the local industry forced into exile, detention, and the ultimately the grave, many wealthy business men and women whose businesses formed the industrial base of Ghana in the 70s and 80s and appeared to be Rawlings' main target, for he labeled them all as 'enemies of the revolution'.



The list of Ghanaian businesses which were either destroyed or taken over by the government of the AFRC/PNDC/NDC under Rawlings and later given away to members of the Rawlings regime/family or to foreign interests for a pittance is endless.

A notable example of a local industrialist whose industry was destroyed was Mr. Joshua Kwabena Siaw, a native of Kwahu Akwasiho in the Eastern region. Originally a teacher, the man gradually began building a business in the Brewing industry. In 1973 during Col. I.K Acheampong's regime, he opened the largest brewery in West Africa at Achimota, a suburb of Accra. The brewery produced Tata beer for the local market and exported Maltex, then a very popular soft drink, to Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Senegal, and The Gambia.

Unfortunately under a so-called 'house-cleaning' exercise under Rawlings targeting local businessmen identified as collaborators of Kalabule, (a system of price hikes), Rawlings arrested and confiscated the brewery of Mr Siaw with the lame excuse that he had been hoarding sugar at a time the commodity was scarce on the open market. A trumped-up charge of tax evasion was later added and he was thrown into jail.

Mr. Siaw later managed to escape and fled into exile in Liberia on transit to South London, where he died in obscurity in1986. His company Tata Brewery was sold by Rawlings to foreigners. It is now in the hands of foreign owners - Guinness Ghana Breweries Limited.

Since his death, Mr. Siaw's children have been engaged in protracted legal tussle to retrieve his properties, including the brewery, but justice has eluded them ever since.

Another example is Mr. Benjamin Amponsah Mensah popularly known as BA Mensah who had established many local business initiatives. For example the International Tobacco Company Limited at North Kaneshie in Accra manufactured Rothmans King Size cigarettes. His main competitors were American-owned Pioneer Tobacco Company, producers of 555 cigarettes.
After the in June 4 1979 military takeovers led by J.J Rawlings, Mr. B.A. Mensah was accused of not paying taxes as an excuse to seize all his assets, including the International Tobacco Company Limited. International Tabacco Company limited was among several indigenous Ghanaian companies aided by the Acheampong regime with a five- year tax holiday to encourage the growth of the local industry and to enable them compete with foreign companies effectively.

Unfortunately, many of these local businesses which were helped by Col Acheampong to grow ended up dead in the hands of Rawlings and alongside Col. I.K Acheampong himself who was shot by Rawlings after taking over power.

We can also remind ourselves of Mr. Yaw Boakye, another business tycoon who was a victim of the Rawlings legacy. At a time when the local manufacturing of mattresses was unknown, he set up a factory to produce deluxe mattresses.

Mr. Yaw Boakye also established a state of the art private hospital at Cantonment in Accra. When Rawlings took over power, Mr. Boakye was one of the first victims of his brutalities. His mattress factory was seized, and the hospital confiscated to the state.

The Police Hospital in Accra today, was originally Mr. Yaw Boakye's private hospital. The property was seized and handed over to the Ghana Police to operate as a Centre for medical care of senior police officers.

Those above fifty years will remember a popular car assembly plant called Kowus Motors. It was established by late Kofi Owusu, who acquired R.T. Briscoe when they were sent packing, and operated a wholly Ghanaian-owned assembly plant. Like many successful Ghanaian businesses, Kowus Motors bacame victim of the AFRC and PNDC aversion to successful native initiatives.

Vacuum Salt Products Limited (VSPL), was confiscated from the late S.C. Appenteng in 1992, under the pseudo democratic rule of Rawlings and co.

The bitter truth is that Jerry John Rawlings and his regime did such irreparable damage to the local manufacturing industry that it would take more than mere speeches to get Ghanaian men and women to commit their resource and know-how into manufacturing goods for local consumption especially since they cannot compete with foreign capital bringing already finished goods into Ghana. No wonder, shopping malls have taken over manufacturing industry in Ghana.

If there will always be pressure on the cedi to fall, it is due to our forced love for foreign goods by Rawlings AFRC/PNDC brutal policies which encouraged the selling of imported items, rather than manufacturing them at home. If there are no local goods on the Ghanaian market today, it was Rawlings and his AFRC/PNDC/NDC who once cleared the local market of Made in Ghana goods.

Interestingly, by the time Rawlings and his PNDC/NDC were forced by the IMF and the World Bank to introduce economic reforms to recover the sinking Ghanaian economy of the 80s, there were a few local business men and women who were capable of taking advantage of the divestiture implementation program under the economic Reform Programs of the IMF and World Bank.

At this point, Rawlings and his cronies then began to loot and share among themselves most of the local business which were either established and ran by the state or seized from private citizens by the state under the guise of a so-called divestiture implementation committee (DIC).

Never known for running any business throughout her life, Nana Konadu Agyeman –Rawlings, wife of Jerry John Rawlings used Caridem Corporation, to acquire several public enterprises, including the GIHOC Cannery, GNTC Bakeries, GIHOC Brick and Tile, GNTC Supermarket, Nsawam cannery and the former State Transport Corporation which she run down very badly. Mrs. Rawlings also began running a number of gas stations and supermarkets in Accra and other cities. She also allegedly bought shares in several chains of hotels, including Accra's La Palm Pleasure Beach Hotel and other hotels in other cities in Africa.

Many of these state owned enterprises acquired by wife of Rawlings were never paid for, and in some instances, very little was realized by the state from the sale. It has been suggested that these appropriations of state properties served as retirement packages for Mr. and Mrs. Rawlings who indeed could not account for the proceeds of the economic divestiture program that saw the sale of several hundreds of state enterprises to private sector players.

According to Kojo Appiah-Kubi, a Ghanaian economic historian, 909.617 billion old cedis was realized from the Divestiture program. He also noted in his book that the "the privatization of AGC (Ashanti Goldfields Corporation) alone produced [fetched Ghana] about USD $454 million" (Appiah-Kubi 2001, p.212).

Up until today, nobody in the Rawlings regime can tell Ghanaians how the US$454 million from the sale of AGC or the entire 909.617 billion cedis was squandered. What is clear is that Most Ghanaians who were old enough at the time had cause to worry about where the money ended up.

In 2001 a study by three scholars including Ghana's Professor Gyimah-Boadi to ascertain the success of the P/NDC economic policies including the privatization of State Owned Enterprises and how the proceeds were utilized, found that: "only 7 per cent [of Ghanaians] were some how satisfied" while "over half of all Ghanaians (53 per cent) were dissatisfied" (Bratton/Lewis/Gyimah-Boadi 200, p. 248).

In a word, Jerry John Rawlings and his family and cronies in the AFRC/PNDC/NDC first totally killed off genuine local Ghanaian industries and enterprises by confiscating and turning them into state enterprises only to turn around and sell them/share them off to themselves and other foreign friends and failed to account to the people of Ghana.

This is the only truly enduring legacy of nineteen (19) years of Rawlings AFRC/PNDC/NDC government. All of Ghana's economic problems today take its roots from this bad legacy which handed over every profitable business in Ghana to foreigners at the expense of the local economy and industry.

obaaderemi:
But in which ways were the British better than the french as colonisers in Africa?Our people need to stop using colonisation as an excuse and move on.Morocco,Algeria and Tunisia were also colonised by france but are doing quite well today.Algeria suffered seriously at the hand of france but finally pushed out france.

vaxx:
not at all. You blame colonialism for nigeria underdevelopment. I said it is wrong to do so. Well south korea is a good example. You need to read about her ordeal in the hands of japan. It is far worst comparing with nigeria during the day of colonialism.Theriefore it is a good example.

as i said earlier ghana too needs to be blame. but she perform better in citizens welfare comparing to nigeria currently. i belive it shouild be the opposite. why？ nigeria has a larger population which she can use for her own advantage. ,she possess a larger quantity of natural resources, Enough phd holder than any african state , A ballon of respected scholars more than any african state and so many positive example. Second largest bitumen deposit in the world behind canada.

yes some countries are performing better than ghana not only in europe. even in asia. singapore is a good example. singapore does not even own enough land talkless of arable land for agriculture yet she is able to grow enough food for her consumption and even for export.

both Ghana and nigeria are not doing well using the advantage of what they have at their disposal .i belive nigeria by now should be compare to advance world in terms of development not ghana or kenya becuse she has more resources to be in that position than kenya and ghana in combine. Ghana too should have go far not her present position.

you cant neglect the role of natural resources likewise education. sound education begat
good idea. UAE is one of the weathy nation today becuse of natural resources. saudi arabia ,kuwait and qatar alike. good education buttress natural resources. nigeria is bless abundantly with the two. So what else do you need？ is the education not sound enough to pull the nation out of underdevelopment with her abundant natural resources. UAE has oil and nothing more. What was use in developing dubai today comes from oil. What is stoping nigeria. The same question to ghana. What is stoping her from development with her abundant land and fertile soil.



t
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shervydman:
our corrupt leaders........... they're to be blamed for this!

freshest4live:
Nobody is using colonization as an excuse, nobody is saying we shouldn't move on, my point is that Africa is growing slowly but steadily, if we can achieve political stability and unite for the common good with better institutions to fight corruption.
The point we are making is that subsaharan Africa is not totally free from the French. I do not know whom to blame for this, Africa or Frances? I blame both. For example l do not know who to blame for Cameroon's situation even though they claim to be bilingual like Canada. Do we blame Biya or Frances? Both of course.

Hbuyosh:
U want to put the whole of Africa in the same category aa Nigeria.....nice try! SA, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and even Kenya would say an emphatic no! For they are ranked in the mid- Human Development category, while Nigeria....

2015

http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/HDI

freshest4live:
Yeah l know we are at the low level but l see you also avoided my question. Kenya are almost at that level even with a somewhat moderate GDP per capita by African standards.

freshest4live:
OK and yet India has more advanced Technology, Economy and military than Kenya. The problem then is HDI which is usually a problem with all populated second and third world nations. All these do not make Kenya better than India or Botswana better than Kenya. India has a GDP of 2.074 trillion dollars to Kenya's 75 billion dollars but even that is not enough for them and they still struggle with electric power with Mumbai having many slums, yet Kenya still cannot claim to be more powerful than India in the eyes of the world.

Hbuyosh:
We were at that low ranking just a few years ago, if u can check out th me 2014 rankings. But, even with our less than satisfactory ranking there, the point here is that we are better than u in this aspect!

We are comparing Kenya and Nigeria here. Donttry to shift the focus by bringing other countries into the debate. Kenya after all fares better than over about 80% of the countries, including those tiny ones u seem to assume are easier to develop.

TayserMahiri:


I don't believe in Him, but I like some of his attributes. Not his big fan though.

So you counted 25? Can you tell us which was your first and last floor to count? Did you count the dome structure at the top? It also caters for the height! As Karmakill told you, there were to be two penthouses at the top initially, which was revised in the final render. You should see some extra protrusion at the left edge of the top. So if you counted from the front side, know you need to add an extra floor, I hope you have some sense of scale. There you go 25 + 1 = 26. That is 26 floors without counting the dome structure. I am sure you counted the basement!

freshest4live:
No matter the ordeal of south Korea with Japan, they are still brothers and south Korea is free now but not many Africans are totally free today maybe a fault of theirs, but again like l said the comparison is worthless.
Yes l agree with you, Quatar and UAE is doing better and of course Nigeria is definitely punching below her weight.
There are examples of countries in the world as well with few natural resources like Ghana doing better because ideas with good policies under visionary leadership is more powerful than resources, and they fuel the resources. Ghana has always boasted to our face of having these better than Nigeria, Ghanians believe they are less corrupt with a more peaceful environment and stable electricity, so Ghana has the advantage to rank amongst top ten in Africa considering how low the bar is for Africa. We are both failures and should hide our heads under the pillow in shame.

freshest4live:
No matter the ordeal of south Korea with Japan, they are still brothers and south Korea is free now but not many Africans are totally free today maybe a fault of theirs, but again like l said the comparison is worthless.
Yes l agree with you, Quatar and UAE is doing better and of course Nigeria is definitely punching below her weight.
There are examples of countries in the world as well with few natural resources like Ghana doing better because ideas with good policies under visionary leadership is more powerful than resources, and they fuel the resources. Ghana has always boasted to our face of having these better than Nigeria, Ghanians believe they are less corrupt with a more peaceful environment and stable electricity, so Ghana has the advantage to rank amongst top ten in Africa considering how low the bar is for Africa. We are both failures and should hide our heads under the pillow in shame.

nemesis2u:
i hope u know that India exports surplus electricity to neighboring countries.

slums in Mumbai r not ur average slums , example the dhravi slum in Mumbai has its own GDP of 4-5+ billion dollars and counting....., they export their products/services to Europe US and even china

freshest4live:
Lol, l brought other countries so you'll understand your yardstick better. Kudos to Kenya for the improvement though. And many of those tiny nations were war torn nations.

Legonviking:
We were made to believe that Lt.Gn Acheampong was the worst Ghanaian leader and needed to be tied on the stake and shot.
You are right.In his time B.A Mensah established a tobacco factory ,while Siaw established a brewery which were later confiscated by Rawlings and sold to foreign investors on flimsy excuse of tax evasion.

obaaderemi:
You are a regular Jekyll and Hyde case,Tayser.One moment you are lucid,another moment you derail completely like an indian train.Do you people just argue for the heck of it?BTW,India's percapital is lower than nigeria's percapital but like it's expected,higher than kenya's percapita.Develop your economy and stop being a $70bn economy for 40m ppl.Why should bumbling India have a higher HDI than a supposedly well run smaller kenya?just curious.

Hbuyosh:
We were at that low ranking just a few years ago, if u can check out th me 2014 rankings. But, even with our less than satisfactory ranking there, the point here is that we are better than u in this aspect!

We are comparing Kenya and Nigeria here. Donttry to shift the focus by bringing other countries into the debate. Kenya after all fares better than over about 80% of the countries, including those tiny ones u seem to assume are easier to develop.