₦airaland Forum

Lol. It is a worldwide challenge.

saintopus:
What's this one saying?

South Korea devalue their currency deliberately. Because they have a producing and exporting economies so its good for them but its suicidal for a nation like Nigeria that produces nothing apart from oil.

Arabs too depend on oil. The difference is corruption level.

Just like that?

I 'winch' you good luck.

If she has done this because husband didn't help out with house cores, then I am didsapointed.
There are chances such a home has many devices and machines to simplify tasks around the house. Blender, gas cooker, mixers, water pump. Why force help from someone who has probably helped with one or two helping gadgets.

I noticed it too. Light skinned rounding up the darker skinned Sudanese. It is well.

Kelvinnchucks:
Even the richest man in Africa is finding it hard to maintain.. I wonder how pastors do it

if he wants to eat three cows n 50 litres of wine a day, he can without feeling it in his purse like common will feel a bottle of coke.

Too early OP. It takes time to mature.

Pakistan is another Nigeria. In fact it is the closest thing to Nigeria. Population. Development. Attitude. Corruption. Economy. Migration pattern. Remittance level.
If countries were to be classified by similarities, Pakistan will be our twin country.

successmatters:
Lagos was developed by the whole Nigerians, with Niger Delta oil money. Most of the infrastructure you see in Lagos, the people celebrating lagos today didn't know how it came about.

Lagos and the region it belongs in has its feeding bottle still in the Niger Delta region, see how deceptive they are, they will be celebrating lagos with oil money and if you tell them to form their own country, they will refuse. You wan hunger to finish them?

If you quote me, you will get withlow on your finger

Diezani stole and went to Lagos to sandfill water just to build a high rise there. Stop saying our money. Most standout properties in that Lagos are owned by SS and SE folks.

Wack culture on display. So so Iro & Buba I dey see. No kembe or abitiaja there.

That thing isn't comfortable for him. He must have a strong reason for doing it.

Banned SM. Closed borders.

The man was a more than that. An accident.

slivertongue:
That is happens when petty characters occupy position of authority.

lol.

He has always been like that.

Looking CAC abi na celestial.

By now we should be saving more than N1Trillion a month.

This osusu intellectual feels any group he cannot bully is just emerging. They have been around for ages and technology is only giving so many of them a platform to challenge people like Soyinka, who before now, had their hypocrisy unchecked. The ability to.afford technology and use it only adds to their feeling of superiority.
Wole Soyinka was a product of occultic system.

Spiro, a startup looking to eliminate fuel-guzzling motorbikes and scooters from the roads by trading them in for electric two-wheelers, is expanding to Kenya.

Ahead of the first Africa Climate Summit, which kicked off in Kenya’s capital Nairobi today, the host government announced on Friday that the e-bike and battery-swapping startup would be entering the East African country with its biggest deployment yet: 1.2 million electric vehicles.

This marks a major milestone for the company founded in the West African country of Benin in 2022, says CEO Jules Samain – vastly increasing its fleet from the 10,000 bikes currently in operation across Benin, Togo and Rwanda. This autumn, the company will also begin its five-year rollout of 140,000 bikes in Uganda.

Crushing polluters
Spiro’s goal is not only “to reduce pollution sources, but to eliminate them,” Samain tells CNN. Once an old bike has been traded in, the parts will be recycled and repurposed, he explains, adding that the company has held “crushing events” in both Benin and Togo, where motorized vehicles are publicly flattened before the material is reused.

The process for drivers differs between countries. In Kenya, they will be offered 50,000 Kenyan shillings (about $344) – around a third of the price of a new electric bike – to swap their existing bike for an electric one. They can then pay a daily subscription of around 255 Kenyan shillings (about $2) which repays the outstanding balance and gives drivers access to battery-swap stations, where they can quickly switch out depleted batteries for fully charged ones.

Not only does the scheme reduce the number of petrol and diesel vehicles on the road and associated air pollution, but it also cuts costs for drivers in both fuel and maintenance, according to the company. The startup notes that some of its motorbike taxi drivers have reported profits rising from around $6 to $11 a day since joining the scheme.

A 2022 report from the FIA Foundation, an international transport and road safety charity, found that while the purchase price of electric motorcycles is currently greater than that of petrol-powered motorcycles, the operating costs are cheaper. It says that in many African countries, one liter of petrol will power a bike for about the same distance as one kilowatt-hour of electricity but will cost five to 10 times more.

The report adds that battery-swapping initiatives are key in making electric two-wheelers more affordable, because when an electric motorcycle is sold without the battery, it significantly reduces the initial purchase price.


But for battery-swapping to work, there needs to be “reliable and accessible charging infrastructure,” says Samain. “Before distributing the first bike, we build a network of swapping stations, and they aren’t placed randomly: we carefully study the terrain and position our swapping stations in both urban and rural areas, ensuring extensive coverage.”

Spiro has committed to building 3,000 of these stations across Kenya, meaning that drivers can rid themselves of range anxiety, while also contributing to building up the nation’s electric vehicle infrastructure. The company, which currently manufactures most of its bikes and scooters in China, has also agreed to establish a manufacturing base in Kenya to generate local jobs.

Kenya’s president William Ruto, speaking in the coastal city of Mombasa at the launch of the initiative, said: “It creates jobs and transfers knowledge, technology and skills to our market in a very sustainable way.”

TOPSHOT - Kenya's President William Ruto uses an electric motorcycle during the national launch of an electric motorcycle project dubbed e-bodaboda at Kenyan Coastal city of Mombasa on September 1, 2023. The initiative launched by Kenya's President William Ruto is a collaboration between the Government of Kenya and Spiro, an electric two-wheeler company.This agreement, centred around the delivery of over a million (1.2 million) electric motorcycles and the establishment of more than 3,000 swapping stations in Kenya. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)
President William Ruto drives a Spiro electric motorcycle during the national launch of the initiative in Mombasa, Kenya.

Charging forward
https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/230904094250-spiro-3.jpg
[color=#777777]President William Ruto drives a Spiro electric motorcycle during the national launch of the initiative in Mombasa, Kenya.[/color]

According to the FIA Foundation, there were 27 million motorbikes registered in sub-Saharan Africa in 2022, rising from just 5 million in 2010, with around 80% of them used in the motorcycle taxi industry. The demand for two-wheelers is expected to grow even further, with a report from management consulting firm McKinsey estimating that electric and petrol motorbikes will make up over 45% of sub-Saharan Africa’s overall vehicle fleet by 2040.

McKinsey warns that with increased demand, second-hand motorized vehicles that don’t meet emission standards in other countries around the world might end up being sold in Africa, where there is weak regulation. To avoid the continent becoming a “dumping ground” for unwanted polluting vehicles, enabling affordable and reliable electrification will be key, it says.

Spiro, formerly known as M-Auto, is just one of the startups fueling this transition. Swedish-Kenyan startup Roam (formerly Opibus), which converts old vehicles to run off electric motors, opened East Africa’s largest electric motorcycle assembly plant earlier this year, while Ampersand has a fleet of around 1,000 bikes as well as a small network of battery-swap stations across Kenya and Rwanda. Last week, US company Uber also launched an electric motorbike service in Kenya, promising to roll out 3,000 bikes within six months.

But the scale of Spiro’s Kenya expansion dwarfs all existing fleets. “We’re surpassing the symbolic but significant milestone of one million electric bikes signed with a government,” says Samain. The startup has its foot on the accelerator, and by 2030, he wants it to be operating in at least 10 African countries.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/04/africa/spiro-battery-swap-africa-electric-bikes-spc-intl/index.html


Cc: nlfpmod

[Continuation]

`Kind culture’
Balzano has been able to form a strong network of friends made up of other expats, as well as locals, and feels very much at peace.

“The people here are just so warm, inviting and authentic,” she says. “It’s a very kind culture.

“It’s a less aggressive existence than Miami, which is a very aggressive city.”

She has nothing but praise for the “amazing” Colombia’s healthcare system – the World Health Organization ranked it at number 22 in an analysis of 191 countries, which she had already used during previous visits.

“I think a misconception that a lot of Americans have, is that US healthcare is the best in the world,” she notes. “And I will beg to differ on that.”

In fact, the country’s “manageable” healthcare costs led Balzano to launch her own consulting business, Global Connect Marketing Services, in June, something that had been a dream of hers for many years.

“I never could do it in the US because of the healthcare situation,” she explains. “It’s very expensive to carry health insurance when you work on your own.”

She’s also a big fan of Medellin’s “world class” shopping malls.

“They’re vibrant,” Balzano adds. “US shopping centers are struggling to stay vibrant. Here, that’s not the case.”

She tries to avoid purchasing imported goods, which will inevitably cost more, but admits to splashing out on some crunchy peanut butter every now and then.

However, Balzano has found one particular item to be more expensive in Colombia than back home – wine.

“The wine selection is very limited,” she says, explaining that much of the wine that’s on offer is from nearby Argentina and Chile. “And what you can find is relatively expensive.”

Balzano admits that the subject of safety often comes up when she’s questioned about her life in Medellin, once considered the most dangerous city in the world.

But while Colombia has long been associated with drugs and gangs, the country’s murder rate dropped by 82% from 1993 to 2018, and crime rates in Medellin have lowered significantly over the years.

Although Balzano acknowledges that crime is still a problem, she feels that this is comparative to “any large city in the US.”

“There’s crime in most places,” she adds.

Balzano goes on to describe how she’s learned to be cautious with her cellphone or any “electronics or laptops” while out and about.

“You have to not be walking around the street with your head buried in MapQuest [an online web mapping service] trying to navigate the street,” she adds, noting that this is something that “culturally takes some time to adjust to.”

“However, in all the times I’ve come here over eight years, I have never had a negative experience in terms of my personal safety.”

While Balzano accepts that many travelers still have pre-conceived notions about Medellin, she says that she and her expat friends feel incredibly grateful to be living there, and consider it as something of a “best kept secret.”

“Medellin is a different city today,” she says. “That doesn’t mean that it’s perfect. But it is not the Medellin of the ’80s and the ‘90s, and a lot of people still believe that [it is].”

Balzano, whose former husband is from Costa Rica, lived in Latin America previously, and has always had a huge appreciation for the culture.

“It’s warm, it’s inviting, it’s vibrant, and it’s alive,” she says. “I just feel that Colombia needs its heyday.

“It’s a beautiful place. People here paid their price to live the lives that they’re living now.”

She says she’d advise anyone considering moving to Colombia to do plenty of research beforehand, and “come with their eyes wide open.”

“This isn’t Europe,” she says. “It’s Latin America. And Latin America is grittier than I think a life in Spain [would be]. That [the grit] is part of what I like about it.”

No regrets
https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/03-balzano.jpg?c=original
[color=#777777]Balzano says she's happier in Colombia and has a much better quality of life.[/color]

When asked what she misses about living in the US, Balzano concedes that not having a car – she doesn’t feel comfortable driving in Colombia – has taken some getting used to.

“There’s a lot of motorcycles here and they’re allowed to drive in between the lanes,” she explains.

“Driving here would petrify me. So I plan on just using ride shares and taxis. I have no intention of ever getting a car.”

Although Balzano misses her friends in the US, she says that they’re “welcome to come visit whenever they’d like.”

One thing she definitely doesn’t miss is the ”contentious” political climate in America.

Why American families are leaving the US for Europe
In fact, Balzano says that being able to take a step back and look at the political situation in the US “with a much wider lens” has been a breath of fresh air.

“We [her and other US expats] can get out of our own echo chambers,” she says. “And that has actually been very nice.

“It’s been like a load lifted off our shoulders.”

Balzano concedes that she’s stopped feeling guilty that she’s not doing her “civil duty of staying intimately involved in politics.”

“I no longer need to worry about the local politics of Miami,” she says, before explaining that while she pays attention to the political situation in Colombia, as a “guest” of the country, she doesn’t have “the same vested interest in it.”

While Balzano stresses that she’s still adapting to her new life, and not everything has been smooth sailing, she has “zero regrets” and makes a point of always focusing on the positives about the experience.

“I willfully made this decision to come here, so I have chosen to remain focused on all the positives rather than the negatives,” she explains. “Like anywhere in the world, there are pros and cons [to Colombia].

“But as long as the list of pros outweighs the list of cons, I think that this is the right place for me to be.”

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/miami-too-expensive-medellin-colombia/index.html

She’d been living in Miami for around three decades and had built a life that she loved.

But Julie Balzano, originally from Long Island, found herself struggling to keep up with the rising cost of living in the “Magic City,” recently ranked as the 10th most expensive city in the world on Swiss private bank Julius Baer’s annual Lifestyle Index.

After selling her home in 2021 with the intention of downsizing, Balzano couldn’t find anything within her price range and decided to rent a townhouse for a year in order to “let the market stabilize” and eventually “buy back in.”

However, as time went on, the 60-year-old, who is divorced with two grown-up children, realized that this was unlikely to happen anytime soon, and she’d need to come up with a different plan for her future.

‘Falling behind’
“Property prices were rising exponentially,” Balzano tells CNN Travel. “My income was not keeping up, and I was slowly but surely falling behind.”

With her rent “creeping up and up,” Balzano was determined to reduce living costs so that she’d be able to retire, or at least think about retiring, in the not too distant future.

“So how do I get from where I am currently, to there?” she thought to herself.

Balzano had been visiting Colombia regularly for around eight years while working for a trade association, and one of her good friends had recently relocated to the South American country.

As she weighed up her options, she began considering the prospect of doing so herself.

And when the same friend offered to put her up in her home in the city of Medellin to give her some time to get on her feet, she decided to go for it.

“I made the decision in April,” Balzano, who is of Italian-American descent, explains. “And then my lease was up at the end of July. So I said I will make the move when my lease is up.”

She then spent three months “basically divesting” herself all of possessions, selling and gifting some, donating others, and putting 14 boxes into storage, until she was left with two suitcases and two boxes of personal items.

Balzano says that her son and daughter, both in their 20s, were supportive of her decision, encouraging her to take the leap.

“They’re grown and living their lives,” she says, recalling how her daughter, who lives in North Florida, pointed out that they were already hours away from each other by car, and she would only be a three-and-a-half-hour plane ride away now.


Surreal experience
https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/02-balzano.jpg
[color=#777777]She boarded a plane from Miami to begin her new life in August, just three months after deciding to take the leap.[/color]

She boarded a plane from Miami to begin her new life in August, just three months after deciding to take the leap.
She boarded a plane from Miami to begin her new life in August, just three months after deciding to take the leap.
On August 2, Balzano hopped on a plane from Miami to Medellin to begin a brand new chapter.

“It’s interesting, because I recorded myself in the airport,” she says. “And I had lived overseas when I was younger, so the move overseas was not something I was completely unfamiliar with.

“But as a woman who was married with a home, who has raised my children, and was there for my parents for their end of life care.

“To find myself at this stage of my life completely unencumbered by any other responsibility other than myself – it’s a very surreal, liberating and also frightening experience all at the same time.”

While she entered on a 90-day tourist visa, Balzano, who works in marketing and business development, decided to apply for a digital nomad visa, which would need to be renewed after a year, hiring a lawyer to guide her through the application process.

‘My money goes a lot further here’: This woman moved to Italy because the US was too expensive
“I submitted my application in mid-August, and I got my visa one month later,” she explains.

In the months since then, Balzano, who is fluent in Spanish, has found her own place, launched a new business, and started a Facebook group for expats in Medellin, which currently has hundreds of members.

She stresses that the difference in her quality of life has been significant during her time there, noting that she spends a lot of time walking, and feels much healthier as a result.

“The weather is just amazing,” she says. “It truly is the ‘City of Eternal Spring.’”

Shortly after arriving in Medellin, Balzano began reviewing the other visa options available that would allow her to stay longer, and realized that an investment visa, was likely her best option.

However, in order to qualify, applicants must make either a direct foreign investment or a real estate investment, the minimum for the latter being the equivalent of 350 times the official Colombian monthly minimum wage.

‘Coolest neighborhood’
“My window of opportunity was limited,” Balzano explains. “So I just decided to go for it. And I started apartment hunting.”

After spending some time searching for a suitable place, Balzano found a three-bedroom apartment in Laureles, Medellin, which recently topped global publisher Time Out’s list of the “world’s coolest” neighborhoods.

Balzano put in an offer on the “brand new” apartment in October and closed on it in early November. She is currently in the process of applying for the investment visa.

While she’s chosen not to disclose how much she paid for her new home, Balzano stresses that she “could never afford this equivalent apartment” in the same location in Miami.

“I’m living in the ‘coolest neighborhood,’” she adds. “And it’s about a third of the cost of living in Miami.”

According to Balzano, her social life is far more active in Colombia, partly due to the climate, but also because she doesn’t have to think about money so much.

“I don’t worry that I’m going to go out to dinner with a group of people and I can’t afford to pay my fair share,” she says.

As Colombia “is a very family-centered culture,” Balzano deliberately aimed her Facebook expat group at over 50s so that she could meet other older, single women, and/or those who are more understanding of “the independence that comes with being single at this age.”

The fact that Balzano, who learned Spanish when she was a volunteer for the Peace Corps, an independent agency of the US government, can communicate with locals easily has been hugely beneficial for her.

“It does make a difference,” she acknowledges. “English is not widely spoken here. There are a lot of expats here who don’t speak Spanish – they’re learning.

“I think those who don’t speak Spanish have a more limited experience. But they’re getting by.”

[quote author=Racoon post=126908089][/quote]What about the ones Buhari did? How can a food basket of a giant nation be hungry?

They are back to playing the victim once more.
No poor man can marry wives randomly and still afford rifles of over N1m each.

That's their strategy for attracting resources from other regions into the north. Cry about poverty, insecurity, education and lack of structures but at same time steal funds, sponsor anti-education terror groups, sponsor insecurity terrorists, loot public funds.

Initial gra-gra.

eddie7:
The problem of Nigeria is not wealth creation, but wealth distribution.

It's never a case of our large population but, the tiny population of the thieves in power!

It is a case of spending-mentality. We all believe there is enough to be shared and let's just sit back and spend. That's a lie. Though there are thieves in power. Sharing is never the way forward.

XerXers:
GEJ appointee. Yet yorubas were not satisfied

You make it sound like all Yorubas are suppose to go to his house to eat hot amala and gbegiri every evening.

slivertongue:
he is a career thief

The average(vast majority of) accountant are.
They start by creating one secret impress account where they steal random allocation to staff. From there they have their own GL accounts.

The one under Jonathan took N6.3B
The other one under Buhari took N109B.


That's combined N125B and if shared to SMEs at N1m each, can cover 125,000 SMEs.
At N500,000 each it can cover 250k SMEs.

They also believe in institutionalized robbery. Example is when Buhari printed money, shared to muslims and they are buying the goods everyone produced with the money to reproduce like rabbits.

They go after juicy resources and reproduce with it. Example is Delgado, Mozambique where they attacked the communities where mad deposit of oil and gas were found. Another good example is Nigeria where states receive free crude money allow paternity leave for their men.

Must be a glitch somewhere. Expect a reversal of the error.

I suspect it is a trap to allow debtors load credits into their lines, then they will adjust your debt and repay themselves accordingly. A wicked man runs when no one chases.

Persephone1:
Nigerian Men make terrible horsebands

try Kenyan or south African men.

You don't scare speculators and buyers with a few dollar surge like the govt has been trying to do. You sustain momentum to match demand until the supply superiority pushes prices down permanently.