It has to be Nicolas Cage's 8mm. I have never been so bored watching a movie. I don't do nollywood.

Saw this news item on yahoo news and felt sorry for our dear country, more so when a Ghanaian commented on the news thread abusing Nigerians.

With rusty ammo, Nigeria confronts pirates

GULF OF GUINEA, Nigeria – The gleaming Nigerian naval patrol boat heaved across the rough waters of the Atlantic Ocean in search of pirates. Beyond the crisp white hull, however, crew members in cheap sandals manned machine guns whose ammunition had rusted in the chambers. And a computer-guided gun on the bow had no ammo at all.

This is the first line of defense against growing piracy off West Africa.

The patrol boat Burutu, which recently participated in a training exercise with the U.S. military, is part of a force that patrols Nigeria's 530 miles (853 kilometers) of coastline. But the navy appears overmatched as attacks on shipping continue and grow more violent, and militants resume strikes on oil platforms and pipelines.

The coastline of Africa's most populous country is a target-rich environment. Barges and other vessels belonging to energy companies crowd the waters off the Niger Delta, one of America's top sources of crude oil. At night off the megacity of Lagos, lights from scores of cargo ships twinkle like an archipelago as crews wait for weeks to unload at the city's busy, mismanaged port.

About 10 pirates on Thursday night boarded a Turkish-flagged freighter waiting to unload its cargo. They stole money, mobile telephones and computer gear, Turkish maritime authorities said. The crew apparently fought back and sent an alarm before the pirates clubbed them with Kalashnikov rifles and stabbed the captain. Two Turkish sailors and a Nigerian worker were injured.

"The Western African coast, especially around Nigeria, is a high risk area for piracy," said Cyrus Mody, a manager at the International Maritime Bureau, which tracks piracy worldwide. "It also one of the most violent places."

The bureau reported 28 attacks off Nigeria during 2009 and believes at least another 30 pirate attacks went unreported, either due to companies worried about having higher insurance premiums or concerns about advertising their security weaknesses, Mody said.

Attacks have occurred elsewhere along the Gulf of Guinea that Nigeria shares with more than a half-dozen other countries. On Saturday, armed pirates off Cameroon's coast near Nigeria kidnapped two sailors from a Ghanaian-flagged ship for ransom. In another attack in November near neighboring Benin by suspected Nigerian pirates, a Ukrainian sailor was shot dead. In other boardings, pirates stabbed and beat sailors, Mody said.

The former British protectorate's navy includes several large ocean-cruising craft and smaller patrol boats that can travel up the Niger River in the delta to look for those attacking oil pipelines and stealing crude oil. The U.S. imported more than 1 million barrels of Nigerian crude oil a day in December, making Nigeria America's third-biggest foreign source that month, so the U.S. has an interest in seeing the Nigerian navy improve.

The U.S. Navy has been training naval forces of West African nations to fight piracy, even though much of the world's attention remains focused on Somali pirates operating off East Africa.

Commodore David Nabaida, a spokesman for the Nigerian navy, said the navy will continue to patrol off of the Niger Delta and Lagos. He said it is difficult to protect the more than 200 ships anchored in Lagos and questioned whether freighters were actually being robbed.

"Maybe ships do deals and sell their products, then say they were attacked by pirates so they can divert attention from whatever crooked deals they have done," he said.

In a country permeated by corruption, it's perhaps not unusual that the commodore harbors such suspicions.

The corruption that permeates every level of government in Nigeria may hamper the anti-piracy efforts. A retired Navy rear admiral was recently indicted for allegedly embezzling government funds. Nigeria's elites often plunder the oil money that should be running and building up the country and some politicians even allegedly hire criminals and militants to help them rig elections.

The effectiveness of the Nigerian navy is also in question.

During the recent training exercise, the Burutu was motoring near the American frigate Samuel B. Roberts. The U.S. ship sounded a warning through its loudspeaker that the Nigerian vessel was on a collision course.

The warning continued even as the Nigerian patrol boat scraped along the side of the U.S. warship, creating an ear-piercing metallic squeal. One U.S. sailor cursed and threw a blue hard hat at the Nigerian sailors, who merely stared.

source:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100330/ap_on_re_af/af_west_africa_piracy#mwpphu-container

@Poster! It is very evident from your post which side of the wall you are on, but there is definitely no smoke without a fire. Don't come rubbishing Nairaland because of some degenerates who are basically on the same side of the fence as you.

This thread is really interesting. it shows that Nairaland is really representative of Nigerians, Several divergent views from most responses. However, i think the majority of the folks on this thread are anti Dora which is my position too.
I want to believe that we may not even need the national assemblies anymore. we have enough representative views here. Abi na lie i talk?

From what i see so far? I would say a capital NO. Those of them that have a bit of International exposure/dual citizenship/foreign producers et al have a better chance.
But for a Nigerian based musician with Nigerian producers with a combo of fruity loops et al, it would be the miracle of the century to me.
Seal's won it, Sade's won it, Sunny Ade and Femi Kuti's been nominated serially (guys from the old school). i think thats the best we can come, except luck shines on artistes such as Asa, NNkeka, Ayo et al.
Don't dream that the dbanjs, Eldees and 9ICEs of this world would win it. It would take the earth to move off its orbit for that to happen with the current standard of music here.

I have been monitoring this thread and i hope someone somewhere up there is reading as well. Dora definitely polarizes us, its either you love her or hate her, You can't sit on the fence when Dora is involved. I would say No to her being INEC chairman becasue ,

1. At NAFDAC, she did a wonderful job as head but did an even better job at Image laundering.

2. As Minister for Information she was overwhelmed by prevailing situations, and even in her controversial recent interview, she confessed to having consulted some 'fellow' ministers before making up her mind. we don't need such a person as INEC head.

However, by direct comparison, i would pick her ahead of Iwu a billion times for the job.

@Chosen04, Is that a fact?

Just a passing thot really. Would you support a Dora Akunyili led INEC?

Akampa is a settlement on its own. It is not even in any LGA/LCDA around Calabar. Just like the Obudu cattle ranch is not Obudu town or LGA but in Obanliku. Just thought to inform the house. spent a considerable time in the state on several projects.

That is precisely my argument. I wonder why the media is referring to him as a Nigerian.

FBI declares Nigerian wanted for stealing $44m
From EMMANUEL ADEYEMI, Lokoja

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI has added a Nigerian, Mr. Tobechukwu Enyinna Onwuhara, 30, to its list of ‘Most Wanted Fugitives.’ According to a report on America’s Most Wanted, the Bureau said ‘Tobechi Onwuhara is a criminal mastermind’ who in less than three years stole $44 million dollars from banks in the United States using sophisticated methods including stealing bank customer’s personal information, Home Equity Lines of Credit details and account numbers.


According to FBI records, Onwuhara and his crew had stolen more than $20 million dollars before the bureau were notified of the scam and by the time the FBI penetrated their well-organized syndicate and learned their identity, they had stolen an additional $20 million dollars.

FBI agents say Onwuhara was born in Houston and sent to live with his wealthy father, Prince Doris Onwuhara who the Bureau say is a ‘well-known con man who made a fortune from the notorious Nigerian 419 scheme’ before returning to the United States when he reached his teenage years in 1999.

Having settled in the southern state of Texas, he got a job with US lender, Capital One Financial Corporation where authorities believe he gained insider knowledge on how to work the US financial system.

His first brush with the law happened in April 2002 when he was arrested by Lewisville city police in Lewisville, Texas after police got a tipoff that he may be using stolen identification to steal money from credit card accounts. When police raided his apartment, they found stolen credit card account numbers, fake driver’s licenses and materials used to forge identification.

Same year in December in the western state of Seattle, FBI said ‘Onwuhara walked into a local bank and tried to max out the cash withdrawal limit on a stolen credit card’ but fled the bank when he sensed trouble. He was said to have jumped into a waiting car driven by a friend of his, Abel Nnabue and they led Seattle police on a high-speed chase but were eventually caught when they tried to flee on foot.

Both men were charged, convicted and sentenced to two years in a Seattle prison but spent only eight months of their sentence for good behaviour.

After their release, they relocated to Texas and went low for a while until sometime in 2005 when the real estate market was at an all time high and Home Equity Lines Of Credit loans became available. Though it was harder to steal from Home Equity Lines of Credit, Onwuhara and his co-conspirators found a way around it.

FBI say Onwuhara painstakingly researched home owners credit reports to see if they opened home lines of credit accounts and how much they had available. At this time in the real estate market, it was very common to find homeowners with $300, 000 - $ 400, 000 in home equity. Onwuhara impersonated such homeowners after learning their passwords and home phone numbers through extensive research.

The Nigerian acquired multiple prepaid phone lines and wireless internet cards to prevent anyone from successfully tracing their numbers. He then also signed up to a spoofing service which allowed a home owner’s number appear on the bank representative’s caller ID when he called a bank to request a wire transfer from the account to a home owner’s regular checking account before the funds are eventually wired to accounts in Asia and then the monies would go to a Hawala in Africa.

‘Hawalas’ are funds transfer systems that are not regulated instead, they operate on trust.

Before August 1, 2008, FBI agents already knew Onwuhara and his girlfriend, Matthews lived in their $5000 a month mansion near Miami in Florida. As they were making their way to a Florida casino with their crew on that day, agents and local police decided they had enough evidence to take them in. While they were effecting their arrest, agents realized that Onwuhara had entered the casino and believed Matthews sent a text message to him that they were being arrested and he managed to get away.

Authorities say they have not been able to track him down since. FBI said before they took the gang down, Onwuhara would spend about $50, 000 a night in a strip club up to three times in a week and usually stayed at various five star hotels whenever he made his frequent travels.

Onwuhara according to the Bureau has stashed cash abroad and also shipped many luxury cars to Nigeria- all paid for in cash. They believe he is hiding in either Canada; Miami, Florida; Atlanta, Georgia; or New Jersey. His co-conspirators have been sentenced to various jail terms: Henry ‘Uche’ Obilo, 30, Miami: Sentenced to 88 months in prison. Abel Nnabule, 34, Dallas: Sentenced to 54 months on Jan. 30, 2009.

Precious Matthews (Onwuhara’s girlfriend): Sentenced to 51 months on Feb. 13, 2009. Brandy Anderson, 31, Dallas, Sentenced to two years of supervised probation and 40 days of community confinement on Feb. 20, 2009. Ezenwa Onyedebelu, 21, Dallas, Sentenced to 37 months on Feb. 27, 2009. Daniel Orjinta, 43, Nigeria: Sentenced to 42 months on March 06, 2009. Paula Gipson, 34, Dallas, Sentenced to 15 months on September 04, 2009.

Source: http://odili.net/news/source/2010/mar/16/500.html

There is need for some level of spiritual understanding here, i am not a woman so i don't spend too much time on these passages when i read them, but like it has been said over and over on this thread, the keynote is moderation.
I corithians 14:40 - Let everything be done decently and in order.
Afterall our mortal bodies go to dust when we get out of here but our souls go above to be judged. I am therefore on that premise going to give more time and care for my spiritual well being than my body. I am however not going to let my body suufer because cleanliness is next to Godliness. If Jesus was not well clothed, the soldiers would not cast lots on his garments.
So its a little here and a little there but moderation is key.

Now this is not too good news. He might not be the player he once was, but his experience would have invaluable to the team. wish him a speedy recovery.

Zidane is the Professor, Ronaldinho just obtained his PHD then dropped out cause he needed to do something else for a while. Most football followers saw Zidane at Real, His days at the French Championat and Juventus have gone unnoticed. Please go to youtube and see clips from those pre real madrid days of Zidane, you would agree with me that overall, zidane is better to an extent.
Personally, i feel Zidane's greatest asset over Ronaldinho is his ability to spur a team on. Ronaldinho can single handedly win a match, but notice how badly his teams perform when he is not in a game. To appreciate more of Zidane go watch clips from Euro 2004.

@ Meldrick, that is what happens when you have two threads open. refresh your browser and you'll find its gone.

Let me be a Nigerian and answer the poster's question with some questions.
1. Can you do Nairaland on your Mobile devise?
2. Can you link up with friends (i mean Friends) on Nairaland?
3. Do you have a personalised wall on nairaland where you can drop status updates etal?
let me stop here for a while, you ponder on these questions then answer your post topic. alright?

Lets see what she's got now, she used to be second to Michael Jackson for me in the 80s, her 'lovers rock' album (which i presume was her last' had just a hit and was even nominated for a grammy or so. If its by face though she's got it.

@poster, go watch Mel Gibson's 'What woman want' and you would know. It is one of the greatest mysteries in the world. An i believe it is what makes the world thick. Show me a man who knows it and i would show you a dead man who has nothing to live for.

@Ben-10, You are right, maybe we shsould make that No 26.

1. Word processors never display a cursor.

2. You never have to use the spacebar when typing long sentences.

3. All monitors display 2 inch high letters.

4. High-tech computers, such as those used by NASA, the CIA, or some such governmental institution, have easy-to-understand graphical interfaces.

5. Those that don't will have incredibly powerful text-based command shells that can correctly understand and execute commands typed in plain English.

6. Corollary: You can gain access to any information you want by simply typing "ACCESS ALL OF THE SECRET FILES" on any keyboard.

7. Likewise, you can infect a computer with a destructive virus by simply typing "UPLOAD VIRUS." Viruses cause temperatures in computers, just like they do in humans. After a while, smoke billows out of disk drives and monitors.

8. All computers are connected. You can access the information on the villain's desktop computer, even if it's turned off.

9. Powerful computers beep whenever you press a key or whenever the screen changes. Some computers also slow down the output on the screen so that it doesn't go faster than you can read. The *really* advanced ones also emulate the sound of a dot-matrix printer as the characters come across the screen.

10. All computer panels have thousands of volts and flash pots just underneath the surface. Malfunctions are indicated by a bright flash, a puff of smoke, a shower of sparks, and an explosion that forces you backward. See #7, above)

11. People typing away on a computer will turn it off without saving the data.

12. A hacker can get into the most sensitive computer in the world before intermission and guess the secret password in two tries.

13. Any PERMISSION DENIED has an OVERRIDE function.

14. Complex calculations and loading of huge amounts of data will be accomplished in under three seconds. In the movies, modems transmit data at two gigabytes per second.

15. When the power plant/missile site/whatever overheats, all the control panels will explode, as will the entire building.

16. If you display a file on the screen and someone deletes the file, it also disappears from the screen. There are no ways to copy a backup file -- and there are no undelete utilities.

17. If a disk has got encrypted files, you are automatically asked for a password when you try to access it.

18. No matter what kind of computer disk it is, it'll be readable by any system you put it into. All application software is usable by all computer platforms.

19. The more high-tech the equipment, the more buttons it has. However, everyone must have been highly trained, because the buttons aren't labelled.

20. Most computers, no matter how small, have reality-defying three-dimensional, real-time, photo-realistic animated graphics capability.

21. Laptops, for some strange reason, always seem to have amazing real-time video phone capabilities and the performance of a CRAY-MP.

22. Whenever a character looks at a VDU, the image is so bright that it projects itself onto his/her face.

23. Computers never crash during key, high-intensity activities. Humans operating computers never make mistakes under stress.

24. Programs are fiendishly perfect and never have bugs that slow down users.

25. Any photograph can have minute details pulled out of it. You can zoom into any picture as far as you want to. Example: "What's that fuzzy thing in the corner? I don't know, let's check. It's the murder weapon! Let's look under the bed for the killers shoes. no, just some comics books (Marvel 1954, very rare). Let's check the closet shelves, !"

Funny Avatar won 3 awards, that is one award per hour for the 3 miserable hours of the movie. I love Cameron, he gave us Terminator and Titanic. but the buzz about some funny looking homosapiens is too much for me to handle. I would stick to the Inglorious Basterds for my own 'NOSCARS' (my version of the OSCARS).
Thumbs up Sandra Bullock! and Waltz.
The oscars lost its glory over a decade ago. its definitely not worth sacrificing my sleep for.

Seen that clip over and over on youtube, there was barely contact with him before he slumped. I wonder if the physios at the club declared him fit to play that match. Considering the fact the the match was just 13 mins in, i think off field incidents such as ill health, internal injuries etc might have been liable for his death.
Heard so much from brilla thus far but has there been any autopsy carried out?

@agabaI23, Correction noted. The Nigerian Police Farce!

How can someone take this kinda picture? wondering how i am going to eat or sleep for the next few days, yet some folks can still stand there and take pictures as seen in this pic.

@Becomrich1, Are you sure you are on the right thread.

As a personal rule, i have learnt not to raise my expectations from Naija Artists. i have listened to music actively over the greater part of the past 3 decades and i can safely conclude that good music is gone ( The new musicians are not yet born _sic). I have come to see Naija artists as more of entertainers than musicians. It takes lots of talents and originality to be an entertainer as well as a musician.
It is an aberration to call these clowns we see on TV musicians. Not all of them though, some of them are still as good as it gets.
The degradation of music though is worldwide just like in every other sphere of life. Music of the 70s, 80s and 90s were based on rhythms and we had more of ballads, The new school music is beats and arrangements based and thus we say a musician is good when he/she has a great vocal delivery to accompany them.
As for me, music died on the 25th of June last year as my signature states. i hear music now, i don't listen anymore (be it local or foreign), except its from the golden era.

Car sold

The details of the Nissan Maxima Follow:
Make/Model: Nissan Maxima
Year: 2007
Color: Black
Mileage: 22,000 miles (35,000 km)

I am really surprised people are mentioning the Nigerian Police force. Do we really have a Police force? I am of the thought that we have a force of black clothed Militia men who are car particular specialists, Commercial vehicle and lorries/truck driver hounders.
A bunch of yoyos who spend as much as PHCN spends on Generators for feeding security dogs.
Police my foot.
AS for me, i police myself.

I hope my friends there are safe.

Lets wait and check this one out. I hope it is worth it at then end. Having her host the show is a departure from the past and i hope she does it well.

As much as i respect Dora, her words wont hold salt to me until she drops her resignation and let these fools at FEE DEE FEE bring an end to their era of doom. She is trying too hard to give credence to a government with no credibility. Jonathan or Yarry makes no sense to me , they are both puppets of the same cabal.
God save Nigeria