₦airaland Forum

@SENATOR JD defend what claims?? LOL. You will have to remind me i am not on Nairaland 24/7.
I am still waiting for these claims you feel i need to defend.

@Kobo good eye, lol. I have become tired of reading useless EFCC news, the funniest one was when the new person said she would "step on toes" as if it is something she had to look for. How long now and them never find leg to mach? Even if UK wants to corporate which they have no legal obligation to do in the first place, trust our AGP, he will twart any such move. When UK offered to send scotland yard into the country to do an investigation what happened? The government is just not serious about fighting corruption and neither is EFCC that is why i get infuriated when they come and give us tales by moonlight.

@RedHotChic that is because you see it as revenge and fail to see it as securing our future LOL. When even IBB had the audacity as to aspire to contest for the last elections you really have to wonder if we are out of the woods yet. I don't mind if any of them are left alive because i don't want to kill anyone etc, as long they are courteuous enough not to show there faces in public anymore or make any comments because no one, sorry i will speak for myself, I don't want to know. If any of them dies i won't be joyous or sad, i will just be indifferent as i am sure even Hitler had some people who cared for him. They should just live Nigeria alone abeg, it is enough. We need to move on, they have helped enough. Let them all go and sit down and clap for themselves for the state they left the nation in.

@HolyMic, encouraging to see you attempt to put your money where your mouth is, i really do hope you are sucessful in your venture plus you will even be employing people i presume so you will even have a hand in training youths in agriculture.

@texazzpete i don't think just because it is done somewhere else becomes an automatic precedence for Nigerians to follow however since you needed to mention singapore, so how much is $500 in naira? And all for spitting out chewing gum? And now how clean is the place?

@wirinet again all you have stated is problem with the implementations not the fines themselves. And yet again even if we have both agreed that leaders of the country have ben lawless to say the least you still want to use this as a justification for wrong doing.

@Olowotee i don't mean to discourage you and i desperately hope such a venture proves fruitful, i really do. However i just feel obliged to inform you that such was done in Port Harcourt also, i hope this one is genuine and proves fruitful.

@wirinet, this is the thing, the understandable frustration which one can easily feel about the Nigerian situation has led you to justify wrong doings because people higher up are not punished. The fact that people like Odilli, Ibori, etc are walking free pains me a lot, it really does. Howver, does that automatically make black become white? Does that automatically make wrong become right? You say if the fine become 5000Naira and is enforced strictly then all would be OK, so what makes you think Lastma officers won't want to take 3000Naira bribe? And i find it amusing that you can compare a situation whereby the driver of a car you are in can go purposely drive against traffic endangering everyone and you sit there and say nothing or absolve yourself of any responsibility and liken such with witnessing a murder. Are you actually making that comparison? Yes you are right, they are EXACTLY thesame thing, LOL. You know what i mean but if you want to be coy then fine.

The fact that you say you rather pay 5000Naira illegally than pay 50000Naira legally says a lot about the Nigerian situation, does that mean you will be keeping 5000Naira in your pocket for when you want to break the law? The fact that such a fine can traumatise people shows that it is having the desired effects. With the rampant undisciplined and unruly behaviour that has become the norm, such fear and trauma into doing the right thing might be necesary. It is just the system of implementation that needs to be fine tuned. One easy way of doing this is if Lastma officials themselves can be fined and charged whenever they offer anyone an easy way out by bribery. That is just me brainstorming but i am sure people paid to come up with these idead can come up with much better systems to make sure the implementation is sucessful. AFTER sanity has been shocked or flogged back into existence THEN the fines can be reduced. Again i say it is the implementation and not the fines that are the problem.

@bluehorizo what do you mean? So all residential streets should become market too? If you mean the one or two people that sell stuff on residential streets who are actually residents of those streets then i don't think it applies to them but why don't we find out and get more info instead of just immediately shouting wolf for something we are not completely sure off?

@wirinet go to the first page before you castigate me. If you want to make this about the enforcement of the fines themselves then fine, i understand and i am with you on that. I believe the way these fines are implemented is what is going to make a break the sucess of its intentions. I believe that a very aggressive campaign should be made to inform the public and that it is made clear that the fines are payable to the office of latsma and not to officers so that when you are confronted to pay up you can confidently challenge the officers. This i have already stated earlier and is what you are actually arguing. Where in the law does it say you pay the fines to officers? This is something that the authorities or governor can be contacted about so as to add clarity to the fines and their implementation because it is still not quite clear how these fines are to be implemented. Can you confidently say you know how the fines are to be implemented? If everyone is informed about how it is supposed to be implemented THEN we can now start shouting fair or unfair and we can confidently challenge officer who want to add jara to the law and implementation. However for the fines themselves, i understand the intentions and i am not against them. again, the sucess lies in the implementation.

They can say whatever they want to say, they can even claim that black is white and write a song about it with IBB on lead vocals, that is up to them. As long as they don't "eye" any more leadership positions or positions of power or authority that really is their business. We don't need part 2

WOW, the way this piece romanticized the various traits and style of politics Adedibu practiced is just quite surprising to say the least. Instead of saying people were beaten, killed, the masses terrorised etc so that Adedibu could have his way, more palatable language is used to justify all the actions of the late Adedibu. Saying things like he fed the masses (from the street) you have to wonder whether the writer can't see that such was needed in order to gain support and control of the hooligans he would later use to do his bidding while maitaining a very twisted robin hood status in corrupt eyes. One then also has to ask where the money was gotten from to feed all these people everyday. Didn't Adedibu use his will and "actions" to remove a governor because the governor was not using the state treasury to pay Adedibu his monthly "allowance"?

I won't even waste time going through the piece to pick off the various non sense making and contradicting lines but i will say this, we are supposed to be practising a democracy. Hence for that sake i desperately hope that not everyone in Oyo state feels the way the writer of the piece does because if they do then that is their own wahala. If they are so quick to find someone to fill the so called "giant" shoes of the late politician of Oyo state instead of stabbing the shoes with a stake and performing exorcism on it before raising funds to send someone abroad to blow up the so called shoes in a Nuclear reactor so that they are sure it is destroyed and can never be filled then that is up to them also. I just hope that thesame people would be courteous enough so as to suffer in silence and not come and start whining and disturbing everyone and complaining that their state is making no progress and is hell and insecure etc because that would just be the most irritating trite.

@somze the whole point of raising railway tickects was the fines a passenger is liable to if they are found without a ticket. You keep saying things like 'people break traffic laws in UK just like any other place in the world'. That right there, i just don't get it. Can you really compare driving in lagos and Nigeria in general to any other normal place on the planet that is not a film set? Even if, which i seriously doubt is possible, does that make it ok? It is horrendous. I think that is where we differ. If a situation is deemed drastic then people will be more willing to accept drastic measures but you don't even see how bad traffic violations really are in Nigeria. You might need to experience it again. I did not mention those laws to use as defence for others been liable, but to cut this whole illusion that these fines are ridiculous or too hefty, since some people won't accept anything unless you say it is also as hefty in "the west".

I keep referring to the intent of the law because that is what i seem to see whereas you see something else. People should take responsibility for their actions and in the case of taxi and bus drivers or even drivers of 'big men', passengers should also take responsibility and be more concerned at the way they reach their destination. It is like people who want to be enviromentally consious that demand that companies whose services they patronise should take more responsibility in doing their bit for the environment. Such a culture of demanding better from people in control in Nigeria (in this case the driver) DOES NOT EXIST. Nigerians don't care as long as they can eat or they might get there faster. It is so shameful. This law is meant to force people to do that, except this case it is to force passengers to tell whoever is driving there vehicle not to be so stupid as to drive one way driving.
Can you imagine? Does that not show or tell you how screwed up things really are that a passenger has to be forced to tell their drivers not to drive on the other side of the road? Just think about that for a second, it goes to show how normal such a phenomenom is and you want to compare this with other places in the world? LOL. You make it seem as if the passenger is liable for every other offence which is not true. The passenger becomes liable for ONE WAY DRIVING only. Drastic? perhaps. But if it is going to force people to do such, if it is going to force people to question and demand an iota of sanity or to patronise people to state the obvious by telling their drivers "please don't drive on the other side of the road so you don't run a child over" (CAN YOU IMAGINE), then i am for it. Get involved.

Odilli is scared of going to Port Harcourt? Hillarious, Port Harcourt is Unsafe for all!!!
I am eager to hear the excuse he will give for all the evil that transpired under him. Anyone looking at port harcourt and rivers state in general wouldn't know that it was a state that continues to get the bulk of derivation fund and oil money. It looks like on giant mess and who was awarded the best governor status during Obasanjo's time? Was Odilli not given such class and status and numerous chieftancy for his governing finesse? Nigerian Madness. They had better not go softly on him, none of that oga trite.

@bluehorizo so if Lagos was not organising itself to become a worthy mega city then all this chaos would be ok? So this is just about mega city? If you don't see a problem with such chaos that slows down traffic to a snail pace, making people regularly turn up very late for work and hence reducing the ammount of man hours spent on work and the economy because people are stuck on traffic, partly because some roads further down the line have become markets then it makes me wonder what else you pass as acceptable in Nigeria? It is sad that people have to make a living this way and someone has asked for alternatives by which i have stated that there are already designated market places that street traders can move to. You can't just let anything go because there is poverty in the land. Where is the line, what is the point of having the law?

@somze if you must UK as an example, UK where drivers respect traffic laws in comparison with Nigeria, UK where people don't drive against traffic as a norm, i could go on, but if you must use UK as an example whereby a system is put in place to "encourage" people to comply with the law, then why not familiarise yourself with fines used to "encourage" people not to smoke in public? Why not familiarise yourself with the hefty fines used to "encourage" people not to drink in public designated 'no alcohol' zones? Why not familiarise yourself with fines used to "encourage" people to abide by railway laws, eg buy tickets? Should i go on? Familiarise yourself with all of that and also use places like Toronto and New York or other places where spitting chewing gum on the floor makes you liable to a fine. So even if such places did not have those laws then you won't see the situation in lagos for what it is? Terrible to say the very least and hence deserving of drastic measures? I think this arguement is getting futile. However i will only advice you on this, when next you want to drive on lagos roads and your driver on either bus or car or taxi or whatever feels like endangering the lives of everyone to get you to skip traffic that everyone else is enduring also, "encourage" such a driver not to, not because we had this arguement and you agreed with me, but because you will if caught get fined!!!  Good Day.

@bluehorizon unless i am missing something and before you jump in to criticise government first think who is the law aimed at? Some roads in lagos that are meant to be three or four lanes have been effectively reduced to 1 lane and that one lane is used by bus drivers to stop and pick up passengers while others driving have to wait for all of this to happen before moving. What happened to other lanes? Street traders!! This is one of the major things that cause traffic, right or wrong? And we haven't even considered the street hawkers that consist of children that should be in school considering now that free education at certain levels is in the works in lagos. Shouldn't these children that swarm the streets at any chance of traffic which poses a threat to their lives be thinking of education instead so they don't stay street urchins forever?

Without being sentimental i hope you took those things into perspective. You can still buy bole and so on but at designated market places which has been provided for quite a while now while street traders have been continuosly persuaded to move to this designated places. Why have a lot of street traders not moved to designated areas? Let us not be sentimental, it is because wares are more likely to be patronised at a higher price on the street by passengers in moving vehicles. This law does not all of a sudden mean there will be no place to buy bole or mamaput in lagos, it just means more order in the former chaos. I think lagos can still be for everybody just like New York creates opportunities for a very wide range of people from the poor to the rich, from the elite to the bohemians, etc.  However living there means you live in a society and you don't have to be a nuissance to everyone all in the name of making a living. If street trading is not such a big deal for you then i don't think you should ever complain about the traffic in lagos because the two go hand in hand and moreso than you might think.

At the very worse if people living in lagos don't like the order created and the ease to traffic this will hopefully cause then when next election comes you can vote to have the old restored and if the hate for the order drives more people to vote then good for democracy. Everyone is shouting for order and change but don't want any compromise whatsoever made, LOL. You want free flowing traffic but you also want street trading that consumes lanes on the road and just turns roads into market to be left alone? You want behaviour in traffic but call fines and deterrents put in place to achieve this unrealistic? So how is this order going to be created then?

@Kobo i don't think you are reading my posts unless you are referring to or addressing someone else. Even in the posts you inserted at no point place did i say anything about free. I have discussed accessibility and yes when health care for people without health insurance in the US is as expensive as it is and with the requirements of health insurance being  the way they are having health care cost that much is equivalent to making such non accesible to the poor. I have said a more affordable health care would be more inclusive. Read all i am saying not just one side or maybe i simply did not make this point or stance clear enough. Ok now i am done for sure, LOL. Is there anything more to be said or is there a need for another thread?

@Kobo but you do have to admit that for poor families in the US getting access to health care is just not affordable, hence this might be the "change" with regards to this sector people might want addressed. OK, i am done with this Obama thread, enjoy.

@Kobo i don't see where anyone claimed that america should adopt a UK system though i might have missed something. Comparisons where made but unless i missed something i don't see where anyone called for adoption of the NHS system. If Nigeria was developing a health system i won't even want an NHS clone to be used in an ideal situation. But with all the possible problems the NHS has been able to provide a service to everyone including the very poor who would have not been able to afford to fall ill if such a system was not in place, it caters to everyone and that is the point i see dafur making.

@somze i think you are just not reading my posts. You used the drunken scenario to try to prove a point that if a drink driver with passengers flouts the law and gets an accident then it is the driver that should be held responsible, i used that same scenario to state what you and i already know that in the Nigerian context flouting of traffic laws is seen as normality up to the extent that far from being discouraged it is actually in most cases just ignored or encouraged by passengers in a car. Whether the passenger owns the car or not is not the issue. You keep on throwing at me how you level of reasoning is such simple logic that if i cannot see it then i must be illogical. That is fine i don't really care if you see me as being illogical but i won't just agree with you on an issue i just can't see from your side with the arguement you have stated. The intent of that law is to encourage people who are not driving (the passengers) to also demand that drivers in vehicles they are in desist from the blatant and fatal stupidity that is one way driving.

If you are in a car or vehicle in which the driver is doing this you have the option of either demanding such stupidity is refrained from (which is the intent of this law) or to tell the driver to stop so you can get out of the car and hence you as a passenger does not become liable. In this context it was so obvious to me that the law was targeted at danfoe and molue and other bus drivers who just cause such a nuissance on Nigerian roads in general. In such context it is obvious that the fine we speak of is put there to encourage passengers of commercial vehicles and non commercial vehicles to demand compliance from their drivers. And please stop using New York or wherever as an example as such places don't see the level of disregard for law as Nigerian roads witness. Drastic situation seems to have understandably invited drastic measures and deterrents from such selfish, toutish, irresponsible and fatal behaviours.
 
I don't know how else to put it. We both read the same law on the first page, you saw red and daylight robbery, i saw a very strong deterrent which might be necessary in order to install order in the road chaos that is in lagos and Nigeria. I am tired of repeating thesame thing over and over again so i won't. With this continued line of arguement you make i don't believe i need to say anything else that i have not already stated in previous posts so take it or leave it. Have a nice day.

@4 Play it is not necessarily about "tying it to state purse strings" but about understanding that people might want such a quality service to be accesible to all including the poor who might find the only way of attending such instituions is through scholarship. In that sense it might create this feeling that such a service that can easily lead to better jobs and hence a better income and better life in that economical context can be bought by the rich hence keeping the self perpetuating cycle of rich getting richer and poor getting poorer. I am not about it being free or not, but it would be cool if it was affordable to all. At thesame time it is understandable why it currently isn't and also understandble why people might want this changed to make it so. Can we now talk about this in the Nigerian setting please and if there is some more dicussion possibly move it to another thread? LOL.

@4 Play you are simply missing what i was saying but it is ok, i will just try and make it clearer. I never said it was hot air, Cambridge and Oxford are not hot air either, they are amazing institutions. However i state that the reasons many people from such countries like Singapore and Japan who also have a lot of good institutions that provide quality education go through tooth and nail to be able to study in US and Europe is not just down to quality of eduaction that they can also get at home (although to a lesser degree of qualtiy). Prestige and the doors such opens especially if you excel plays a significant role in choosing. With the current mindset of things even if Nigeria all of a sudden developed world class institutions a graduate who said he/she studied in the US will probably be easily favourable with the current mindset.

@somze instead of patronising and attacking me why not just try and look at things from a Lagos and Nigerian perspective. What do you actually believe the intent of such a law was in the lagos situation? Do you actually believe that one way driving is used to target people who are drunk and driving with passengers? Why do we have to be coy about the situation? One way driving in most cases as reported and seen occurs in broad day light by totally sober people who think they are the only ones who need to get somewhere, by big men who seat in cars and pretend not to see what their drivers are doing and a lot of the time by taxi drivers and bus drivers who want to cut traffic and get ahead at the expence of endangering everyone else while the passengers say nothing as they want to get ahead too as if they are the only ones that need to get somewhere.

I can't believe i had to explain that because i am quite sure you know this so let us not be coy. If you see things differently fine but permit me thesame. You said it was obvious that such a law was there to generate revenue and i said not for me. For me i think it is obvious that the government put such law in place to encourage passengers to hold their drivers more accountable to behave and comply with the laws especially bus and taxi drivers. If passengers were all complaining to the driver and conductor that they should not break the law because they the passengers don't want to be fined would the drivers and conductors not feel extra pressure to comply to paying passengers? Lagos is not New York or Paris, you can't compare the level of blatant daylight and sober disregard for laws to those countries. Have a nice day  

@4 Play you make an interesting arguement for tuition which i never disregarded in the first place, howver you might be assuming a bit too much. US has an amazing education system agreed, however why do many people flood to go to US and UK to study? Is it all because of the quality of the Education? I will have to disagree with you on that because you might not be considering the effect perceived prestige and recognition has on such choices. Let me elaborate further, unlike in US where havard is one of if not the top tertiary institution in the country based on not just status and recognition but in quality of education, in the UK Oxford and Cambridge while been known globally for status and also for quality education are not the best in all areas which they specify in. Other institutions top Oxford and Cambridge in provision of a more contemporary and relevant education.

However it would be more impressive and open more doors for you if Oxford or Cambridge is on your CV than say Bristol or Manchester or Durham or Liverpool which best Oxford and Cambridge in quite a number of a areas. A western education is deemed prestigous. Does that mean it is not earned or not prestigous? No. What i am saying is that people moving from places like Japan or China to study abroad in places like US etc might not be doing so because they can't get quality education in Japan or Singapore (which i might add have outstanding tertiary institutions) but might be doing so because of the value and prestige attatched to such places.

@Kobo i have read your post and i get what you are saying but i cannot respond toit without discussing Obama so i won't
I agree that free does in a lot of instances come at a cost but at what cost? It does not necessarily have to be at a financial cost. I don't think the issue is fundamentally about it being free or not but about a government being able to provide such a service at an affordable rate for everyone and hence take care of its citizenry. Even Cuba can apparently provide such for its citizens and at very high quality (apparently one of the best @4 Play  ).

@4 Play of course quality matters but you are making it sound as if it is only in Europe and the rest of the world that a significant ammount of students choose not to go to college (and i mean college in an american context  ) which is just not true. The reasons for such behaviour might have nothing to do with quality of education. So is it then impossible to provide free education of quality?

@topic the more appropriate question to ask might be if people believe in Nigeria in the first place. Hence based on that it might become evident that such is a personal question, as someone once succintly put "in Nigeria it is easy to die for nothing so why not die for something?". What exactly is this death going to achieve?

@somze the issue about taxing passengers was already discussed on the first page. It might be obvious to you that the scheme is to generate revenue but to me it isn't. To me it is obvious that the scheme is there do deter people from breaking the law. If you don't want to enrich the state and add to the increase in revenue then it is simple. Don't break the law.

@4 Play i am also aware of the education system in the states but considering that he was referring to the UK i assumed that he was referring to college in that context. Yes only rich oil producing states might currently offer free tertiary education but that does not mean it is impossible for others. I think it is achievable on a micro scale if it is not managed on a federal level but by states or even local government areas or counties whereby funding can be generated from taxes generated by industries and businesses that will benefit from graduate skills anyway.

@4 Play it says your location is london so how come you don't know that college refers to two years after high school i.e A levels/GCE which anybody using the system has to go through before going on to University?

@Kobo i was not saying that America should adopt the NHS system as i would not even want Nigeria to adopt such a system (i have been informed Cuba has an outstanding health system) but the point is that dafur is right, it is free.

Now you guys should really stop making me feel obligated to respond to Obamamania threads i don't even know why i was viewing it sef. LOL.   

@4 Play, sorry but i have to jump in, apart from international students, college in the UK is free! Education in the UK is free except at University levels whereby loans are obtainable as well as grants and fees are subsidised. It is only about 2 years ago that Universities where allowed to charge what they wanted as fees from students whereby more support was then provided for students in higher  loans.

@Kobojunkie, the NHS has a lot of problems that is true, but the point is that it is free. The spread might be uneven whereby it is more difficult for some people in parts of the UK to get appointments than other parts however you have to keep in mind that this free health care has encouraged people to go to the doctor for the most silliest of reasons. Someone has cold they will go to doctor, head ache they will go to doctor, stomach ache doctor. That is one of the reasons why the waiting lists might be so long so put things in perspective a bit. And yes the tax rates are extortionate in comparison to other places in Europe and america where you get more value from your earnings.

Now i need to go wash off this filth i feel from replying to an Obomarama thread, never again. LOL 

@away4real, do you know whether or not Fashola flouts traffic laws or uses sirens? Please ask and verify as it has been reported he does not use sirens and moves with everyone else. Again that lack of good roads is a very poor excuse at best for flouting and disregarding road laws especially since such behaviour can be fatal and affects everybody. Also, i hope you are aware that the whole issue of bad roads is seriously being addressed in Lagos? I am not even in lagos and i know what is going on, just do some research and find out for yourself. So before every single road is fixed and paved and lined with flowers (which is what is being worked towards) then people can continue to disregard the law and cause headache for everyone else? The fines are there to deter people from breaking the law, if you are not set or intent on breaking the law then why break sweat over the issue?