₦airaland Forum

londoncool
Remember my issue about the visa renewal application I made since July? Well, u wont believe it, but I have just been called again to come and retake my biometrics! I can't believe these people! I've done the biometrics 3 times now, yet they (people at the VFS) keep calling me back (after 3 wks each time) to come for biometrics.

The amount of money I've spent flying to Lagos has even surpassed the amount I paid for the application. It's crazy. I keep trying to call the BHC & BDHC - their nos never go through. Has anyone ever got hto to these nos? Pls let me know what the secret to getting thro to them is.

I would prefer to be refunded so I can make a fresh application altogether, but when u can't even communicate with the embassy, how can one make progress? Pls help if u have any ideas I can work on. Thanks

superstan:
make that three million pounds every matchday excluding revenue generated on their restaurants and matchday programmes.

man united make three million pounds every matchday too as fans turn out to watch galaxy of players kick the ball every matchday.

bayern munich compared to man united on profits? someone must be smoking lah.

U're obviously ignorant of football biz. First, I said Bayern Munich is one of the most profitable clubs in terms of margins (ie profit as a percentage of turnover). MANU IS IN DEBTS BY THE WAY: the Glazers borrowed heavily to finance their purchase of the club, so even though ManU has the 2nd highest revenues (after Real Madrid), the club is nowhere near as profitable as Madrid or Bayern or Arsenal. Chelsea also makes lots of revenues, but is also heavily indebted. U need to go & learn the diff btwn revenues & profits dude!

eldee:
Eight words!!!

Emirates Stadium makes two million pounds every matchday

Revenue or profit? Football clubs are generally not profitable, especially in England, with the astronomical wages, Arsenal is one of the few profitable ones though (and even they just returned to profitabilitily recently). Chelsea bleeds money & ManU is probably the most indebted major club around.

I think Bayern Munich is the most profitable major club (not the richest, but makes highest margins)

jayboykodi:
hello everyone here, please i need the gurus for help with this.

i studied comp science as first degree. and am going for my mba.

please in your own opinion what would be the reason for chosing the course since is not in line with the first degree.

secondly. am unemployed just finishd my nysc. what can i show as prof that ill be back in my country.
please i would be so grate full if u guys can help with this
pllllllssssssssss

Well, MBA ahouldn't be so questionable. A good no of pple getting mbas didnt study Business Administration. Anyhow, tell them stuff like: u'll like to improve ur management skills; u plan to run ur own biz & u need to learn mgmt skills, etc. I dont expect u to have a hard time justifying an MBA. If u wanted to study public health or smthn, I would expect them to raise eyebrows.

Close family ties in naija (siblings, parents, etc) should prove that u'll return. Still, for masters, I dont think they'll be to hard on this. The key thing is that u or ur sponsor has enough proof of available funds.

1) ON ARRIVAL IN UK BE CAREFUL OF WHAT YOU CARRY INTO UK IN YOUR LUGGAGE.
This advice applies to everyone entering the UK either as a visitor or as a returning resident. Most of the times a passenger is refused entry into the UK is mostly due to the incriminating evidence found in their luggage during further examination by immigration officers.

For instance, most Nigerians who have 2 year visit visa's and of course working/schooling illegally in the UK get caught on arrival because they happen to return with stuff such as Payslips, NI cards, Oyster cards (don't forget the audit trail history can be downloaded from the card), TESCO club cards, NHS cards, NUS Id cards etc.It doesnt take a dummy to add 1+1 in these scenario's.

Pregnant visitors get caught out with NHS appointment letters in their luggage,etc.

Do they check ur luggage? When u're meeting with he immigration officer, only ur hand luggage is with u & I've never seen anybody's being searched. U only unite with ur checked in baggage later anyway so it shd be possible for pple to get away with these things, I think.

Looking at the repies above, it's very obvious that many nairalanders arent aware of the enormous biz potentials in Nigeria. How can buying Newcastle FC make more sense than investing in naija? Newcastle will not make money for the foreseeable future, so this is not an investment, only a status symbol or effizy as we know it. Buying Newcastle is certainly not a money making venture.

That said, how can u guys be saying it's smarter to invest in UK than Nigeria? Do u know whats happening at all? See BiCourney, the guys given the MMA2 concession. Those guys are cleaning out! How bout the guys doing the Lekki expressway expansion? How bout the construction companies (JBN, etc)? There's a lot of money to be made in naija & with 350m GBP, u can do a lot. U think Etisalat are in naija for charity? or the myriad chinese companies coming into construction, oil & gas, etc? How bout the companies that so wanted to buy Nigerian banks that CBN had to make a new rule? Companies are queuing up to invest in naija & u guys are there saying Nigeria is not a good place to invest. Crap!

If these guys wanted to invest & make money, surely there're lots of opportunities here, without going to buy up Newcastle. Even the Glo premier league, is a better piece of investment. think of it: if u invest 10% of this money (ie 35m GBP) in 1 local club eg Enyimba, u can upgrade the stadium significantly (or even build a new 20-30k seater), improve salaries significantly, spend money on advertising & promoting the club, etc. Whichever club it is will surely qualify for ACL & possibly win it several times. It will go a long way to improve d league & b4 u know wats happening, more pple will be buying up more of the clubs, imcreasing competition & improving the quality. Even Nigerian players in lower leagues in Europe may begin to return home (same way Engrs, bankers, etc are returning home to jobs paying more than u can get in Europe, US).

To make matters worse, this makes Nigerians look very foolish generally: a 3rd world country that can hardly feed its pple, yet its millionaires spend fortunes buying a mid-table Premiership club as a play thing.

That was a tough one against Espanyol (as expected). I like the way the team played though, but they should take more shots rather than trying to pass their way to goal all the time. Still, I prefer Pep to Rijkaard already - his line-up is always unpredictable & he's trying to give everyone a chance (unlike Rijkaard who never used Saviola even though that was his best striker for a while when Etoo was injured). Also, I could see he was keeping a few of his players fresh for the midweek CL match, but he should have started either Yaya or Keita instead of young Busquets since they're more experienced for such high-pressure derby matches.

Also, long term, Barca needs to find a solution to the goalkeeping problem (Valdes doesnt inspire confidence) & left-back problem.

In terms of luggage allowance, BA & Virgin Nigeria are the most generous, if I still recall well, though BA will reduce their allowance from 32kg to 23kg in Nov.

Still, Emirates staff will look the other way if u go over their official 20kg limit, but dont overdo it sha (u know as we de do lol)

In terms of price, BA can be expensive, but have some god promos if u buy in the low season. Emirates from Lagos to London via Dubai is really good (even cheaper than Lagos-Dubai, would u believe!). KLM & Air france r always cheap, but u get wat u pay for - crappy service IMO.

Ok, in that case u're better off going to the embassy to apply then. Don't bother with the website - our civil servants in foreign missions don't bother with 21st century niceties like customer service & online services. Just go there & apply physically. If they try to give u stress, play the damsel-in-distress card. With a cute baby, u shd be able to get them bending over for u

Best of luck

Only downside with emirates is that once u land naija back, the customs guys will descend on u, expecting that u went to buy loads of goodies for sale from Dubai

It's ridiculous - as someone mentioned above, there r only 53 countries in europe, so how will qualifiers go? do they even need qualifiers sef, or they'll follow Africa (hmmm, that sounds good to the ear ) & combine the euro & WC qualifiers? This came from the british isles obviously since none of the home countries qualified for the last euro.

I've used Emirates, BA, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Nigeria, South African Airways & Air France

Emirates is the best by a long distance. If possible, I fit even fly Lagos to PH using Emirates, stopping over in Dubai! The flights are very cool (some night flights even have a skylight thingy to enhance ur sleep), inflight entertainment is superb, they'll feed u till u get tired, I could go on & on,

I heard Qatar Airways & Singapore are also good, but I've never used them b4.

Pls send to bigbadalex1@yahoo.com

realcool:
are You a Nigerian because Ur location is bagdad,if You are a Nigerian You better vissit them at vfs to register You complain or abi them dey look for You passport they take style delay you

The guys at vfs dont seem to have a clue. They say they passed the application to BDHC and have no influence over how long those guys take to do these things.

I saw my passport at the vfs each time I went to retake my biometrics, so its unlikely it's lost.

@poster, I thot Germany didnt allow dual citizenship? ie if u & ur child are German citizens, then u have to renounce ur Nigerian citizenship. Pls correct me if I'm wrong.

Going on Emirates is a lot longer than flying direct to USA. However, Emirates is the best airline I've ever used (I've never used Delta, but most american airlines dont give excellent service anyway). If u dont mind the extra flight hours & extra hours stopping over in dubai (u can actually arrange a 3-day stopover with Emirates, very much worth it!), then Emirates anyday.

olawill:
I recently got a Schegen visa for 1 month , is it possible that when i get to any of the schegen countries that i can extend my stay ? and can anyone give me hints on how i can legalised my stay easily .

I dont think u'll be able to renew the visa from within the schengen zone. Also, most schengen visas are single-entry, so be mindful of this.

Good day all. This is an intersting forum, with lots of good comments.

Pls help with this issue: I submitted by application for Uk visa renewal in July. After 3 wks, I was called to retake the biometrics at the VFS (Ikeja). I spent 40k flying to/from Lag to retake the biometrics. 3 wks later, I was called again to retake biometrics (was told it was a technical problem on the BDHC's part & not a problem with my application per se), I spent money travelling to Lag again for this. Now, 2 wks later, I still don't have my visa.

I've had to reschedule my trip, with the airline charging me for ticket change (I bought the ticket b4 my old visa expired, but had to cancel the earlier trip as other things came up).

This is very frustrating and annoying, more so because I gave ample time for the application (submitted since early July even though my trip was planned for end Sept).

I've called the BDHC like 100 times, but the phone nos never go thro: apparently they've been unhooked deliberately. I've sent several emails to them, but they never respond to the mails.

Can someone pls help?

I saw this article by Babatunde Fashola, Lagos State governor, in The Guardian of Monday 11th August, I can't believe a governor will write such crap.

Is the sun inexhaustible?
By Babatunde Fashola

ON assumption of office as Governor, I had once thought that our immediate priority with the environment was first to conquer the challenge of managing solid waste and flood, while other environmental challenges though compelling and worrisome, could be ordered as subsequent priorities. Upon further reflection, I am convinced that we cannot afford to do so. I think that we should be as concerned with those challenges as we are and will be with solid waste management and flooding.

As the world continues to struggle to cope with the challenges of greenhouse gas emissions, rising carbon levels, arctic melt down and increasing water levels, African nay Nigeria scientists must be at the vanguard of the search for alternative energy sources. The presumptive and prescriptive solutions are renewable energy sources such as bio-fuels and the solar power. Our concerns and the need for our active participations arise from the following events and questions I have asked myself and which we must ask ourselves and find answers to, before we join the rat race.

The first of these events is factual; namely that, Europe and America do not have as much sunshine as Africa. Therefore it is safe or reasonable to conclude that the sparing supply of sun in those parts, and the winter season which is not prevalent in Africa are nature's prescription for maintaining balance of the eco-system not only in those parts, but for the purpose of keeping the African weather the way it has been known to be. Vice versa, the amount of sunlight and rain, without winter in most parts of Africa, are also nature's necessary prescriptions for maintaining the Africa climate and balancing Europe and America.

The other event or fact is that dwindling levels of crude oil and hydro carbon supplies across the world demonstrate clearly that this source of power, and indeed possibly nothing that nature has provided is inexhaustible. The increasing threat of extinction of certain species of wildlife and flora and fauna and the disappearance of dinosaurs confirm the indisputable exhaustibility of nature's gifts.

The recent scarcity of food supplies especially grains cannot be divorced from increasing recourse to them as necessary inputs for bio- fuels. Therefore before we all turn to the sun for solar power, I think it is important to attempt to, ascertain how exhaustible or inexhaustible the sun itself is before we pursue worldwide recourse to it as an alternative to petroleum.

Will Africa become cooler or colder if large parts of the world begin to tap and store the rays of the sun as a primary source of power? If Africa becomes or will become cooler as a result, are we sufficiently prepared to deal with the cold technologically? Or will we simply tap more solar power to generate more heating? What will be the effect of a cooler Africa on Europe and America? Will the Atlantic and similar oceans and water bodies become cooler, colder or will they freeze? Will this lead to reduced water sources and supply necessary for drinking, farming and sustenance of life? Is the search for renewable energy a futile race to prevent end times? Is the increasing global warming a sign of the end of planet earth? If so, is it stoppable or reversible?

I do not want to be misunderstood as probably suggesting that the issue of global warming is not real or deserves attention; as some have posited; On the contrary, my simple message from this piece is to urge caution, rationality and verification so that we do not replace one problem with another.

My views seem to find support in Lord Browne's article published in a recent British Newspaper, when he said:-

"Returning to Ford's innovation of a century ago, to a great extent the need for oil results from our reliance on the motor car. However, events might have transpired differently. When the Model T was created, it could have run on either gasoline or ethanol. Gasoline was chosen for a number of reasons that had little to do with engineering - including "prohibition" in the US which restricted the production of ethanol, and the falling price of gasoline.

The effects of that choice have been as significant as the advent of the motor car itself. Gasoline is a high-carbon fuel. Burning it releases greenhouse gases, the consequences of which we are only now beginning to understand. The choice of gasoline also required the addition of an agent to allow the engine to run smoothly. That agent was lead, the presence of which in fuel has led to significant levels of harmful local pollution.

Gasoline's predominance, which has little to do with pure engineering, has had profound consequences for mankind. It has helped create what I believe is today's greatest engineering challenge: combating climate change. Perhaps we could now be running cars on renewable, low-carbon fuels if things had developed differently.

My view is that engineers must be more involved in thinking through the impact of society on their works, and of their work on society. Engineers can not predict the future. But we can use our expertise to have a positive influence. The engineers of tomorrow are professionals who will revolutionise the way we live through their ingenuity and their humanity."

It is clear that if it was possible to have foreseen today 100 years ago, serious reflection and possibly a change of heart will have occurred to the engineers who chose gasoline as the source of energy for the first Ford T Model. The quest for alternative energy sources is justified and necessary for the sustenance of humanity. The solutions so far propounded have not been perfected or tested to any known limits of endurance .Africa must not be seen to be joining the rat race , it must lead or join the human race.

Herein lies in my view, the imperative of this message. We must seriously reflect on the choices we plan to make today, so that tomorrow can be assured. Too much is at stake for us not to be involved. The answer to the problem might lie somewhere other than where the whole world seems to be looking. Our planet must not perish.

Fashola, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, is the Governor of Lagos State.

IMHO the Supreme court shd have ordered a fresh election in Rivers with Amaechi as the PDP contestant because there's no guarantee Amaechi woulda won if he was presented as the PDP candidate in the original elections. The Supreme Court has done 1 right thing (removing Omehia) but instead of installing Amaechi, they shd have just ordered the election null & void.

InCar_Nav:
@Stealthy

What credentials do you have that will make us take your line of argument and discard the line of argument of others?

InCar_Nav, I'm a humble engineer who spends 20-40hrs each week reading on economics, personal development, finance and basically things of value. I dont know all the answers and dont claim to. However, I think I can spot an obviously good idea & an obviously bad one. With my experience working in a financial services firm & investing, reading & listening to other investors, I think I have a fair idea of how these things work.

naijaway:
@seun, whether we like it or not the plan will be implemented and will be successful. So if u were planning to opress anyone in naija u have a few months left because Nigeria will be on the golden age time clock from august 1st 2008.

Pls get real! If u can "oppress" now, u can "oppress" after Aug 08 - the value of ur savings & net worth will not change! This is not an economic cure-it-all, like I've said before. Dont get carried away. I agree with you that Nigeria will begin a golden age (by God's grace), in fact, I feel we've already started a new age economically. But it will not be because of this currency change.

And talking bout cards, some pple think re-denomination will increase d use of cards. Far from it! In fact, the use of cards reduces d need to remove decimals, because with ur cards, it doesnt matter whether u have 1 million or 1000. It's d same plastic. Pls note that the re-denomination exercise is not an economic cure-it-all! In fact, it cures only a very few specific things in d economy.

And no, it will not make more Nigerians abroad come back home either. This is not some economic silver bullet & even Soludo doesnt claim it is, so I'm really shocked when some naive pple say stuff like Nigerians abroad will come back home, foreign investments will increase, blah blah blah.


Dont get me wrong, I like Soludo & Yar Adua & I think this country is on the right path economically, BUT re-denominatin is an expensive process which wont achieve a whole lot for the economy.

Talking about coins: I dont know why some pple think Nigerians cant carry coins. Coins r not alien to us. I opposed the earlier intro of coins this yr because the coins were of little value, so really didnt need to be introduced. With the re-denomionation, the coins carry 100x more value so we'll accept them whether we like or not. I personally dont like carrying coins, but whenever I'm in Uk (or any foreign country for that matter), I collect my change to the last 1p cos of the value it has. Inevitably pple will get used to d coins in Naija too.

Also, when it comes to Owambe, some pple think spraying will stop. Spraying has become cultural, especially to Yoruba pple (I'm Yoruba, so no one shd accuse me of being tribalistic). Werent pple spraying b4 IBB devalud the naira? Even now, in Uk, pple spray $1 bills during owambe parties. Since CBN is pushing thro legistation to make spraying illegal, sprayers can then use $1 which is worth N127-129 & dropping.

I've been reading this topic & I'm very amused - most pple who support it do so because they have a (rather blind) trust in Soludo. I agree he has done wonders for the Nigerian economy & supported the bank initiative. However, I didnt support his move earlier this yr to convert our lower denominations to polymer & also re-introduce coins because d costs dont justify the benefits.

Now to the re-denomination of the naira. I've done some research on this & will like to share with u guys. For all those who point to Ghana doing the same, yes, Ghana has done it, but they only did it on July 1st 2007! So of cos, it's way too early to determine its success or otherwise in Ghana. Right now, Ghana is using both the old cedi & new cedi and from the end of this yr, only the new cedi will be legal tender. As many pple have pointed out, only countries recovering from wars & hyper-inflatin have gone through this route. Germany after the wolrd wars, Argentina after their economic meltdown a few yrs ago, Brazil (when they moved from the extremely lousy Cruzeiro to the increasingly lousy Real in the 90s), Ghana (whose cedi was exchanging at ridiculous values),etc.

Nigeria doesnt fall into this category. If anything, in the later OBJ yrs, the naira has stabilized & even appreciated against major world currencies a few times. This makes the naira convertible as it is, with no need for a re-domination. Some plpe have said this reverses what IBB did in the 80s. Sorry to disappoint u, but it doesnt. IBB DE-VALUED the naira. Soludo is not re-valuing the naira. He is only changing decimals, which DOES NOT CHANGE THE VALUE of the naira. So we'll still be where we are right now come Aug 08, with a couple decimals removed.

Why is the CBN doing this? Becos we want the naira to become the official currency of Ecowas (not Africa as many pple have erroneously noted. The Rand is far for convertible, no matter how many 0s we remove. Besides, there's no plan that I know of to implement a single currency in Africa as a whole). The plan was for the Eco to become the currency in Anglophone West-Africa (the Francophone countries already have their Francs). What's happening right now is a race btwn Nigeria & Ghana to have their currency as the basis for the Eco, same way the German marks was the basis for the Euro.

Does it make sense? Well, for the feel-good factor, I support this initiative. However, I'm not happy that this comes a few yrs after introducing 200, 500 & 100 naira notes & a few months after introducing the new N5, N10, N20, N50 notes, plus coins. It's crazy, infact, considering the costs involved and of course, new notes across board will have to be printed next yr.

How will it affect foreign investment? Not much, becos as a foreign investor, if I have $1million, I can still do the same with it next yr as I can right now. Same applies for salaries, costs of goods, tips to policemen, money siphoned by politicians, etc. But that's in theory.

My biggest fear about this is that it could lead to inflation. How? Let's assume I'm a crooked landlord. I see this initiative & I decide to make money from it. I rent out my house at d moment for 60k a month. From Aug 08, I shd rent it out @N600/month. I decide to use the confusion to change it to N800/month. Who's going to ensure this doesnt happen? Multiply this by the no of sharp, crooked pple we have in this country & factor in the fact that we dont have effective regulatory & consumer protection agencies in this country & you'll see the big potential for inflation. Yes, they say both old prices & new will be "displyed" during the transition period, but when did ur garri seller & danfo driver start to "display" prices. Even the formal sector pple will find a way of making an extra buck from this, if only to cover their transition costs.

Will it eliminate the forex black market? No. As long as the demand & supply for forex both remain the same, you wont eliminate the black market. However, when Soludo announced this initiative, he also said states will receive part of their allocation in dollars. This singular act will increase the dollars in supply & will definitely increase the value of the naira & reduce the need to have a parallel (black) market at all. I support this aspect 100%. Makes me wonder why we need the re-denomination at all.

So in summary, I'll say this project has d ff positives:
1. A huge feel good factor
2. Some reduction in waste
3. Slight reduction in cash you carry (because effectively, they're introducing a 2000 value note by making new N20 the highest value)

Negatives:
1. Very expensive project.
2. High possibility of leading to inflation.
3. More of a political race with Ghana than a sound economic move.

Finally, I'll say Japan is a very sound economy with an exchange rate close to ours. Bahrain is a developing economy with an exchange rate even higher than the British pound. The Italian Lira had a lousy exchange rate b4 the Euro came along, but their economy wasnt crashing to earth - if anything, they've had more probs with the Euro, but that's because exports are more expensive, which doesnt apply to us (the impulsive importers that we are).

My position is: it's not the most necessary thing our economy needs right now. I'll prefer it's not carried out, but if they must do it, then pls proceed with extreme caution. I'll accept my salary, savings & investments going down by 2 zeros, but feel cheated if bread, fuel, cars, etc dont go down completely to 2 zeroes.

Usherx,

Are u trying to be funny with ur post or just plain demented? Why hit the "Reply (Click Once, Then Wait)" button 5 times?

90% (or more) of Nigerian drivers dont even know driving rules. In fact, how many Nairaland members obey the highway code (if u know what that is)? Be honest o!

But the worst are Okada riders & danfo drivers. Without them, traffic in a place like Lagos will be very much reduced!

As for the ladies, well they're always on the extremes: Vey slow or very fast, too cautious or too aggressive,

Depends on what u want. Berger is ok, but u need to have ur eyes & wits about u all the time, else u might be sold a dud.

Hope that helps.

When I 1st saw it in a newspaper, I said to myself: this cant possibly be true. Less than 5 non-astrounauts have ever been to space & they all shelled out like $20m each and underwent intensive training before going, How could an unknown Naija girl possibly be joining that very elite club?!

I later discovered that it's just a zero-g thing in an aircraft. Even Richard Branson's reality show (Rebel Billionaire) featured people in 0-g conditions & if u've ever been on any of those crazy loophole rollercoasters, chances r u've xperienced some very high and very low g-forces b4,

Cant believe pple can be so gullible to fall for the title.

GNature:
@Stealthy

Are you a nigerian working in Baghdad?

Yeah, bad guy like me!!! Want a job in Baghdad? I can hook u up with a security company. (Security comapnies pay the most here)

Constantin,
I'll love to visit Brazil, but just a few questions:
- How easy is it for a non-Portuguese speaking person to move around? Are there recognisable signs in English? Do cab drivers, tourist guides, etc speak English?
- How good are their medical services?
- I hear so much news about crime in Brazil. How bad is it really? You could compare to Lagos on one hand and London on the other.

Cheers