₦airaland Forum

Ejiné: Please, keep voting for Katsumoto, guys!
Dayokanu shamelessly rigged his way through 23 votes early yesterday. I saw it with my own eyes!
Now, even the legit votes are still catching up with his arse. What a loser

Trust me, the legit votes cannot catch up. Again, I repeat DK has nothing to do with those votes. People are coming out of the woods to vote for him because they love him so dearly.

buzugee: you will not make it. USA is about to eat russian and chinese missile. USA is about to be wiped off the map. prophesy.

You wan give me MAT with all these predictions of yours. You sabi cure am?

naijasexy: ^ Hey Fstranger!! Whatsap?

Hey bud, whats going on? I am glad we are now good friends. Hows acada and dem boys? Take care okay.

naijasexy: I guess!
It takes two to make a baby! Don't know what these chicks see in Tuface though. Beats me!

His deep pocket I guess.

@OP:

The ship has sailed. You can never find true love again, and I hope you never find it. May you be heart broken for the rest of your life.

lol

SEFAGO: I know quite a large number of Nigerian who went to Oxbridge. I went to primary school with them. Infact a lot of Nigerians I grew up with man all attend top UK universities. Like top 5-6 and most are not smart. Suffice to say though that currently there are a lot of Nigerians in top UK universities relatively. Just that they are not that many at Oxford or Cambridge but dem plenty for Imperial College and UCL and a few from London school of Economics. Infact I would wager that there are more Nigerians at good UK universities than US universities since its closer to home and they are much much easier to get into . Any school that does Engineering has loads of Nigerians.

As for the US in some of the Ivy League schools I have visited 90& of the time the only black people studying Science or Engineering are Nigerian whether Yoruba/Edo/Igbo/even Hausa. At Harvard and Princeton the undergrad class is predominantly Nigerian (Fresh of the boat from Nigeria, Nigerians from the UK a bunch who attended posh boarding schools and Nigerian-American.) I have been told so by other black students who attend these schools that there are too many Nigerians in these school. A guy I know who went to Harvard said like if 10% of teh students are black at least 3-4% are of Nigerian descent. But that does not tell you anything there might be more African-Americans they just tend to focus more on studying other stuff like sociology and International relations or whatnot.

What I can say though is that Nigerians/Other Africans are the biggest beneficiary of affirmative action.

Mercer County baby!

Your last line is not 100% true though.

March 19, 2007
Black Immigrants, An Invisible 'Model Minority'
By Clarence Page
WASHINGTON-Do African immigrants make the smartest Americans? The question may sound outlandish, but if you were judging by statistics alone, you could find plenty of evidence to back it up.

In a side-by-side comparison of 2000 census data by sociologist John R. Logan at the Mumford Center, State University of New York at Albany, black immigrants from Africa average the highest educational attainment of any population group in the country, including whites and Asians.

For example, 43.8 percent of African immigrants had achieved a college degree, compared to 42.5 of Asian Americans, 28.9 percent for immigrants from Europe, Russia and Canada, and 23.1 percent of the U.S. population as a whole.

That defies the usual stereotypes of Asian Americans as the only "model minority." Yet the traditional American narrative has rendered the high academic achievements of black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean invisible, as if it were a taboo topic.


Instead, we should take a closer look. That was my reaction in 2004 after black Harvard law professor Lani Guinier and Henry Louis Gates Jr., chairman of Harvard's African-American studies department, stirred a black Harvard alumni reunion with questions about precisely where the university's new black students were coming from.

About 8 percent, or 530, of Harvard's undergraduates were black, they said, but somewhere between one-half and two-thirds of black undergraduates were "West Indian and African immigrants or their children, or to a lesser extent, children of biracial couples."

If we take a closer look, I said at the time, I bet we'll find that Harvard's not alone. With all of the ink and airwaves that have been devoted to immigration these days, black immigrants remain remarkably invisible. Yet their success has long followed the patterns of other high-achieving immigrants.

As one immigrant Jamaican friend once told me, "I'm too busy working two jobs to worry about the white man's racism."

Now comes a new study that finds a consistent pattern of Ivy League and other elite colleges and universities boosting their black student populations by enrolling large numbers of immigrants from Africa, the West Indies and Latin America.

Immigrants, who make up 13 percent of the nation's college-age black population, account for more than a quarter of black students at Ivy League and other elite universities, according to the study of 28 selective colleges and universities. The authors of the study, published recently in the American Journal of Education, included Douglas S. Massey of Princeton University and Camille Z. Charles of the University of Pennsylvania. The proportion of immigrants was higher at private institutions, 28.8 percent, than at the public ones, where they comprised 23.1 percent of enrollment.

Are elite schools padding their racial diversity numbers with black immigrants who do not have a history of American slavery in their families? This development immediately calls into question whether affirmative action admission policies are fulfilling their original intent.

But as Walter Benn Michaels, a professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago, writes in his book "The Trouble With Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality," the original intent of affirmative action morphed back in the 1970s from reparations for slavery into the promotion of a broader virtue: "diversity." Since then, it no longer seems to matter how many of your college's black students had slavery in their families. It only matters that they are black.

That said, I don't begrudge black immigrants or any other high-achieving immigrants for their impressive achievements. I applaud them. I encourage more native-born American children, particularly my own child, to take similar advantage of this country's hard-won opportunities.

But I also think we need to revisit the meaning of "diversity." Unlike our current system of feel-good game-playing, we need to focus on the deeper question of how education can be improved and opportunities opened up to those who were left behind by the civil rights revolution.

We tend to look too often at every aspect of diversity except economic class. Yet, the dream of upward mobility is an essential part of how we Americans like to think of ourselves.

It's also why a lot more people are trying to get into this country than trying to get out.

^^^

So you are from the hinterland, like me.

Hinterland? I miss those days.

shymmex: You know what empty barrels do....

. . . they call others reeetards when they are lost for words.

Sagamite is a clown with one vocab,

He actually has more than one vocab . . . re/t/a/r/d, c/r/e/t//i/n, mo/r/o/n, di/m/w/i/t . . . thats more than one

I LOL every time I read his post. You can't blame him - he's a freshie, and traveling to the UK is probably a prize to him.

What do you expect from soomeone who couldnt make it at OAU, after getting admitted via under-G moves?

A few Nigerians went to Oxbridge but the percentage would probably be in the 0.00%1 range, and that's just being generous. I know a friend who went to Oxford, and two women who did their masters at Cambridge. Most of the Nigerians who graduated from Oxbridge are mostly international students.

Hakeem bello, Ogunlesi, FRA williams readily come to mind

PhysicsQED: So if they're just there to suck on Britannia's t1ts, why do they have such an attitude?

Look at Sagamite! The guy is always on his high horse on here. Is that some sort of coping mechanism perhaps?

There was one thread where he was ranking universities from the UK and America into tiers and classifying graduates into this and that and getting into arguments about UK Nigerian grads vs. U.S. Nigerian grads and all this stuff. . .And Nigerians don't even get into Cambridge?

Absolutely!

PhysicsQED: Do you have any numbers, by chance?

The youngest ever master's holder (Anne-Marie Imafidon) from Oxford is of Nigerian heritage.

Also Fidelis Oditah went to Oxford.

I'm sure if I dug around some more I could find others.





But they made one Victor Adebowale a Baron?

Yeah, George Zimmerman has Black friends too.

ekt_bear: Interesting:

Do we have like SAT results or something for Nigerians vs. white Americans?

Below White Americans, but way above Black Americans. Saw it a few years ago, dont have access to it right now.

ekt_bear: Kilode, so you believe that most Nigerians in the US come from below average backgrounds in Nigeria?

You used yourself as an example. I am very sure that you are not the first person in your family to go to university. I am sure that your parents are not illiterates. You completed high school. All of those things by itself puts you well above average, does it not?

By American standards. You can NOT apply the same world view to Nigeria. For starters, just because my "ara-oke: friend, Wahidi, couldn't read an English text doesnt mean he was/is an illiterate in the true sense of it. He could read in his native language and he picked up Arabic language along the way, effortlessly. In addition, he was a shrewd business man, not minding his talent as a great agriculturist and surveyor. Minus his English language handicap which isnt his fault really, he is just like the rest of us. And yes, I have way better credentials than him, but I am not so sure I would consider myself or Kilode above average, if we are to assume, going by your definition, that my "ara-oke" friend, Wahidi, because of his lack of academic credentials, is below average.

Kilode?!:
In the absence of real and credible data, a lot of our opinions here will be subjective and anecdotal.

If your parents attended Ife/UI/UNN like ekt_bear and your family, friends acquitances and what have you are from that group of fairly educated migrants, then you'll probably agree with him.

On the other hand, if you are from an atapata-dide, ara oke, community-funded education background like me,(maybe Fstranger too j/k ) If you travelled to America on borrowed funds, if you managed to escape Nigerian hardship using ori-olori papers, and most of your friends are like you and they drove night cab to pay for college, then you might disagree with the "majority were elite in Nigeria argument"

So I'll repeat, in the absence of good data, we can't know for sure.

But what's the point though? These peopple, regardless of their Nigerian background, surmounted some incredible odds; language, culture, racism, colorism, lack of social network to get ahead in a foreign country. That to me is the important message here.

BTW, I don't believe Indian/Asian migrants leave their country less educated or less "elite" than African migrants, well, until I see credible data proving that.

What can I do without Kilode? lol.

Always coming to my rescue. Thanks brother.

ekt_bear: Or are you one of those people who believes that everyone is of the same intelligence level or something? That nobody is smarter/dumber than the other?

To a great extent. That is why Ben Carson could go from the inner cities of Detroit to becoming one of the the most respected and certainly the most experienced neurosurgeon around, despite his weak academic qualifications ( At least, his SAT scores were not of Yale's standard). Same reason why very well educated Harvard grads get fired from jobs for incompetence. It all the depends on how you use the opportunities you had/have.

ekt_bear: fstranger: So you are saying that the admissions standards of Ife/Ibadan/etc were low in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and thus the population of those who got in wasn't at a high percentile?

The point is that there were no standards in the most rigorous sense of it.

So then what percentile would you put them at relative to the Nigerian population?

How am I supposed to know that? Like I said, the best among us then, after completing their HSC, take up govt/clerical jobs, apprenticeships or teaching jobs in their villages. Only few had the presence of mind to further. And why would they? They were making good money and living large as government employees. Only the unemployed and less talented deemed it necessary to further their education. Names like Amos Tutola, Wole Soyinka, Ooni, Rev. I. O. Ransome Kuti etc come to mind. [s]The rich, and to some extent, the exposed, go outside of the country for quality education[/s]. There were no standardized test besides the rote memorization required to obtain your certificate.

Clearly they are above 50%. How much higher would you ballpark it at?

You are free to believe what you want to believe. The truth is that we just dont know.

Dede1: This is a yawn from another confused fellow. I know many Nigerians who earned degrees of any strata yet their parents were peasant farmers or market women that never saw four walls of elementary school. In the neck of my woods, it borders on individual determination to achieve laurels in academic despite the wicked presence of poverty.

I totally agree with you.

ekt_bear: There is something though to this point of not everyone having the financial means. So perhaps poverty artificially decreases the competition.

Effectively you have two population groups..Group 1 for whom money is not an issue regarding education, and Group 2 for whom it is. Let's say that in Nigeria today Group 2 is locked out.

If I'm in the top 1% of Group 1 (and say ranked X out of this group), and Group 2 is given access, certainly my rank will probably fall a lot...I'll only be the Yth best guy out of the merged populations. So maybe before this group was given access I'd have gotten a spot at Princeton. Now Princeton runs out of spots and I get kicked down to the University of Chicago.

But unless we believe that Group 2 is brighter on average than Group 1, I'll still be in the 99th percentile (well under reasonable assumptions about the two populations, anyway).

So the point is, those dudes who studied at Ife/Ibadan/etc in the 50s/60s/70s are at a pretty high percentile relative to the Nigerian average, and thus it isn't surprising that they and their children are doing really well in the US..

I'd like to think that you made the statement while drunk or high on something you are normally not used to. I just want to make it clear that this is your opinion and it really doesnt reflect the state of things on ground, then or now. And no one will agree with that baseless point of yours, I'd like to think

I share your glee -- up to a point. Surely no one will ever dare argue against your arm-chair expert opinion that those who studied at Ife/Ibadan in the 50s/60s/70s are at a pretty high percentile relative to the Nigerian average. The downside of your ridiculous argument is that there was no Ife in the 50s. Ife of the 60s was a shadow of what it is right now and entrance exam to Ife and Ibadan in the 60s wasn't that competitive. In fact there were no entrance exams in the 50s and 60s, admission was based on interest and nepotism, and affluence played little or no role. Higher education was paid for by the govt or by private individuals/corporations; many a d/u/m/b student got scholarships, sponsored by UAC etc. JAMB was established in 1977. Shortly after the creation of Yaba College ( which later became UI) "the Nigerian Daily Times described it as a grand idea, and imposing structure, resting on rather weak foundations. Noting the low standards of the Middle Schools, whose graduates would enter Yaba." The practice of admitting very weak students continued until WAEC was standardized in the late 70s. Prior to that, you get your school leaving certificate, if you want more, just show up and hopefully the admission officer speaks the same language as you, and by magic you are in. There was no IQ test whatsoever. The whole admission process was random, and sadly, very subjective. The education itself was sub-par and the tradition continues to this day.

And, NO, we don't know the general history of the parents of the kids doing well in the US. You only know yourself and a couple of other people in your area. My story, the story of my friend Nonzo, Ikemefuna, and millions of other Nigerians in the US are unknown to you, and any broad generalization on your part is, at best, a product of your fertile imagination.

texazzpete: ACN is an opposition party and that is what an opposition party should be doing.

Sure, they have the right to criticize. Sure, they have the right to finger-point. Yes, definitely they should talk when things are going south. However, ACN also has to be aware of how people perceive their endless attack on the president's person. The trick is figuring out how to balance their right to criticize constructively with advancing their political party. In advanced climes opposition party don't just point fingers, they come up with alternative plans. All ACN does is finger-point, with special obsession to GEJ's lifestyle, not his policies and ideas. That is petty. I know it, you know it and we all know it. ACN is bereft of ideas.

How is that 'petty' to you? If you were asleep when David Cameron was taking Gordon Brown to task over issues even more trivial than this, what have you been doing while Romney, Santorum and Limbaugh are excoriating Obama over any small perceived gaffe?

Although I agree that there are conflict of interest issues at stake, but I cannot shake the nagging feeling that had GEJ been a card carrying member of ACN, or if Fashola or Tinubu had been the person at the receiving end of this largess, this story might never have seen the light of day, and certainly would not have been pushed/criticized so harshly in the SW media. I admit that on the surface there is something not right, but there have been too many other cases in which ACN politicians have gotten away with much worse. Tinubu's recent birthday. Aregbesola steering construction contracts to his hometown. Alpha Beta. Infinity concept.

Someone has posted a link in the other topic where the Anglican church pastor commended GEJ in his sermon for the building. There are articles showing where GEJ 'expressed displeasure' to the company over the previous state of the church pre-renovation. Do you think ALL kickback has to be cash?

I don't deal with conjectures, you shouldn't too.

In my company, I will be queried if I stay in free hotel accommodation or any freebie provided by any client.

There is no evidence of pay for play here. The ministry of works and Asorock are too different entities. One awards contracts, the other is the executive branch of our govt. One deals directly with companies like the one in question here by awarding contracts through a fair and open process (including public bids or competitive contracting), the other presents budgets to the NASS. For all we know, GEJ probably doesn't even know who the CEO of the company is.

I recognize the reasons for such rules. I have no qualms in holding up my President to such standards especially when the Nigerian constitution frowns on that too.

Again, you are rushing to judgment. Private companies can do as they damn see fit. If there is any untoward acts going on in the background, it is ACN's job to prove it. If they cant, they should shut up and start preparing for their leader's 61st birthday. Next year isnt that far away.

texazzpete: Why is the Church delving into politics? Why is this Anglican loudmouth expressing 'support for the GEJ administration'?

The Church in Nigeria is a BIG dissapointment, from the CAN president to this fellow.

[b]The issue at stake has to do with conflict of interest [/b]and the impartiality of a leader being potentially compromised. This 'satanic' talk is really foolish.

In what sense? The issue at stake here is ACN's pettiness. Since they lost the election, every step of the way they have accused the govt of one misdeed after the other without EVER proving a single case. All they do is accuse and complain and whine and whine some more. It is getting tiring! Its becoming too personal and less ideological by the day.

The crux of the matter here is about a church and the last time I checked, not too long ago, any church issue is a religious issue and the Anglican "church" has every right to step in before it degenerates into something else. It is well within the purview of the Church in Nigeria to comment on ACN's ridiculous call for impeachment. To ACN, GEJ might as well be impeached for breathing the same air as the CEO of the construction company that built the Church. If there is any hanky-panky going on, the burden of proof is on ACN. GEJ has nothing to explain. As far as I can tell from the press release, no where in there did the Anglican church, directly or indirectly, express support for GEJ.

most ke?

Since we created God, power actually belongs to us.

Old news.

Not that great news. Bad rep.

They just ask stupiddd questions all the time. It is getting tiring for real. We have no real opposition in Nigeria. The burden of proof with respect to PDP's wrongdoing is on ACN. Enough of finger pointing politics. Prove your case or go siddon somewhere jo. Let people who have jobs to do, Do it. And those who want to celebrate their leaders birthday all year long can continue to do so.

Beaf: [size=18pt]Isn't it a miracle how dayokanu's votes suddenly shot up from 0 to 23?
katsumoto was leading for such a long time, then within the space of a few minutes... Gboa! The "dayokanu's" started voting!
I take that as proof that he has at least 23 id's.[/size]

Get a JOB! Dayokanu has nothing to do with it. A lot of people admire DK's courage and leadership on this forum, and they will come out to support him whenever it calls for it.

chino11: I highly recommend and endorse Ekt_bear, he is about the most liberal yorobaman on NL. The likes of Eko ilo should be disenfranchised for psychiatric reasons.

Liberal or g/a/y/?

OBJ is on his way to becoming the president of WB.

Viva la OBJ

Incompetent banks, incompetent customers. They cant even operate an ordinary ATM. Giant of Africa indeed!

May the best Ibo woman win!

Why Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Wants to Run the World Bank
By ANNIE LOWREY

Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters


https://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/04/03/business/economy/03economix-bank/03economix-bank-articleInline.jpg
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s finance minister and a candidate to lead the World Bank.


Two candidates from emerging-market countries have been put forward for the presidency of the World Bank, along with the Obama administration’s nominee, setting up the first contested election in the history of the development institution, which is based in Washington. The American contender, Jim Yong Kim, a global health expert and the president of Dartmouth College, is considered the favorite.

On Monday, I posted excerpts from a conversation with one of the challengers, José Antonio Ocampo, a former Colombian finance minister. I also spoke with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s finance minister, who has won the endorsement of Nigeria, Angola, South Africa, the African Union, The Financial Times and The Economist.

From 2007 to 2011, Ms. Okonjo-Iweala was a managing director of the World Bank, working directly under its current president, Robert B. Zoellick. Earlier, she held a number of leadership positions in the Nigerian government. She has a doctorate in regional economic development from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Here are highlights from our conversation, condensed and edited.

Q.
I was wondering if you could describe how you came to be nominated for this position.

A.
I wasn’t packaging myself as a candidate for the presidency of the World Bank. I have a very busy job as coordinating minister for economic development and minister of finance. But when this process began, African leaders started calling Goodluck Jonathan, the president of Nigeria, saying that they thought I was a candidate well qualified to lead the World Bank.

For African countries, this is an important institution. Their feeling, as it has been described to me, is that the World Bank succeeds or fails depending on what happens in Africa, because it is the continent that has the most complex development challenges and, now, the biggest opportunities, given how things have turned around.

They were looking for someone eminently qualified to lead in Africa and to lead globally. So, and again this is what I am told, they started calling my president with this thesis. The leader of the African Union. Jacob Zuma of South Africa. The president of Côte d’Ivoire. The leader of the World Bank in the Francophone countries. Goodluck Jonathan was bombarded with calls and letters. I think he decided, if I am getting pressure from all these leaders, I will allow her to go.

Q.
What would your agenda be at the bank?

A.
We need to move faster. The bank has to be quick, nimble and responsive in this global environment. I would like it to be much faster to get aid on the ground, and faster giving policy advice and help to ministers looking for it. I’d look to do things in days and weeks rather than months and years, and I have the bureaucratic knowledge, the knowledge of the institution, to make that happen.

But the premier goal should be helping developing countries with the problem of job creation. In country after country, the single most important challenge is how to create good jobs – in developing countries as well as developed countries. And a big challenge is youth unemployment, which I want to tackle very fast because of the other problems it creates.

There is an opportunity for a demographic dividend for developing countries if they address this issue. In my country, about 70 percent of the citizens are 30 years old or younger, and there are similar demographics in many other developing countries. The rest of the developed world is looking at a gerontocracy, but we’re looking at a youth bulge.

The World Bank is the premier institution to support young people, with all of its instruments to create jobs, build infrastructure and invest in human infrastructure. Also, green growth and climate change – that’s another issue I see as an opportunity for investment. And the World Bank has the knowledge and financial resources to help.

Q.
Why do you think it is important for the World Bank to open up its presidential race so that candidates from emerging economies have the chance to lead it?

A.
It makes eminent sense to do this – to open up global governance of these institutions to people in the developing world. If this is not done, there will be less interest in these institutions and people will go make their own. For instance, the BRICS [an umbrella group of the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa] are talking about making their own development bank.

[size=14pt]Besides, emerging and developing countries are contributing more than 50 percent of global growth! If it were not for the growth in developing countries, developed countries would be much, much worse off. So why are developing countries left out of the governance equation?[/size]

Q.
Just to drill down on that, what would be the issue with emerging and developing economies’ setting up institutions that were more responsive to them and controlled by them?

A.
It’s a huge, huge lost opportunity. I regard the World Bank as the premier instrument to lift people out of poverty and promote development, and not just in the poorest countries. It is a huge lost opportunity if they say that this resource that we have honed over these 70 years, that it doesn’t work for them anymore.

The World Bank’s best attribute is its huge staff. I’ve been there – I know these people, I know their passion and their commitment and their brilliance. If people walk away and say, ‘Listen, we can’t get a foot in the door,’ it will be a huge waste.

Q.
What makes you the best candidate?

A.
Development isn’t about just having knowledge in one area. You have to deal with macroeconomic and fiscal issues. Sectoral issues in agriculture, health, education, manufacturing. Agenda issues, like helping women and children and empowering them. Enterprise. Business development. Infrastructure. It’s about all of these issues and how they interplay.

That’s where I have strong experience. I’ve had a long career working in every region of the world, from Eastern Europe to Central Asia to the Middle East to Africa to Washington. I’ve worked in all of these regions, and I’ve learned so much that I could deploy as president. Indeed, I’ve been managing one of the most complex economies in the world – fighting corruption, promoting good governance, dealing with the macroeconomy.

It’s not about living in a developing country. And doing grass-roots development work is wonderful. But ultimately, this is about making tough choices that affect millions of lives. And I’ve done that. And I can hit the ground running because I know how to make this institution work for the world’s poor. I don’t have a learning curve.

When you listen to the media, it’s like it’s a done deal! I have tremendous respect for Dr. Kim. But you’re looking for the best. You’re not just looking for the acceptable. I can’t believe what I’m hearing: is this the same West that talks about democracy, openness, and meritocracy, and it’s like it has already been decided!

[b]I think the media should call for a debate of the three candidates, like you have for other important positions, to see who really knows what they are doing. Let’s all of us have a televised debate showing the world what we can do, so people can judge for themselves who is the most qualified to lead.[/b]

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/why-ngozi-okonjo-iweala-wants-to-run-the-world-bank/#