₦airaland Forum

How come the Minister made a statement implying that Social Media is a 'Nightmare' to PR managers (including himself) and then the NCC forces operators to increase tariffs?

Is this an attempt to reduce affordability and access to Social Media?

Is this not backdoor censorship?

"Pleading not to be mentioned, an employee of MTN said, “What this means is that MTN, Airtel, Etisalat And Globacom will increase their data rates as from December 1, 2016. A data plan of N1,000 for 1.5 Gigabytes will now be increased to N3,000 at N1,000 per 500 Megabytes.”

#TheBillIsBack #NoToNCCBackdoorSMCensorschip

http://punchng.com/gsm-subscribers-pay-data-dec-1/

http://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/more-news/215912-social-media-nightmare-pr-managers-lai-mohammed.html

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/05/senate-withdraws-frivolous-petitions-bill/

.

Not the 'biggest budget' if shed of 'paddings'

Nigeria’s economy over the past two and a half years could best be described as pride coming before a fall.

In April 2014 a statistical revision resulted in a near doubling of the country’s gross domestic product, allowing Africa’s most populous state to usurp South Africa’s place as the continent’s largest economy.

Within weeks the price of Brent crude began its dramatic descent from $110 a barrel to a low, earlier this year, of just $27. Given oil proceeds accounted for 90 per cent of government revenues, a price drop was always going to hurt.

Today Nigeria is battling its first recession in 20 years, with inflation at a 10-year high, a slumping currency, a severe shortage of dollars and a damaging insurgency by militants in its oil-producing south. The latter may have gathered fewer headlines than Boko Haram militants in the north, but have had a far greater economic impact. President Muhammadu Buhari, who assumed office in May last year, has endured a baptism of fire. “The number and difficulty of the tasks facing Buhari would challenge Hercules,” says Charles Robertson, global chief economist at Renaissance Capital, an investment bank focused on emerging markets. “He needs to secure peace in the north, address the Delta militant problem in the south, manage a federal system with powerful state governors, fight corruption, support electricity reform, restructure customs to improve trade and maintain fiscal discipline while increasing spending on education and transport.”

Yet the need to move to a “realistic” exchange rate may be a more urgent task still, Mr Robertson says. In order to preserve dollars and maintain the naira’s official exchange at 315 to the dollar, compared to a black market rate of 465, Nigeria has effectively banned the import of a range of goods, extending the economic contagion beyond oil.

The extent of the slowdown has been “quite extraordinary”, according to David Cowan, Africa economist at Citi, given how rare it has been for a sub-Saharan African country to suffer economic contraction in the past decade, outside of a major conflict or catastrophe. Yet some analysts are optimistic that the medium to long-term future remains bright. “Nigeria remains a highly entrepreneurial nation of 180m that is better educated than it has ever been, with high quality individuals in both the government and private sector,” says Mr Robertson.

Here, analysts from a range of investment and advisory companies provide their views.

Oil: amnesty needed to contain costly sabotage

What is the outlook given that production has plunged as a result of disruption by the Niger Delta Avengers, a militant group?
Alan Cameron, economist at Exotix Partners: There is no real long-term solution for militancy in the Delta — at best it can be contained. In fact, the prospects for some kind of renewed amnesty look relatively favourable. Although Mr Buhari is naturally hesitant to broker a deal with groups he views as criminal, the economics of such a compromise are compelling. At the height of its activity, the NDA was able to knock out about half the onshore production, at a cost of billions of dollars. That loss contrasts with the $300m the federal government spent on an amnesty programme in 2015.

Yvonne Mhango, sub-Saharan economist at Renaissance Capital: In the absence of an agreement between the government and the militants there remains significant downside risk to oil production. The Forcados pipeline, which is among oil infrastructure targeted by the NDA, is supposed to have recently resumed production, which implies an increase of 200,000 barrels a day. While the resumption of operations is positive in the near term, the lack of an agreement for the NDA to cease attacks implies that this terminal remains at risk of attack.

John Ashbourne, Africa economist at Capital Economics: Nigeria’s oil sector has suffered the dual blows of low prices and a wave of instability. The pain from the first of these may finally be easing. Production, however, will remain constrained. The federal government does not, in practical terms, have the capability to secure a settlement by military means. Talks could well drag on for months. We doubt that foreign firms will rush to invest in repairs to installations that are likely to be bombed again if the situation deteriorates.

Razia Khan, chief Africa economist at Standard Chartered: The perception is that militant activity is fading, and pipeline repairs should mean a better fourth quarter of 2016, at least in terms of production. But longer-term uncertainty persists. Nigeria’s oil sector has seen years of under-investment, not helped by uncertainty over future fiscal terms and the current low oil price. Until both change, hopes for a significant ramp up in production levels are likely to be disappointed.

Naira: currency stuck in ‘administrative lockdown’

How will the naira fare in the medium term given the wide disparity between the official and black market foreign exchange rates?

John Ashbourne: The gap between the official and parallel exchange rates is a clear signal that the naira remains overvalued, and the current dual-rate system has perpetuated foreign exchange shortages that are strangling the economy. Another devaluation is necessary in order to harmonise the two rates and relieve the shortage of dollars. President Buhari’s opposition, however, presents a significant obstacle. We expect that the official rate will have to be devalued again — probably to around 375-400 a dollar — but it is very difficult to predict when this will happen.

Yvonne Mhango: Our real effective exchange rate of 290 a dollar — a weighted average compared to other currencies — implies that the naira is undervalued. Despite that, we think the naira’s depreciation risk remains significant because of a crisis of confidence in Nigeria’s foreign exchange policy. After promising liberalisation, the authorities simply reverted to a currency peg. A fragmented interbank foreign exchange market and restrictions on imports explain the resumption of the fall of the naira on the parallel market.

Alan Cameron: The naira is once again stuck in an administrative lockdown, caught between the forces of a market pushing for further depreciation and the whims of a central bank governor unwilling to tolerate volatility. At the same time, the likelihood of a full-blown balance of payments crisis remains relatively low, so the only things we think can push the central bank into action are a further rise in inflation and a widening of the premium for dollars on the black market. The former is unlikely to happen soon, but the latter is now a live issue. We expect a further adjustment to 340-350 a dollar in the coming months, though we doubt the government will accept a flotation of the currency.

Charles Robertson: Nigeria has not followed the free-float currency path blazed by oil-exporting Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, but nor has it stubbornly stuck to the fixed official rate policy of Venezuela. We expect Nigeria will accept that markets know best how to find an equilibrium price for a currency, and accept the logic of a free float.

Trade: forex shortage produces drop in imports
Is a weaker currency helping exporters and are foreign exchange curbs on some imports causing any meaningful import substitution?

John Ashbourne: There is not, as yet, any evidence of the weaker currency helping exports. The most recent trade figures we have are from June, but at that point non-oil exports were actually about 50 per cent weaker than they had been a year earlier. Some of this is due to the lower price of natural gas, which counts as a non-oil export, but Nigeria does not have a lot of manufacturing capacity that is ready to jump into action now that the naira is lower. Most of the obstacles to domestic production, including skill shortages and power cuts, are continuing to limit output. A weaker naira and a shortage of foreign exchange will have added new obstacles as firms struggle to import capital products and input goods.

Yvonne Mhango: We think the foreign exchange restrictions in part explain the improvement in the current account balance to a small surplus of $1.03bn in the first half of the year, from a deficit of $7.7bn a year earlier. Imports fell by 25 per cent year-on-year in the first half of this year to $20.8bn. We think this was due to a combination of a weaker naira driving down import demand and foreign exchange restrictions.

Razia Khan: It is still too soon to see any meaningful impact of Nigeria’s policy, although clearly imports have contracted substantially to reflect the shortage of foreign exchange. Our research suggests that prices for items on the restricted list continue to be elevated, indicating that domestic production has still not risen to levels that would reduce the need for imports.

Antoon de Klerk, portfolio manager at Investec Asset Management: Import substitution unfortunately has been minimal given Nigeria’s low level of industrialisation.

Charles Robertson: Critics of a full float of the currency rightly point out that a cheaper currency will not result in a higher volume of oil exports. It is hard to see a benefit to exporters from the weaker currency, but we assume there will have been import substitution because inflation has not risen one-for-one with currency weakness, so demand has either been suppressed or shifted into domestic output.

Economy: modest growth from a low base expected in the coming year
What are the prospects for the economy as a whole and how likely is it that Nigeria will return to growth at some point next year?

John Ashbourne: It is difficult to be optimistic about Nigeria’s medium-term prospects, but I expect that the country’s economy will return to growth in 2017. This will partially be due to base effects. This year’s steep fall in oil output and the poor performance of the non-oil economy has meant that anything short of a total disaster next year will result in some year-on-year growth.
We expect that GDP growth will remain lower than population growth, so per capita incomes will continue to decline. In real terms, Nigeria’s economy will probably be about the same size in 2017 as it was in 2015. In dollar terms, output will have fallen by up to half.

Alan Cameron: We think there is a decent prospect of a modest economic recovery from a low base in 2017. The industrial sector, driven to a large extent by oil production, has been in recession for several quarters; the services sector is slowing but will probably find a bottom; and agriculture is driven by non-oil related factors. But a rebound to 2 per cent growth is not enough to move the needle for most Nigerians.

Charles Robertson: We expect to see some improvements in the economy six to nine months after the currency finds a clearing price, so it is not too late for 2017 to show better data in Nigeria. Rising oil production or oil prices would clearly help. In the longer term Nigeria’s future does not rely on oil. Nigeria is actually an oil-poor country, with exports per capita similar to Mexico and far less than Angola, Russia or Iran, let alone the Gulf states. It will diversify and industrialise, just as Mexico has done. Already cement production has risen. Elsewhere, the privatisation of electricity should support a manufacturing base in the medium term.

Antoon de Klerk: Growth will rebound only once the balance of payment issues are resolved and liquidity returns to the spot market. The government will try to stimulate the economy with increased spending, but it is severely hampered by how much it can spend since 90 per cent of government revenue comes from oil, unless it borrows internationally, as it plans to do.

Buhari: unlucky, inconsistent and statist
How do you rate President Muhammadu Buhari’s first 18 months in power this term and what do you think he should focus on?

John Ashbourne: Mr Buhari [who previously ruled Nigeria as a general] came to office at an incredibly difficult time for Nigeria, but it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that he has allowed the economic situation to deteriorate sharply. The president has often seemed aloof and disengaged from day-to-day economic policymaking. His four-month delay in appointing a cabinet created a worrying policy vacuum. And when the president does insert himself into economic policymaking, he seems instinctively drawn to statist, command-and-control policies that are ill-suited to a modern economy. His opposition to a full liberalisation of the foreign exchange market has been disastrous. Nigeria is, yet again, discovering that the economy is too important to be left to the generals.

Charles Robertson: Mr Buhari was unfortunate to come to power as oil prices were halving. This has presented huge challenges. Despite that, he has won success against Boko Haram and led from the top with his anti-corruption focus. It was unfortunate that former British prime minister David Cameron labelled Nigeria deeply corrupt just months after Nigeria’s people had elected a leader determined to stamp on corruption.

Alan Cameron: Mr Buhari’s first-year performance has been mixed. The partial resolution of one armed conflict in the north has coincided with the eruption of another in the Delta, the latter with much greater consequences for the overall economy. Progress on anti-corruption has been good, but economic management has been very inconsistent, which is all the more damaging at a time when Nigeria is relying on more investment from at home and abroad.

Yvonne Mhango: The Buhari cabinet’s first year in office can be described as lethargic. At various forums we have heard cabinet members acknowledge the country’s challenges and make the right noises on diversifying the economy and investing in infrastructure. We now need them to deliver.

Antoon de Klerk: Mr Buhari has faced a massive economic shock, with government revenue halving and exports more than halving, causing a currency crisis, whereas his predecessor enjoyed an oil revenue boom. On the economic policy front he deserves credit for allowing the 50 per cent devaluation of the naira.

https://www.ft.com/content/71ec7c94-923e-11e6-a72e-b428cb934b78

take what this guy says/tweets with a pinch of.....

Little boy lost finds his mother using Google Earth
By Robin Banerji
BBC World Service
14 April 2012
From the section Magazine


An Indian boy who lost his mother in 1986 has found her 25 years later from his new home in Tasmania - using satellite images.
Saroo was only five years old when he got lost. He was travelling with his older brother, working as a sweeper on India's trains. "It was late at night. We got off the train, and I was so tired that I just took a seat at a train station, and I ended up falling asleep."

That fateful nap would determine the rest of his life. "I thought my brother would come back and wake me up but when I awoke he was nowhere to be seen. I saw a train in front of me and thought he must be on that train. So I decided to get on it and hoped that I would meet my brother."

Saroo did not meet his brother on the train. Instead, he fell asleep and had a shock when he woke up 14 hours later. Though he did not realise it at first, he had arrived in Calcutta, India's third biggest city and notorious for its slums.
I do not think any mother or father would like to have their five year old wandering alone in the slums and train stations of Calcutta

"I was absolutely scared. I didn't know where I was. I just started to look for people and ask them questions."
Soon he was sleeping rough. "It was a very scary place to be. I don't think any mother or father would like to have their five year old wandering alone in the slums and trains stations of Calcutta."

The little boy learned to fend for himself. He became a beggar, one of the many children begging on the streets of the city. "I had to be quite careful. You could not trust anyone." Once he was approached by a man who promised him food and shelter and a way back home. But Saroo was suspicious. "Ultimately I think he was going to do something not nice to me, so I ran away."

But in the end, he did get off the streets. He was taken in by an orphanage, which put him up for adoption. He was adopted by the Brierleys, a couple from Tasmania. "I accepted that I was lost and that I could not find my way back home, so I thought it was great that I was going to Australia."

Saroo settled down well in his new home. But as he got older the desire to find his birth family became increasingly strong. The problem was that as an illiterate five-year-old he had not known the name of the town he had come from. All he had to go on were his vivid memories. So he began using Google Earth to search for where he might have been born.

"It was just like being Superman. You are able to go over and take a photo mentally and ask, 'Does this match?' And when you say, 'No', you keep on going and going and going."


Eventually Saroo hit on a more effective strategy. "I multiplied the time I was on the train, about 14 hours, with the speed of Indian trains and I came up with a rough distance, about 1,200km."


He drew a circle on a map with its centre in Calcutta, with its radius about the distance he thought he had travelled. Incredibly, he soon discovered what he was looking for: Khandwa. "When I found it, I zoomed down and bang, it just came up. I navigated it all the way from the waterfall where I used to play."

Soon he made his way to Khandwa, the town he had discovered online. He found his way around the town with his childhood memories. Eventually he found his own home in the neighbourhood of Ganesh Talai. But it was not what he had hoped for. "When I got to the door I saw a lock on it. It look old and battered, as if no-one had lived there for quite a long time."

Saroo had a photograph of himself as a child and he still remembered the names of his family. A neighbour said that his family had moved.
"Another person came and then a third person turned up, and that is when I struck gold. He said, 'Just wait here for a second and I shall be back.' And when he did come back after a couple of minutes he said, 'Now I will be taking you to your mother.'"


Saroo Brierley as a child
1981: Saroo is born
1986: He loses his family and ends up living on the streets of Calcutta
1987: He is adopted by an Australian couple and grows up in Tasmania
2011: He finds his home town on Google Earth
2012: He is reunited with his mother in Khandwa
"I just felt numb and thought, 'Am I hearing what I think I am hearing?'"
Saroo was taken to meet his mother who was nearby. At first he did not recognise her.
"The last time I saw her she was 34 years old and a pretty lady, I had forgotten that age would get the better of her. But the facial structure was still there and I recognised her and I said, 'Yes, you are my mother.'
"She grabbed my hand and took me to her house. She could not say anything to me. I think she was as numb as I was. She had a bit of trouble grasping that her son, after 25 years, had just reappeared like a ghost."
Although she had long feared he was dead, a fortune teller had told Saroo's mother that one day she would see her son again. "I think the fortune teller gave her a bit of energy to live on and to wait for that day to come."
And what of the brother with whom Saroo had originally gone travelling? Unfortunately, the news was not good. "A month after I had disappeared my brother was found in two pieces on a railway track." His mother had never known whether foul play was involved or whether the boy had simply slipped and fallen under a train.
"We were extremely close and when I walked out of India the tearing thing for me was knowing that my older brother had passed away."
For years Saroo Brierley went to sleep wishing he could see his mother again and his birth family. Now that he has, he feels incredibly grateful. He has kept in touch with his newly found family.
"It has taken the weight off my shoulders. I sleep a lot better now."
And there is something to make him sleep better - with memories of Slumdog Millionaire still fresh, publishers and film producers are getting interested in his incredible story.
Saroo Brierley spoke to Outlook on the BBC World Service

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17693816

How and where was the upgrade from civilian spec to military done?

It clearly states that this aircraft was fit-out initially for civilian VVIP use

How in this day and age any government will deliberately endanger the lives of its citizenry goes beyond all consideration!

This practice of engaging persons to 'sweep roads' (most times they're sweeping sand blown to the sides by vehicles) for measly pay (circa N7,000 - N15,000) in the name of creating jobs is LUDICROUS!!!

ARE WE OKAY AT ALL?!!!!

This goes against HSE!

This goes against Safety Best Practices!

This goes against COMMON SENSE!!!! (largely uncommon especially in government circles)

What happened to using Motorised Sweepers?

CleanSweepEmefiele ?

Really?

IMHO

It was NEVER about development or corruption

#CleanSweepBuhari

a la Jeffrey Archer

iokpebholo:
What is APC afraid of?

Indeed

Apparently, there are different categories of stealing

During a discussion on the topic - "Holding Back The Years; The Consequence of Corruption in the 21st Century Africa" at the Ake Arts and Book Festival, Mr. Tolu Ogunlesi offered the following distinction while commenting on stealing by Public Officials,

"Buying cars you know for an airport that doesn't have power and doesn't have whatever is not for me, is not vision. So, I have not said it's fine to steal but we need to look at the issues one by one. I spoke quite vocally abut the cars because it offended me that 4 million dollars will go on a bunch of cars if that money went..., and that's the argument that Pius gave about Lagos, that you see development in Lagos and Edo and you're less likely to accuse the Governors of stealing because at least they're doing stuff with the money so for me it's just about a certain nuance to the issues of public expenditure and it's not about them saying it's fine to steal money."


Mr. Tolu Ogunlesi is currently the Special Assistant to the President on Digital/New Media, responsible for among other things running the Digital Communications Department of the Presidency coordinating @AsoRock @DigiCommsNG on twitter and the "Presidency" handle on nairaland



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDH8uDQ1BkY



http://venturesafrica.com/here-is-what-you-didnt-know-about-tolu-ogunlesi-president-buharis-newly-appointed-special-assistant-on-digital-new-media/

During a discussion on the topic - "Holding Back The Years; The Consequence of Corruption in the 21st Century Africa" at the Ake Arts and Book Festival, Mr. Tolu Ogunlesi offered the following distinction while commenting on stealing by Public Officials,

"Buying cars you know for an airport that doesn't have power and doesn't have whatever is not for me, is not vision. So, I have not said it's fine to steal but we need to look at the issues one by one. I spoke quite vocally abut the cars because it offended me that 4 million dollars will go on a bunch of cars if that money went..., and that's the argument that Pius gave about Lagos, that you see development in Lagos and Edo and you're less likely to accuse the Governors of stealing because at least they're doing stuff with the money so for me it's just about a certain nuance to the issues of public expenditure and it's not about them saying it's fine to steal money."


Mr. Tolu Ogunlesi is currently the Special Assistant to the President on Digital/New Media, responsible for among other things running the Digital Communications Department of the Presidency coordinating @AsoRock @DigiCommsNG on twitter and the "Presidency" handle on nairaland



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDH8uDQ1BkY



http://venturesafrica.com/here-is-what-you-didnt-know-about-tolu-ogunlesi-president-buharis-newly-appointed-special-assistant-on-digital-new-media/

aresa:
1. Projects are less than half of the total budgets while recurrent expenditures like wage bill, vendors bills, utility bills and last time I checked, Lagos state has the 2nd largest civil service in Nigeria so assigning and comparing just projects sounds a little bit ignorant and misguided.

2. The article you posted says Lagos state owe over $1 trillion which is either a bogus lie or ignorant typo.

Ambode inherited N432 billion debt from Fashola so where did you and the article get your trillion dollar from?6

Ambode inherited N432b debt from Fashola – Lagos Government reveals

https://www.nairaland.com/newpost?topic=3418984&post=50368625


3. To determine what was spent or not spent on anything, you first have to itemize all the projects started and completed, how much was paid in wages, paid to vendors, on utilities and so on and on.


Again, your argument is lame and ignorant and I won't even call it criticism, but I'll call it misguided and ill informed rant..

Brb

1. #FACTCHECK your assertion is FALSE

Below is the summary of the Lagos State budget for 2016 as approved by the State Assembly.

(Full document is available at http://www.lagosstate.gov.ng/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Summary_position.pdf)

Recurrent Expenditure N275.65bn
Personnel N125.20bn
Overhead N137.29bn
Capital Expenditure N386.93bn

Total Budget Size N662.588bn

Below is the summary of the Lagos State budget for 2011 as presented by the Lagos State Government.

(Full document is available at http://www.lagosbudget.org/pdffiles/352653_Lagos_State_budget[1].pdf)

Recurrent Expenditure N198.18bn
Personnel N68.23bn
Overhead N129.95bn
Capital Expenditure N252.59bn

Total Budget Size N450.77bn

In neither instance is projects less than half the budget size


2. The article posted DID NOT say Lagos state owes $1trillion IN FACT there is no mention of $1trillion anywhere only N1trillion which the author attributed to the WHOLE Nation.
So once again #FACTCHECK your assertion is FALSE

[b]The post is actually not for you aresa, it is for those you intend to mislead as clearly you know the truth and the facts.

Why your response to a request for citizen engagement as the original post outlined was met with so much antagonism is befuddling. People who are paid for this respond with much less vitriol and venom, it is apparent that this goes beyond mere partisanship and it is hoped that you get the help you need.

You seem to have a suspiciously inordinate amount of time on your hands to propagate your 'cause', I don't ply my trade online so while I enjoy engaging with you occasionally, in future my responses to you will be limited to 3 posts per thread.

To what end is your copious use of insults and hate speech. Is it your reckoning that people with different views than you will run and hide when attacked in such a manner, or that they will 'learn' and subsequently share your views? Is it a strategy to denigrate and alienate other ethnic groups different than yours? People who have the same claim to Nigeria as you?

The various iterations of your moniker suggest you have been banned before, whatever for I have no idea but I urge the various mods (Seun, Lalalsticlala, Mynd44 and all) to take a stronger stand against ethnic bigotry and hate speech. Nigeria belongs to us all.

In closing, it is ironic that you mentioned 'hate' in your first response. If the goal of the original post was to 'bring the person and character' of Mr Fashola and the APC down, defending him with robust sycophancy will eventually achieve the same result.[/b]

[size=14pt]See where sycophants got Mr. Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP. More grease to your elbow
[/size]

aresa:
We have discussed this on NL and clearly showed that Fashola's 8 years delivered more started and completed projects than 16 years of PDP andf GEJ.


Also that Fashola delivered more projects than all the governments, states and federal in Nigeria combined since independence.


The projects are in the thread below in vivid colors.


[b]Fashola's 8 Years And Gej/FG/All PDP State's 16 Years Record. Compare. PICS...


https://www.nairaland.com/2180887/fasholas-8-years-gej-fg




Lagos State: The Pride Of The South West..


https://www.nairaland.com/1894158/lagos-state-pride-south-west



PICTURES AND FACTS DON'T LIE.[/b]

Take your hate and ignorance back to where you get it from and tell them Fashola id busy and making more improvements in the power sector than ever been made since independence...

I admire your doggedness in defending Mr. Fashola and the APC (ACN etc).

This is not ignorance or hate.

Fancy pictures tell half the truth and I am certain you are well aware of that.

Why you believe that anyone who criticices Mr. Fashola and the APC (ACN) must be a PDP or GEJ apologist/supporter is bemusing.




Have a look at my 'snapshots', they probably tell a different story than yours.

Lagos (and Nigeria) could have been WAaaaaAaaAaA...aaa...aaayyy better if mnaged decently



http://allafrica.com/stories/201602081882.html

http://dailypost.ng/2016/01/07/ambode-inherited-n432b-debt-from-fashola-lagos-government-reveals/

989900D:
Throw it to auditors to do the neeedful; what can we do from behind the screen without assessing the projects but argue blindly (largely)?

1. Do you know any of the projects?

2. In your estimation have they been satisfactorily completed?

note the Approved Downpayment Column - these monies are those given upfront to the contractor

3. Does the above note make sense in any of the scenarios? If not, why?

Below are links to details of contracts awarded during the Fashola Years in Lagos (2007,2008,2009)

Was the money spent judiciously? Look around you and confirm.

https://web.archive.org/web/20100817003010/http://www.stb.lagosstate.gov.ng/2007.php

https://web.archive.org/web/20120514122232/http://www.stb.lagosstate.gov.ng/STB.htm

https://web.archive.org/web/20120525080402/http://www.stb.lagosstate.gov.ng/STB1.htm

source is archived website of Lagos State Tenders Board

Eight years ago, my husband, Shain, asked me if I wanted to buy a farm. At the time, we lived in a nice house at Bathurst and St. Clair; I was a film producer and he was a literary agent. We were empty nesters in our 50s and working harder than ever. We often put in 15-hour days, catching up for an hour at home before crashing for the night. But I’d always wanted to raise animals, and Shain was looking for a weekend escape where he could watch the sunset over green pastures.

Three weeks later, while scouring a rural newspaper, we spotted an ad for an eight-hectare farm in Campbellford, about two and a half hours’ drive northeast of Toronto. It had green fields and a Victorian farmhouse with the wraparound porch of Shain’s dreams. We decided to make an offer before we had even stepped inside the house. The place was listed at $495,000; for $475,000, it was ours.

The house was rickety and rundown, with no air conditioning and outdated appliances. For water, we relied on a well that ran dry every few weeks. But we loved the antiquey charm: wide-plank floorboards, mullioned windows, 10-foot ceilings. We inherited 20 chickens from the former owners, bought three horses and hired a farmhand to care for the animals when we were in Toronto. For the first month or so, we spent weekends planting flowers, drinking wine on the porch and watching our horses graze in the pasture. On Monday mornings, we’d head back to the city grind.

Soon our inexperience caught up with us. The chickens seemed easy enough at first: all I had to do was feed them, collect their eggs and clean their coop. That was until I walked in one day to find one lying dead. The next day, I walked in to find another dead chicken, and another the following morning. It was like a scene from The Birds—and I was convinced that I was somehow responsible. When I called the vet in a panic, he burst out laughing. “The thing about chickens,” he said, “is that they live, and then they die.” They weren’t spring chickens, he told me. They’d died of old age.

In time, I learned the everyday hacks to pass as a hobby farmer. When our gate collapsed, I resisted the temptation to call a handyman; instead, I grabbed baling twine from our barn and jury-rigged it shut. It took five hours. When one of our horses started escaping from his stall every day, I was able to patch up the enclosure. And after a few failed attempts to start the old, finicky tractor we inherited, I enlisted a neighbour to teach me how to operate the thing.


In 2013, I discovered Nigerian dwarf goats: a rare breed that grow to about the size of border collies and are just as affectionate. Besotted, I decided to buy a few for the farm. And they came relatively cheap: four does—Pearl, Eva, Butterscotch and Emmy—were only $100 each. We picked up our new hircine beauties in Milton and loaded them into our Dodge Caravan. On the way home, we stopped for a bathroom break at Yorkdale. I realized just how much my life had changed: as I returned to the car, I could hear the goats bleating for attention in the parking lot while passersby stopped and stared in amazement.

I moved to the farm full-time to care for my new herd. My days changed dramatically: I was waking up at 5:30 a.m. to answer emails and deal with business for my day job. By 8, I was in the barn feeding the goats. Sometimes I was roused in the middle of the night by a runaway horse or a sick doe. The workload was double what I’d had back at home—and I was loving every minute of it.

And here are a couple more kids. And here are a couple more kids.

As a first-time goat owner, I had a steep learning curve: I never knew if the goats were eating enough, if they were comfortable, if they had everything they needed. Like every 21st-century DIYer, I YouTubed my way through, watching tutorials about how to arrange their bedding, how to milk them, how often to replenish their water supply. Shortly after bringing the does home, we acquired a studly buck named Don, and he knew exactly what to do. Soon, all four does were pregnant. No one could have prepared me for the morning I arrived in the barn to find a tiny baby goat, shivering at the door, while the does sat at the other end of the pen. I freaked out: whose baby was it? What if it hadn’t eaten or bonded with its mother? I called our breeder. “Just pick up the baby,” she said nonchalantly. “The mother will start screaming once you do.” She was right: as soon as I grabbed the kid, Pearl bleated bloody murder.

Shain and I are busier and happier than ever. Nigerian dwarf goat’s milk has the highest butterfat content of any breed, and soon, I started making amazing cheese and fudge, and selling it at farmers’ markets; eventually, I connected with local artisans to make goat’s milk–based skin-care products. Last year, we upgraded to an 80-hectare farm in Port Hope, where we’re also raising alpacas and miniature Icelandic horses. And as for the goats? Last spring, we welcomed our 92nd kid.

Watch Nightingale’s brood on the 24-hour “Goat Cam”


Debbie Nightingale runs Haute Goat in Port Hope. Email submissions to memoir@torontolife.com

http://torontolife.com/city/life/nigerian-dwarf-goats-farmer-movie-executive-memoir/

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