₦airaland Forum

Thinking about this further, it is also possible that there's a law that effectively gives legal rights to abandoned property to the customs. If true, then they can dispose it according to their rules.

The next question will be to determine if the property fits the definition of “abandoned property.” If it does, then the senate can’t really do anything but to change the law as written. Then again, this is Nigeria!

aribisala0:
truth is the buyers acted lawfully and may sue the govt,for substantial damages if they take them back by force. we must not forget that govt is not above the law

You cannot sell what you do not own. The title (legal rights) to the property did not pass to the Customs, which means that the title cannot be passed on to the buyers of the property. The contract for sale/auction is void ab initio and the innocent 3rd parties only have a claim against the Customs.

Also, the 3rd parties cannot be jailed because they didn't do anything wrong and only got duped.

I posted something along the same lines a while ago in a different post.

Wallie:
Does anyone know of any social program in Nigeria that serves food (cooked or uncooked) to the needy? As you can see, even first world countries are having a hard time dealing with this economic downturn and it is only going to get worse especially in Nigeria if the fuel subsidy is removed.

Here's a video on Britain's food poverty
http://cnn.com/video/?/video/business/2011/10/10/rivers-uk-food-poverty.cnn


Hunger Statistics on the use of Emergency Food Assistance and Federal Food Assistance Programs in the US
•   In 2009, 4.8 percent of all U.S. households (5.6 million households) accessed emergency food from a food pantry one or more times.

•   In 2009, food insecure (low food security or very low food security) households were 15 times more likely than food-secure households to have obtained food from a food pantry.

•   In 2009, food insecure (low food security or very low food security) households were 19 times more likely than food-secure households to have eaten a meal at an emergency kitchen.

•   In 2009, 57 percent of food-insecure households participated in at least one of the three major Federal food assistance programs –Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly Food Stamp Program), The National School Lunch Program, and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children.

•   Feeding America provides emergency food assistance to an estimated 37 million low-income people annually, a 46 percent increase from 25 million since Hunger In America 2006.

•   Feeding America provides emergency food assistance to approximately 5.7 million different people per week.

•   Among members of Feeding America, 74 percent of pantries, 65 percent of kitchens, and 54 percent of shelters reported that there had been an increase since 2006 in the number of clients who come to their emergency food program sites.

There are people out there in need of help and we can’t always leave everything to the government. If those of us that are fortunate are not helping, who will? To me, being a good Christian, Muslim, or human being is about helping people in need just because they are humans.

I pray to one day own such a secular tribal-neutral facility as a way of giving back.

There’s nothing wrong in needing or hiring a maid if you have the means. But your maid is not a slave and there are labor laws that have to be followed! Even if you bring someone from Nigeria, she needs to have the following:

1. Freewill to quit anytime. Any perceived hindrance, whether real or imagined, against her leaving will likely be deemed illegal servitude. All your flimsy excuses as to why she was free to leave will not work.  

2. The maid and not her family needs to be paid, at least, the minimum wage per hour with money out of your control. You cannot claim to hold the money for her.

3. Time off from work. And if you require her to work odd hours, she has to be compensated for the extra time worked.

4. Hitting is illegal, period!

If you cannot afford the above, then maybe you’re not wealthy enough to hire a maid.

Danyl:
Helo house, i want to know what it took those big software corporations  out there to be established and what it takes to build from the scratch a software company.

To answer the post, you need to have a business need for the software. What is your software going to achieve? Once that's defined and designed at a high level, then you need to start coding or get someone on-board to start coding.

Your software will have different stages (pre-alpha, alpha, and beta). The pre-alpha stage will include defining the requirements of your software, design, and coding). This stage will be to create some type of "prototype" software that can showcase the gist of your idea. Once you have the prototype, you will then need to look for investors to fund the other stages.

In the alpha stage, the software will be mostly functional but buggy. In the beta stage, most of the bugs would have been resolved and you can release the software to actual clients for testing. After the beta stage, you should have software that you can charge for.

How much is the software development going to cost? Well, it depends on how big and complex your software is.

How does your wife feel about you? Does she love you? Does she know how you feel about her? Have you ever loved her?

If you've never loved your wife and she knows, then you might be justified in getting a divorce especially if she just thinks that you're "ok."

BUT your kid is an innocent party to the arrangement between you, your wife and your parents! If you do decide to get a divorce, make sure that your new wife is ready to accept your kid as her own. Women can come and go as they please and there's not a thing that you can do about it except cry your eyes out but your kid is "yours"! Don’t ever mistreat your kid or put him in a position to be mistreated by others!

I still don’t understand how the parents of a grown man can force him to marry someone he does not love! You need to call or talk to your parents every single day to let them know how they’ve screwed up your life!

Supreme Court to Decide Whether Corporations Have Immunity for Crimes against Humanity

This week, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case about whether a corporation can be sued, on the same basis as a human being, for its complicity in gross human rights abuses such as crimes against humanity and torture. The case, Kiobel v . Royal Dutch Petroleum, arises out of a military crackdown on Ogoni communities in the Niger Delta in the mid-1990s, which Shell Oil allegedly abetted.

Among these abuses were the execution of Dr. Barinem Kiobel, an Ogoni leader, alongside other Ogoni activists including renowned environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa. Shell allegedly bribed witnesses to give false testimony against the executed leaders.

Kiobel arises under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), a federal law that allows the federal courts to hear cases brought by foreigners for violations of international law, including international human rights law. Courts have repeatedly allowed ATS cases for abuses such as torture, extrajudicial killings, war crimes, crimes against humanity, slavery, and genocide.

Until recently, no federal court had ever questioned that corporations have the same responsibilities under international law as human beings do. Last fall, however, a divided Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Kiobel that Shell could not be sued for human rights violations. The majority opinion reasoned that corporations had never been prosecuted by any international court, and found no international legal norms that required corporate liability.

As the American Constitution Society has repeatedly documented, corporations have a very good track record in this Supreme Court. But there are reasons to believe that immunizing corporations for crimes against humanity, among other things, will be a bridge too far even for this court.

In the year since it was decided, Kiobel has come under serious attack, and upholding the decision would be an embarrassment. Immediately after the Second Circuit issued its decision, it was criticized by numerous amicusbriefs, including briefs submitted by scholars of the Nuremburg trials and by legal historians. In July of this year, the federal courts of appeals in the District of Columbia and in the Seventh Circuit both rejected the Kiobel decision.

The Seventh Circuit's decision is notable because its lead author is Judge Richard Posner, a highly influential conservative legal scholar and law professor at the University of Chicago. Judge Posner's decision, which labels Kiobel an "outlier," begins by noting that Kiobel's "factual premise" - that corporations have never been punished at the international level - is simply "incorrect." Following World War II, although corporations were not tried at Nuremburg, several corporations were actually dissolved by the Allies as punishment for their complicity in war crimes.

The decision by the District of Columbia Circuit similarly dismantles the reasoning of Kiobel, noting that it does not make sense to look to international law at all to answer the question of who can be sued in an ATS case. Corporations, after all, are created by domestic law, and their liabilities are defined by domestic law.

Corporate "personhood" has been rightly criticized for many reasons, and the notion that a corporation is equivalent to a human being has led to consequences such as the Supreme Court's decision last year in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. But the flip side of corporate rights is corporate responsibilities, and for over a century it has been a bedrock principle of American law that when corporations cause harm they can be sued just like human beings.

In order to uphold Kiobel, the Supreme Court would need to create a rule of corporate immunity - that a corporation is exempt from liability for doing things that an ordinary human being could be sued for. There is no support for such an idea in American or international law, and such a decision would further erode the Court's public image.

http://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/supreme-court-to-decide-whether-corporations-have-immunity-for-crimes-against-humanity

If the Supreme Court rules in favor of Kiobel, it will be open season on all the oil companies subjected to American law. This will, in no doubt, clean up their acts!

uche13:
@Wallie
I do not think that the law is partial to the poor at all. The issue in question is not the amount stolen nor the offence committed but is the fact that you threatened or rather caused bodily harm on a person in the process. If you decide not to be armed while stealing 5,000 or 50,000,000 then that is another ball game entirely but someone who stole N1 and was armed is worse than the one that stole N1billion and was un armed.

Hmmm, but who's more likely to rob someone at gunpoint? Certainly, not the rich because he can steal billions with just a stroke of his pen.

On the issue of injury, you can certainly link embezzlement by hospital management to a patient's demise. For example, patient needs an organ transplant to survive but the doctors can't perform the operation because management embezzled money meant to buy a generator to keep the hospital running. If all else fails, then the management can be sued for negligence.

Ayowumie:
Pls i need some clarification.
My starcomms speed shows 3.1mbps but when i did speed test through www.speedtest.net it showed Upload speed of 0.16mbps and Download speed of 0.14mbps. Everything put together gives me 0.30mbps as against what my starcoms connection status says.

Pls, can somebody provide some insight into this.
Thanks

The most likely reasons that the theoretical speed of 3.1 mbps does not correspond to the actual measured speed is because (1) it is theoretical and will only happen when the stars are aligned, and (2) too many people share the same bandwidth. You can easily confirm the second reason by running the speed test at different times of the day and you'll notice that it will be the fastest when people are sleeping (not surfing).

[quote author=nwaigbo_mg link=topic=786551.msg9398318#msg9398318 date=1319320250]well done dual core, afam and others,

pls what of broadband? on several occasions i tried posting sth on this forum, i was interrupted and told that my broadband has expired.

what is really broadband?
can it be measured? if yes, how?

thanks[/quote]Broadband is just another internet connection except it is very "fast." Broadband internet connections are fast because of the type of medium used. You can think of a "band", which is just a number +- a certain frequency, as a single lane highway. "Broad" then refers to a 10 lane highway, which is just a bigger number +- the frequency above.

For example, MTN is allocated a certain frequency to transmit, let's say 500MHZ but they would also be told that they can't transmit below 495MHz and above 505 MHz. In simple terms, this means that they have 10MHz bandwidth or band and transmit at 500MHz. Some people will say that broadband on a fiber optic cable really has infinite bandwidth due to being optical signals (light rays) but that's not true due to other limitations in the system.

Phemmmy:
Pls anyone with difference between ANALOGUE and DIGITAL bandwidth.
I'm seeing with all these answers two different views.

Analog and digital bandwidth refer to the same thing - bandwidth. However, most service providers are now using digital hardware because they can cram more data and many more concurrent users onto the same line. For example, on an analog line, your service provider may only be able to maintain 50 users using their phone at a particular location at the same time but with digital equipment, that number might go up to 5000.

From a user's point of view, the only difference you would see is the type of equipment that you can use.

The simple analogy that I use to explain bandwidth is to think of it as lanes on a highway, and you can think of data as vehicles plying each lane.

There's no such thing as unlimited bandwidth. What they're saying is that your available bandwidth is not limited by them (host company) but by the number of people that you share the bandwidth with. When you have unlimited bandwidth, your data (vehicle) will end up on the 3rd Mainland bridge during rush hour but if you have a dedicated bandwidth, your data will be the buses traveling the BRT lane.

I like GEJ’s calm demeanor but to rule Nigeria, you also need to be strong willed. Theodore Roosevelt said, "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." I’m still waiting with bated breath for GEJ’s big stick.

I would also like to believe that he engages in "the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis" with his decisions but I guess time will tell.

Omooba77:
So that is the difference sir.

What's with the "sir"? lol

OK, if you're saying that the roads that were recently built now have potholes, then I would respond by saying, "how recent is 'recently-built'"? How long are the roads designed to last before developing potholes? Is it possible that the roads are only designed to last two raining seasons due to budget concerns? How about 3 raining seasons? 4?

I only said "you might have a point"!  

ikeyman00:
i will never buy those crap on bold!!

That's fine because I wasn't selling it. What I posted is not an opinion but fact.

Read the USA Today article linked below (I posted the text earlier but spambot banned me for it and also ate it):

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-09-10-3878428638_x.htm

The weight limit for nearly all interstate highways is 40 tons. According to a government study, one 40-ton truck does as much damage to the road as 9,600 cars.

Omooba77:
@Wallie,I'm a science student sir,even if potholes will develop, the road must have a crevice. It is not few weeks after construction like we have in this part. When road or any facility is designed,there is provision for maintenance. How thick is our road before the final coat. Checkout what Julius Berger is doing at Oshodi axis and compare with Ccc? Malu road,Apapa is a good example of what a road should be,how many years now and it still motorable,despite heavy use by trailers and tankers. So what else do you want to say sir.

I don't argue blindly and have never been a follower. I responded to your initial post because you said, "Fashola has dashed my hope with all the bad state of roads,even BRT lane is not spared." My response pointed out that even the roads made of the best materials will develop potholes. So the fact that the roads and/or BRT lanes are bad does not really tell you anything about Fashola. For all we know, the roads could be near the end of their lifespan.

Now, if you had originally said that you lost faith in Fashola because the roads that were newly-built already developed potholes, then you might have a point.

Do you see the difference?

Omooba77:
The message look assuring,but Fashola has dashed my hope with all the bad state of roads,even BRT lane is not spared. It shows something is wrong with the design and construction. He has promised to do something about Ikorodu,nothing yet. Now getting out VI through Akindesola is herculean task and the flood every time it rains. BRF needs to go back to the drawing board.

Potholes will develop over time even on roads built with the best material money can buy. This is even more so in Lagos with its population and unregulated trailer traffic. In the US, some roads and bridges are closed to trailers, and all trailers have a weight limit so as not to damage interstate highways.

Most potholes are formed due to fatigue of the road surface. As fatigue fractures develop they typically interlock in a pattern known as crocodile cracking. The chunks of pavement between fatigue cracks are worked loose and may eventually be picked out of the surface by continued wheel loads, thus forming a pothole…If a pothole fills with water the growth may be accelerated, as the water "washes away" loose particles of road surface as vehicles pass, However, potholes are a frequent occurrence anywhere in the world, including in the tropics…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pothole

Kx:
For the avoidance of doubts, i sing Fashola praise to high heavens.
But like someone rightly pointed out, could nt this report card have been presented in LASU?
Why did he choose to sell himself and his team in Oxford?
Could nt he have achieved the same objective at home?
Can the guys in Oxford verify his claims that In the past three and a half years, as a city-state, we have built more roads than two of our neighbouring countries – Ghana and Sierra Leone even if that statement is bogus?
Who does he owe the duty of stewardship reporting, londoners or lagosians?

Why do you think he was presenting his "report card"? He was educating the team as someone experienced in delivering services to a mega city. Further, is LASU doing a study on "challenges of Managing a Mega City" where he could have presented?

Did you see the quote below? How can people at LASU help? Can people at LASU provide the needed dollars for the PPP or FDI? If you're seeking international "money" wouldn't you be canvassing such on an international stage?

lnviting the British Government and investors to look toward Lagos and Nigeria for huge investment opportunities, Governor Fashola declared, " Nigeria as a country and Lagos as a State offer huge opportunity to British investors. I also look forward to partnership in areas of Education and I am hopeful that a university like Oxford can develop a partnership overseas with our state university and offer the same quality or training and certification in an institution based in Lagos .

Kx:
I dont get it.
This is Fashola's report card.
Ant the best place to present it is abroad, to the "colonial masters"?

You fail to realize that he wasn't merely presenting his "report card" but speaking about the challenges of Managing a Mega City at the special Oxford Research Network on Government in Africa. Mega Cities all over the world all face most of the same set of problems and Fashola is educating them on what it takes to tame a city like Lagos.

Is there still room for improvement in Fashola's performance and delivery of service? Sure he’s human but there's also zero doubt that he ranks among the best rulers Nigeria has ever had. You may not like him personally but you can’t deny that he’s very hard working and delivers results that seem like “miracles” when compared to other elected governors/presidents.

And just like a true leader, he gives credit to his “very talented and hard-working team.”

Otunbakay:
Well, that is a fact that cannot be disputed, not even by the smartest of ladies. Majority of ladies have fallen victim of the okafor's theory @ a particular period of their live. Haven't you noticed guys, that the ladies have deliberately avoided this thread so far, with the few that have posted trying to avoid straight comment on the topic. Well, maybe they will start posting now after reading this post. I really want to hear their views on this topic. I'm waiting!

Most people, guys and girls, have been a jump off at one time or another!

splitnaija:
The first time I heard about Okafor's law was when I was a Youth Corper.
I overhead my boss then jokingly saying to his friend he was going to apply Okafor's law on a certain person.
As a bloody Corper, I had no guts to ask him anything about the said law as that could mean insurbodination. But somehow, I stumbled on it on the internet a while ago and was amazed.

Okafor's Law of Congodynamics

C1 + P = C∞
It states that once a Congo has been shined once (C1) , it can always be shined (C∞ ) provided it was shined properly ( P) the previous times.

In scientific circles, opinion is divided as to whether it is actually a law or just a hypothesis. There is a large body of evidence to suggest that it is a law but there are others who think it is merely a hypothesis and does not take into account other variables such as M (marital status), O (opportunity) and F (Financial status) of either one or both of the parties.

Now having read through, I want responses on how true and reliable this law is.

1. Has anyone ever fallen victim of this law?
2. Does it apply to only females?
3. Does it have a validity period?
4. Are there other laws or hypotheses by this scientist called Okafor?
5. What does the name Okafor really mean?

I had to read the post twice to make sense of it because I couldn't figure out what "Congo" is :-)

But I think that C∞ depends heavily on the variable x (current satisfaction). I think that if you're not satisfied with your current situation, then C∞ is more likely.

lim x--> 1 f(x) = C∞ = C1(x) + P(x) wherein 1 = currently unsatisfied, 0 = currently satisfied.

Due to one or more of the following:

1. Hedging their bet that some of their kids will survive.
2. Lack of access to contraceptive/family planning.
3. Source of cheap labor.
4. Early start in having babies.
5. Lack of education.

uche13:
Yes oh, once you are armed, the minimum sentence is DEATH. It does not matter if you did not even steal a dime. So if you commit any offence whether violation or anything crime at all, you would be sentenced to death. That is the law.

Off-topic

Wow…the law is disproportionately cruel to the poor because white collar crimes, no matter the magnitude, do not carry the death penalty! To make it fair, stealing anything with a value of over NGN 50 million should attract the death penalty.

Are there varying degrees of murder charges for premeditated to accidental murder?

uche13:
Yeah I know that I said this thread is for funny happenings but I just thought to share this. I feel so sad now .
A matter came up for judgment in court and it was a criminal case. As usual, the matter was called first and so we all heard the judge delivering the judgment.
The case had to do with a guy who killed his friend all because of a small amount of money to be shared . The judge found him guilty and sentenced him to death and at that moment, you need to have heard the sharp deep cry of his mother who was in court saying “mummy (the judge’s name) please, have mercy on me, pity my son, I am begging you” etc and she wailed uncontrollably while the orderlies in court tried to calm her . The judge could not stand it and rose immediately to go to her chambers and ordered that the registrars adjourn all the matters for the day.

Why do people get themselves involved in crime , why make your loved ones go through all the pain just because of plain foolishness and youthful exuberance. Why bend your head while in the dock while you raised it confidently high when committing the crime . Just why?
Right now, the poor mother would be subjected to great mental torture while the case goes on appeal. The woman would hold on to a tiny string of hope while expecting the lawyer to perform a miracle on appeal and if the appeal court agrees with the high court, then the journey to the Supreme Court starts and after that, it is all over. This is all so painful. I am so glad my firm dont do criminal cases because it is emotionally tasking and and heart wrenching all in one.

I have witnessed two boys sentenced to death just because they stole N5,000 and a small phone but they were unfortunately armed and that was their greatest undoing. You begin to wonder why they decided to throw away their whole life just because that paltry sum. Please people, let us all desist from crime because it is not worth it!

People get sentenced to death for armed robbery in which no one died?

Can you list the vehicles below in order of popularity?

You have your own life to live. Your parents already lived theirs and made their own choice. We listen to our parents for advice because they have more experience than us but the realities of their own world may be different from yours. There is no doubt that our generation is more liberal than our parents’ generation.

Marriage is hard work and having people from different backgrounds makes it harder. Marriage takes a lot more than love to work but as long as both of you go into it with both eyes open and you’re ready to invest your blood and sweat, go for it. People go through life without ever finding true love and there’s nothing worse than finding your true love only to let the person go based on someone else’s ill advice.

Some people seem to think that it is easy to find someone that you can spend the rest of your life with. I have no doubt that you can find someone else to marry but is that person your true life companion or are you just settling for third or fourth place? Only you will be there to surfer or enjoy your choice of whom to marry, your parents can only empathize with you.

Everybody that I know in the US that got married based on country/tribe are now divorced including men that went back home to get an obedient wife. Find someone and if that person happens to be from your tribe, consider it a bonus to your marriage but your search should be based on love and not origin.

These are from a book called 'Disorder in the American Courts' and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters that had the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place.


____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?
___________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
_________________________ ___________
ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: He's twenty, much like your IQ.
___________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Are you shitting me?
_________________________________________
ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: getting laid
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
W ITNESS : Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Take a guess.
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard.
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I'm going with male.
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.
_________________________________________
ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral.
_________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished.
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question?
______________________________________
And the best for last:
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law,

I honestly believe that Nigeria is in need of personal financial planners. It is next to impossible to find multi-generational wealth, and most celebrities and politicians go broke after their 15 mins of fame is up.