₦airaland Forum

honeric01:
^^^

China remains the only country where you can't really say what they have because they prefer to leave you guessing.

Really? Take a look at this site available in the public domain to learn about what they have: http://www.defencetalk.com/pictures/g9-chinese-military.html

yelanst:
Forget all these threats US is spewing. They know, as much as we know, that they dont have the capacity to attack China. If they do, they will definitely regret it. IN this contemporary world, we dont consider only military prowess in war, but, also economic strength. have you ever asked yourself this simple question-"can the US finance a major war?  You people should just accept the fact that the US is sick. Forget all these there show and blablabla.

Can China finance a major war? What is really China's economic strength? How about income per capita? Since 2001, the US has spent about $1,232,766,000,000 to fight two wars.

This is a topic that very few of you know anything about except what you goggled or someone told you.

1. The US cannot just declare military war against China as there’s no justification for it. If anything, a military war between the US and China will be fought by proxies, South and North Korea.

2. China is developing economically and cannot afford to fight with the US, which is the same reason they keep buying the US treasury to keep their currency artificially low.

3. The type of war that is more likely is a trade war and China will still be on the losing end because they have over 1 billion people to feed who are churning away at factories making goods to export. Guess where all their manufactured goods are going? The US and Europe.

4. Militarily, the US is already on China’s doorstep with their nuclear powered aircraft carriers. China only recently bought a decommissioned aircraft carrier from Russia that will be reversed-engineered to make theirs. Even more importantly is the fact that China’s military is not modernized. They only recently started modernization.   

5. The only thing China is good at is copying and stealing secrets from the US to make their own weapon. And they are still a few decades away. You can only copy what you know about.

6. One of the most important things in during a war is command and control. There’s only one way to know that all that military equipments that you have work; you have to try them out. This is the same reason the Russians (and at times, the Iranians) are supplying the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan with weapons or ways to defeat American technology.

7. If US will go to war with China, it will be over Taiwan because the US is responsible for Taiwan’s security and China wants control of Taiwan.

8. Lastly, you don’t know how much is spent on classified programs by NASA and some other DoD departments. There are gazillions of black programs out there! Some can even be in your backyard without you knowing! Also, there’s supplementary spending bills that could be used to fund wars like the ones used to fund the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is a major development!!! Some said it is copy and paste but that is true for almost all small car companies in the world! All you need to have is a chassis design that can accommodate whatever engine and transmission that you plan to use.

It is very common for small car companies to buy entire drivetrains from larger more established car manufacturers. Drivetrains includes engine, transmission, clutch, transaxle, CV joints, differentials, axles, and wheels. For example, the British car manufacturer, Lotus, uses Toyota Celica’s engine in the Elise and Exige.

To be quite honest, more money/profit is made from assembling and selling the final product and not the parts that goes into them.

People even build cars in their garages from scratch.

If the US wanted to kill him, why kill him in the presence of US delegates? Isn’t it commonsense to create an alibi for yourself when committing a crime? Do you know how sophisticated the CIA is?

Wouldn’t it make more sense for the US to kill him while “known” CIA agents are a million miles away from the scene? The last thing any government would want is to be directly implicated in any murder scheme!

dont8:
What if one do press up,can this work?

If you do between 200-300 push ups per day, you'd be surprised how big and defined your chest and triceps will become.

aribisala0:
totally  disagree!
define healthy.there are as many health problems  with obesity  as with artificial muscle development ….

What is “artificial muscle development”? Exercising your muscles is artificial? Do you know of a healthier way to gain weight for someone with problem graining weight without having high cholesterol, diabetics, high blood pressure, shortness of breath, and heart disease?

aribisala0:
just as muscles are good so also is fat contrary to many myths .the issue is what mix of the two is ideal.this varies with age,lifestyle ,occupation etc.

Who said fat is bad for you? Do you know what fat is and its function in the body?

aribisala0:
ever wondered what happens to all that  muscle as you age? not healthy. and all that protein is no good for your kidneys  or liver not to mention the steroids that ALL serious bodybuilders take

As you age, you will start losing muscle mass…what’s your point? How much protein is bad for you exactly…10g, 30g, 100g, 300g per day?

Of course non-prescribed steroid is bad for you but who advocated taking steroids?

The bottom line is that too much of ANYTHING is bad for you!

I think the fuel subsidy should be removed generally and should only be given to the needy in form of monthly payments. Think of it as a welfare/safety net system, if you will.

However, it should only be given to people that file their taxes for the current year. For people having zero income, they should still be made to file their taxes declaring zero income. The payments should be graduated for people of different income brackets.

For example:
Salary of NGN 0 – 36K should get 100% of the monthly subsidy payment
Salary of NGN 36.01 – 60K should get 75%
Salary of NGN 60.01 – 75K should get 25%
Salary of NGN 100K plus should get 0%

This way, there is little to no benefit smuggling fuel into neighboring countries and also wasting money subsidizing fuel to the affluent. More taxes revenue will be generated by the government from people wanting State benefits, while making sure that the needy will not surfer.

The healthiest way for guys to gain weight is to lift weight. To gain bulk mass, be sure only to do a maximum of 10 reps and about 3 sets for each muscle group. Then make sure to eat a lot of protein as your body needs it to rebuild the torn muscles or you can take supplements. There are relatively healthy supplements that you can take to help speed up your weight gain by making you stronger to lift heavier weights and also supplying you with most of the “stuff” your body needs from food.

There is no substitute for eating well and enough but you might need to eat a whole chicken per day just to get the right amount of protein your body needs. This is where supplements come in.

Check out GNC for weight gainers.

Here’s a good one: GNC Pro Performance AMP Amplified Mass Bleep (50g of Protein with Micronized Aminos)

http://www.gnc.com/family/index.jsp?categoryId=2108309&sr=1&origkw=weight%20gainer

Very simple! Always think big and excel in everything you do…the rest is not really up to you!

You have to realize that you and everybody else are trying to be successful. What makes you believe that you can be better than everybody else?

By way of example, imagine that your dream is to sell spare parts. What makes you think that you can be more successful than others that have been selling spare parts before you were born?

If your answer is to have the largest inventory possible at the lowest price by setting up an online store where parts can be ordered and delivered to your house within one business day, then I would say you’re on the right track to being successful!

zayzee:
Hi, Narialanders, I am a journalist that covers Education for Business Hallmark Newspapers. Do you have any kind of complain whatsover about what is going on in your school that you think the public should know about, or about the education system? If you do, just post it, I will make it public if you want.

Do you really want to make a name for yourself while helping people by doing the “right thing”? If you think that journalism is your calling and you believe in it, take up the issue of lecturers having inappropriate relationships with their students.

Just to be clear, any sexual relationship a lecturer has with a “current” student is inappropriate and should result in suspension of the lecturer. You can make yourself the “go-to” journalist when it comes to inappropriate relationship with students – male or female.

Your goal is to carve out a niche for yourself and you’d be surprised how high you soar, if you’re good!

kalokalo:
Nigerians are inward socialists. They prefer everything to be provided by the government. All the problems listed on this thred are investment opportunities for savvy entrepreneurs. Unfortunately we complain in frustration about it for decades e.g. telecoms until South Africans came to solve this problem and are carting billions back to their country.

Electricity supply, water supply, housing, healthcare, education,waste management, agriculture etc are all investment opportunities that private firms with long-term outlook will reap bountifully from considering that they are basic necessities with inelastic demand. The government only need to chip in with enabling laws and policies.

As far I'm concerned, the only thing our governments should focus on are (1) law and order (2) Enforcement of contracts. Every other things should be private sector / commercially driven albeit subject to regulatory oversight. Experience has taught us over 50 years of independence that the Nigerian state is too inept and corrupt to provide any goods and service well. They should leave it to the private sector.

The government should not necessarily set up industries for themselves but that’s not stopping the government from implementing an enabling environment towards a strategic vision.

Can private sectors function when there’s no access to funding and state laws are working against them?

I think this problem is one of chicken and egg thing, which came first or in this case, what should come first, infrastructure or jobs? I have no doubt that jobs should come first along with targeted infrastructures because gainful employment of a large segment of the population will generate more revenue and reduce crime.

The particular state has to find industries that it has a comparative advantage in and modernize that industry, which means that some infrastructure will need to be developed. But the industry has to be one that can provide mass employment to absorb the youths like manufacturing.

The state in question can find the right industry by figuring out what is relatively unique to it due to availability or proximity of resources. It could be natural resources, human capital (like the informal electronics industry in Aba), access to ports, proximity to a megacity (housing), right climate for cash crops etc

The only caveat is that the governor cannot think “small” because a small industry based on 1950s technology cannot compete in today’s market. Also, whatever the industry is, a solution needs to be thought out and implemented for the entire chain to market, whether internal or external market. Again, do not think small as an external market will serve better. One would make more money from an end product than a raw product. The goal will be to manufacture an end product.

With gainful employment of a large segment of the population, crime will drastically reduce and revenue from taxes will increase which should translate to better general infrastructures, as long as the money is not siphoned and/or mismanaged.

There is no easy way to succeed unless one is lucky; it takes hard work and persistence!

National Intelligence Agency (NIA) is the outfit responsible for intelligence and counterintelligence operations.

Impossible in our lifetime! What will the economy be based on? Internal consumption or exporting? We simply do not have the population size to drive the manufacturing required for a 15 trillion dollar economy nor do we have the technical expertise needed to be proficient at manufacturing at that scale. Even if we import the right technology, we still won’t have the skilled workforce required on that grand scale overnight. Do you think that other countries will be standing still while Nigeria improves?

If it is as simple as electricity, why haven’t countries like Japan, Germany, South Korea, China, France, Canada overtaken the US? Most of the countries listed above have 24 hours of electricity, working higher institutions and, most important of all, longer working hours. In South Korea, most people start work at 8am and end at 10 pm. India graduates over 750,000 engineers each year and is now the software capital of the world. Asian countries are so good at manufacturing electronics that nobody else can do it cheaper and better. The Germans are so proficient at manufacturing automobiles and machineries that other countries are playing catch-up.

So exactly what is Nigeria’s growth going to come from in an open market? We can’t close our economy because we neither have the purchasing power nor population size needed. If we leave our economy open, the countries listed above will be able to manufacture cheaper and better products.

The only reason China has the potential of overtaking the US is because they have over 1 billion people to buy manufactured goods but as of right now, they are mostly exporting to other countries. Once they start to generate internal consumption of their goods and they don’t implode from inflation and other instabilities, it will only be a matter of time before they overtake the US, assuming they can get the energy needed to sustain that level of growth. Why do you think China is interested in Africa? They are simply looking for energy and natural resources for growth.

The only realistic goal in our lifetime is to surpass South Africa and other North African countries, which will be a great feat!

tit:
the reason for monitoring rainfall is so govt agencies can plan for worst case scenarios.
if we have had 264mm of rainfall in the past 50 years (or since intelligent life came to lagos) then LASG has no excuse for this disaster.

…since “intelligent life came to Lagos”?  Do you expect them to have a plan that they can afford for something that happens once every few hundred years? If I’m not mistaken, I think most places in the West plan for 100-year-type scenario

Notwithstanding, I do agree that they need to plan for a “reasonable” worst case scenario.

There is no way the government could have planned for 264mm (10.4 inches) of rainfall in one day when the normal average per month is 136mm (5.4 inches). For comparison, the average rainfall in a month for the DC area is 92.96mm (3.7 inches).

The only thing better and unclogged drainage would have done is to drain the flood water faster assuming that the ocean and lagoons have not risen higher than the land, which will make water flow backwards through the tributaries.

To people that think it’s ok to negotiate with Boko Haram. What happened once the kidnappers realize that they can make easy money by kidnapping people? Whenever you negotiate with people holding you at ransom, you embolden them and other people like them.

You should never send a signal that the only way to make your voice heard is to carry arms.

First it was MEND, even though they have a legitimate issue with the government. Next it will be Boko Haram, people who are fighting over ignorance. What will the next group fight over and will the government negotiate?

Perhaps, people at PHCN should take up arms due to the on-coming privatization? Should the government then negotiate? Why not, they are about to lose their livelihood? Why not just kill a few hundred innocent people so that the government can re-engage them?

There seems to be quite a few conspiracy theorists in the house I’m surprised no one has accused him of being a member of the Illuminati

With regards to the monetary policy, among other things, the withdrawal limits might be to fast track the infrastructural demand that entrepreneurs will take advantage of. The fact is that almost everyone sees the benefits of a cashless society but how can policy makers force private citizens to make the needed infrastructural investment?

As draconian as his methods may seem, an instant demand will be created for point-of-sale terminals, internet access, and the entire supporting infrastructure for a cashless society without waiting 10 years for people to adopt the change naturally. This will result in a huge win for the IT field.

(CNN) -  Good news for Nigeria. A wake-up call for South Africa.

That’s my “take-home message” from the headlines emerging from a new Morgan Stanley report, which predicts Nigeria’s economy will overtake South Africa’s as Africa’s largest by 2025.

High oil prices, the “decisive” election of President Goodluck Jonathan and buoyant consumer spending will all push Nigeria’s economy into the front in the next 15 years, says the Morgan Stanley survey.

Critics in South Africa say they are not concerned about the prospect of the country losing its spot as the largest economy on the continent.


Economists brush off this latest report by saying that the Morgan Stanley projections are based on economic models that are contingent on factors that might or might not impact the Nigerian economy.

Whatever the eventual outcome in 2025, the report serves as another sage reminder to Nigerians to manage their oil wealth cleverly ­by pouring investments into infrastructure and making sure that government polices and regulations stimulate growth in the sector.

Of course, oil remains about 80% of Nigeria’s GDP and experts say that is just too much. The country needs to diversify as it strides ahead in the coming decades.

South Africa’s economy is, of course, healthily diversified and not reliant on the variables of oil prices.

However, for Africa’s biggest economy to maintain its lead over its West African competitor, South Africa has to invest and upgrade its education system. Over and over again, the point cannot be understated: For all South Africa’s promise, the country’s future growth is reliant on the next generation of managers, workers and business leaders.

For now, South Africa is failing to educate its youngsters to steer the country’s economy into 2025 and beyond.

The seriousness of the problem was reinforced on the same day the Morgan Stanley report was publicized.

The results of another survey ­- an annual assessment of the country’s literacy and numeracy levels – were confirmed by South Africa's Department of Education.

Both reports made headlines on the front pages of some of the country’s newspapers. The implications of both stories lying side-by-side in print was a stark reminder of the challenges that lie ahead.

The South African education assessment - which a teacher’s union apparently dubbed “dismal” and “sobering” – was a shocking assessment of the level of literacy and numeracy in the country’s primary schools.

Backed up by other international studies, this report confirmed that South Africa’s young school goers are among the worst-performing students in the world. As one outraged newspaper reported, most nine and 12 year olds “can’t count and can’t understand what they were supposed to have been taught.” This is despite a significant financial investment in education by the South African state.

Looking 15 or 20 years ahead, there are critical and immediate choices that need to be made by Nigeria and South Africa. Africa’s powerhouses both need to nurture and protect their country’s most precious resources.

No one wins in the end if South Africa’s children are unemployable when they finish school.

No one wins in the final reckoning if Nigeria squanders its oil wealth on corruption and bad management.

The whole continent can be uplifted if these two countries stride ahead together, and smartly, in the decades to come.

http://business.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/30/nigeria-%E2%80%98to-overtake-south-africa%E2%80%99/?to-overtake-south-africa

Engineers are only taught the fundamentals in college. There’s no way a degree can prepare you for everything that you need to implement a real life project except in very few cases.  You’d be hard pressed to find people with no practical experience explaining how all the equations learned in school relate to the real world. In the real world, things are not exact like calculations that we did in school. Most of the specific skills that you need to learn are learned on-the-job.

The OP spoke of building a rig but we lack the technical expertise to pull off such a project as the skills needed are passed from more senior engineers with real world experience. This is the reason why most major technical projects in Nigeria will have whites overseeing the project.

You can’t just read your way into a technical marvel without hands-on experience!

jason123:
You need to tell me why I will go to TINAPA over Abuja or Dubai. Once you have an answer, then Tinapa might just work

That's for the investors that paid $450 million to figure out.

Where did the money that financed the project come from? It seems like they had easy access to money.

The very simple truth is that for a place like Tinapa to work, you need people to patronize the place. It does not matter if the people are coming from the moon, Calabar, Lagos, Kano etc as long as they bring their wallet.

However, for people to come, they need a cheap and easy way of getting there. But if people are going to be traveling from afar, Tinpa needs to be self-contained (think Disney World and not Six Flags).

Also, they need to give people a reason to choose Tinapa over Dubai, London, and US. Why would I want to travel a 1000 miles just to get the same thing or an experience just marginally better than I can get from a major city 10 miles away from me?

Lastly, they need to provide adequate security.

Federal offence = trouble!

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/06/30/flight.stowaway/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

The bottom line is that “everything” has to be done in moderation. There’s nothing wrong in pampering a kid; however, the kid must be made to realize the value of such pampering.

For example, I don’t see a problem in buying a car for a teenager to get to work but he has to make monthly payments to me to cover his insurance. However, I do have a problem buying a car that he might not be able to afford on his own when he graduates from college. The car I will buy has to be the cheapest and safest car that I can afford.

Can you imagine buying a brand new BMW for your kid when he turned 18 but at age 25, he’s only able to buy afford a Corolla for himself after graduating college?

As a parent, even in the US, I wouldn’t kick my kid out of my house at the age of 18 but he’ll definitely need to get a job when not in school to pay for his own expenses, which includes pocket money. He also has to save that money for when school is in session. The only thing that I owe him is his tuition and money for books. My goal is to give him everything to get ahead in life but not a single thing more.

With regards to tuition, there’s nothing wrong in sending your kids to a $10k per year school as long as what they’re getting in return are added educational benefits and not pampering.

I would have loved for my kids to experience boarding school in Nigeria like I did but it seems that the society has changed so much that it will do more harm than good! I think going to a boarding school is one of the best things that ever happened to me because it made me independent and value a lot of things people at home take for granted.


I do agree, however, that some parents are over-pampering their kids.

I know a couple of kids (13 and 7) that flew to Paris first-class from Lagos for holidays. After spending about a week or two in Paris, they flew first-class back to Lagos, only for them to fly to the US first-class within the same week of arriving in Lagos. Even though the kids were staying with close family friends, they were given $1,000 per week as pocket money for food while in the US. I took the kids out to a restaurant and the 7 year old wanted to order almost everything on the menu (no joke!). I was so irritated that I said no even though I wasn’t paying for them. The kid ate so much that he had to go to the bathroom to throw up and I can’t help but think that he had some eating disorder based on the amount of food that he consumed and how fast he consumed it.

The 13 year old one goes to a private boarding school in Lagos that cost about $18k. I didn’t know that a school in Nigeria could cost that much! Luckily, the kids are very smart and witty, especially the 7 year old one. You should see this kid reading the menu so smoothly like an adult!

Lastly, rich parents have to realize that hard work never kills and only breeds character!

come chop:
Living and working abroad is not easy, it involves strenuous activities and so much energy. PEO PLS THINK ABT your ENERGY IS VERY IMPORTANT NOT ONLY ENERGY FROM BILLS

A family friend of mine living in Germany told us he spent 5.000 euros for energy this past winter. etc. food not included and the house is not big a wife and son. Wow with this amount in naija one will live comfortably with family plus house help and Gardner. But the dude is the own cleaning his kitchen if wife is tired, cook  meal in turn and garden work from time to time including washing of his car, and so on. Complete car wash including engine in the garage is 300 euros so is better u do it urself,

Well, labor is very expensive here. My mechanic charges $120 per hour and for some reason, everything seems to take at least an hour.

I once needed a plumber and when I called, I was told that it will be $400 for him to show up to my house and depending on what is wrong I might have to pay extra. Luckily, the cause of the problem was included in the $400 but when he was done, the hole he made in the ceiling was still there. When I asked him about plugging the hole, he said he was just a plumber and I would need to call a drywall installer!

It depends. If the guy has no money issues, he should just walk away and let her fantasize on what could have been, especially if she’s dating a loser!

AjanleKoko:
Nigerians at home are wasteful when it comes to energy.
People buy 20KVA generators to power 3 bedroom flats, when their energy consumption should not exceed 7kva at full load.
Also, people switch on all their lights + 3-4 2 horse power A/cs all at the same time. PHCN is not efficient in billing anyway.

Most people are just wasteful, period! In my house, all the lights stay turned-on until I turn them off. I keep telling them that I neither have stocks in the local power company nor do I know the owner! Here are examples:
1. Taking stuff out of the fridge and leaving it wide open while walking away because they’re not done. I stopped complaining and just close it myself.
2. Leaving the TV on downstairs with nobody there while watching another upstairs.
3. Leaving the light on in the whole house (3 floors) including the basement.
4. Manually cranking up the central heating during winter and walking around the house in shorts and tank tops! It is WINTER! If it gets so hot in the house that you have to wear a tank top then the heater setting is too high! You should be walking around in sweat pants and top.
5. Turning on all the lights in a bathroom and leaving it on when done! The smallest bathroom has 4 bulbs and the largest 10.
6. Wasting food. This gets to me. My rule is, you can eat whatever you want but once you serve yourself, you sure as hell better finish it!

At the risk of sounding superficial, appearance/beauty will be what makes one approach another for a date but the character of the person will keep the relationship going. If the girl has self-made money, that will just be icing on the cake that adds to her character.

In all the 3 “attributes” that you listed, character is the most important because you can meet someone that you’re not immediately attracted to but over time, the person’s character might win you over.

Money will only be the most important attribute to a person that has none. While a person might initially get caught up in the allure of what having unlimited income can do, after a few years of buying everything you dreamed off, your happiness or lack-thereof will weigh on you.

Funny thread…

About 10 years ago, I went to visit a friend in London and was exposed to the hash realities of their environment. One experience that stood with me till today happened at a gas station. When my friend finished pumping his gas, he lifted the saggy rubber hose up with his hands in order to get the last few drops of gas to trickle into his tank. I almost died of laughter! I wonder how our habits will change in the US if a gallon of gas is about $8.00.

I think there are smarter and easier ways to reduce the cost of energy by being proactive. You can realize savings without really feeling it by (1) changing your light bulbs to energy efficient ones, and (2) installing a programmable thermostat and programming it to automatically reduce your heat/AC when you’re not at home or sleeping at night.

AjanleKoko:
Well, the issue is . . . are any of the other states as forward-looking as Lagos?
At least Lagos is able to adequately assess and attempt to harness the state's revenue generating potentials. Most other states just wait for the federal allocation, and share.

A modern high-speed railway in Nigeria is probably 50+ years away. Maybe even a hundred.

lol, I agree with you but someone has to make the State governments see the benefits that a high speed rail could bring.

Based on a quick search, I found that the rail will cost about $1m -$1.3m per mile and about $300k per year for maintenance. From the above, it will cost about $50m-$75m to build the railroad to Abeokuta and about $15million a year for maintenance.

If the fare cost $1 for people without cargo and 100,000 people are transported in a day, that will equate to $100,000 in revenue per day. If a loan was obtained for $75 million dollars at 5% for 5 years, the revenue made in the first 15 days in a month can be used to pay back the loan.

I like the direction of this thread…

There’s no denying that Lagos has decades of infrastructure head start when compared to almost every other state. However, just like Jason123 said earlier, other states don’t have to be like Lagos and should instead take advantage of their inherent capabilities.

As stated earlier, Ogun has the most to gain from Lagos due to its proximity, low population density and low housing cost. Abeokuta is only about 70km (50 miles) away from the center of Lagos which makes it well within a daily commute in most parts of the world with advanced transportation. Can you imagine if there’s a modern high speed rail that connects Abeokuta to Lagos?

Generally speaking, any state willing to attract businesses needs to provide (1) adequate security, (2) reliable infrastructure, and (3) tax incentives.