₦airaland Forum

Let those who have ears hear with it, GEJ cannot afford to fight Amaechi if he ever wants to win pdp presidential primaries, at the same time amaechi cannot afford to fight GEJ, if he still want to remain politically relevant. Amaechi though the governors forum elections have shown he has support from up to 9 pdp governors and 19 governors in total, which are huge asserts towards 2015 elections.

GEJ and Amaechi would iron out their differences ( and show that the whole noise was the handiwork of enemies and press) before the 2015 elections.

I do not understand why my people are so hypocritical. All nigerian public servants from independence have looted. I know of a first republic politician whose children are still discovering new swiss accounts more than 45 years after his death. All the childern(and they are numerous) are living large with no visible means of income apart from their inherited loot.


Looting of public funds is a culture in Nigeria and people should stop behavng as if it was only Abacha that looted.


Most Nigerian billionaires made their money from looting public funds and not from creating any value. It is accepted that once you became the head of state, a governor or even minister you are expected to be a billionaire before you leave.

My issue with this discovering of Abacha loot everyday is " is it only Abacha that have looted Nigeria's money and stashed it in european banks" What about all other public servants like past heads of state and governors who have stolen more than Abacha.

I believe Abacha is being singled out because he was antagonistic of the west and confronted them.

Imagine, they have been unable to discover $1 of Babangida's loot but they are forever discovering millions and billions of Abacha loot.

Although I align with Amaechi in this whole drama because I believe in a true federalism a governor should be independent of the president and political alignments should by negotiations and not intimidation or threats, I believe was wrong for Amaechi to get up in the middle a program against official protocol and walk up to the president on the high table with visiting heads of state, just to shake the president. If the security official had allowed that to happen, he should be sacked.



Greetings and banters are usually exchanged after an official program as a mark of respect.

Ob1kenobi, may the force be with you. We that say the fact that the whites are superior to the blacks do not even feel inferior on an individual level.It is the collective level that makes the difference. Whites are able further their collective interest while blacks only have personal interest or at best tribal interest in mind. I do not see why the whole west African region cannot be one political unit with a single armed forces, currency and foreign policy, while the present countries become the equivalent of states in a true confederation. Imagine how much strength and influence that would give us, but we are all clamoring to make our individual tribes countries.


I have a theory that latitude has an important part to play in advancement. All the advanced countries lie within the same latitude, while those that are situated within the equator are the least developed. Maybe it has to do with the effects of the sun.

zetdee: Nigeria doesn't equal Africa, some countries in Africa have made progress seens whites left, Ghana, Bostwana, Namibia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya. I agree Nigeria is a huge disappointment, but don't pull the whole continent into your country's failer.

Which Black Afirican country is making progress? Yes Ghana in terms of peace and democracy they have progressed, but in terms of technological, artistic and even societal development, they have remain the same. Are you saying they have made better economic advancement than being source of raw material for white nations and consumers of finished goods? Even in terms of economy, nigerian economy is doing better, our bane is in our inability to manage our population. The economy of Ghana is comparable to the economy of Lagos.

As for the others, it is a joke. How can you compare nigeria to Kenya that depends on foreign aids to survive. kenya has as much nagative advancement index as nigeria - corruption, election rigging, insurgency, etc. The remaining nations are just coming our of bloody civil wars.

all4naija: I quite agree with you in almost all ramifications. That is, if we are talking about modern advancement. Yet African leaders are the buck of the hindrances in that regard, it is clear many of these white advanced nations have abetted the development of Africa due to the incentive they are giving to these currupt leaders to commit more havocs.

This still boils down to why Africans are not ready to learn. They keep praising the past and fail to forge ahead. It is annoying on one hand when you see them clamoring about the white superiority thing without making any progress to contribute to the society. The white on the other hand allow its inventions to get into its head and fail to know nature doesn't care about that achievement than it has made it so. So, black and white are just silly in different ways and superiority needs to be redefined in this context, if you asked me.

Africans lacked organized society. That is the biggest challenge of all.

Now the question should by why can't Blacks have an organized society. Even the societies we have in africa was organized by the whites and we have been unable to make any organizational advancement 50year after the whites left. Yesterday the whites re-organized our societies to suit their purpose, why can't we re-organize it back and change our goals. The goal of white organized societies is to act as a provider of basic materials for their industrial development (even our educational organization is geared towards that), while we become a consumer of their finished products. till today that is what we still are - provider of raw materials and comsumers of finished goods.

I know it is painful to the ego, but the truth is as of today, the white skinned people are more advanced than their black skinned counterparts. The only advantage the blacks have is in terms of raw strength, endurance and talent, but in terms of societal, technological intelectual and even spiritual advancement, we are thouroughly lacking. The few blacks that are able to exhibit some level of advancement are those that have left their native environment and have been transplanted to white societies. A good pointer is how the minority white population of south africa was able advance and modernise south africa in less than 100 years. I hope the now black leadership would not regress theses advancements in a few decades.

Criteria I use for measuring advancement are social organizatiom, ability to protect the society, agricultural, scientific and technical advancements, written language, poetry, art, music, religion, etc

Black Africa had to borrow alphabet, religion, science, technology, mathematics,etc from the whiles. Our people prefer want to look like whites, eat white food, wear white clothes and adopt white values. If we do not subconciously feel the whiles are superior, why do most of us want to ape them?

2sexy, you should not let the actions of just one person affect you so much. You do not have an idea of how many people have gained positively from you genorousity of giving freely knowledge that cost lots of money. You are still young, that is why you let other people upset you. You will get to a point where you will be immune from the follies, envy, hatred of others.


Just continue with your good works - both online and offline, you will be surprised when you start reaping the goodwill and blessings of helping other people.

jaidman: Give me ur FOB price.

Sorry I made an error in the price I gave earlier, I was quoting in $ instead of naira. The price in naira is between N52,000 - N58,000 per ton.

Kudos to the OP. This is the sort of debate i expect of nigerians instead of emotional outbursts based on primordial sentiments. Opponents of the OP should also take their camera or phone and go round schools and take pictures. I wish supporters of other politicians especially those of the president and governors show us physical proofs of performance instead of propaganda on the pages of newspaper. It will be far cheaper than the millions spent on media blitz.
Can someone also do the same thing for Fashola, take a camera and go round public schools in lagos so we can see how governor Fashola is working.

I can't quarrel with the argumentthat the dilapidated schools are old schools and that Aregbesola would rebuild most of them. What I disagree with is opon imo tablets. I sell tablets and I know that they are too fragile for students. They screen breaks easily and it needs to be charged often to be of any use(considering the deplorable power condition). I am sure 1year after supplying the tablets, very few would still be working.


Besides a tablet without an internet connection is almost useless because you need internet to download applications (softwares) and update the applications. so how are the students going to get the softwares they need.


Then who says the tablet cannot be jail broken (rooted), all you need is the required application.


A better alternative is to build computer centers and modern libraries with desk top computers as desk tops are cheaper, more powerful and practically indestructible.

Kudos to Eko Ile, you opened our eyes to the sham going on in Akwa ibom in the name of developmental projects. It is amazing that Akwa Ibomites on nairaland cannot give us the pictures and location of the achievements of Governor Godswill Akpabio but only resort to insults, innuendos and personal attacks. Nigerians are completely blinded by Tribalism, religion and other primodial sentiments, so much so that we are happy to be ra.ped as long as it is done by my own person.


If someone wants to scrutinize the performance of fashola and other can governors' why not open a thread for that, instead of mixing up issues. please note that I am not a fashola supporter as I believe most of his "achievements are over exeggerated. The mini water works in Ikrodu is just addition of a bore hole and some aluminium tanks to an existing water works. But as I said this thread is about Akpabio and not Fashola.


The internet has given us the opportunity to confirm or dispel lies of "world class achievements" by our governments, so please use it.

How much will they take yellow corn per ton and packaging details

souldust: post sources to back up your 300million dollar nonsense claim and i will post sources to back up my 20million dollar claim

You must think a satellite cost less than a private plane. Ordinary the small jet bought by Pastor Oritsejafor is said to cost $50million and we have not added running costs and cost of crew.

Here is a link i found confirming my $300million nonsense;http://www.spacenews.com/article/nigcomsat-1r-launched-successfully-long-march
now let's have your link detailing your $20million per annum space program nonsense.

souldust: we spend only 20million dollar every year on our space programme. The FG's budget is over 30bn dollar. The 36 states also have their own budgets with lagos and other states in the ND having a budget of over 3bn dollar every year. The 774 local govts also have their annual bugets. All in all, all three tiers of govt in Nigeria spend close to 80bn dollar ever year.

All i am trying to say with the long epistle is; the 20MILLION dollar we spend on space research IS A DROP IN THE OCEAN compared to the over 80BILLION dollar our three govts spends every year. So if there is no hospital, road, etc like people (ignorant) are saying, then it is not becos of the space project!


People who are saying there is no hospital yet... Are only being ignorant and are filled with self hate!

Are you serious? $20million a year on a space program? I am sure you do not have the faintest idea what space is, not to talk about program. Ordinary Nigcomsat1 that was said to be cheap cost nigeria $300million, and that cannot even be considered a space program. Each NASA space shuttle cost about $20billion and that is just a part of the us space program. Even the Americans have been complaining of the cost of their space program and have scaled back the cost but it still runs into billions of dollars per year.
What is the $20million per year used for, probably pay salaries,run generators and pay other recurrent expenditures.

Since the commisioner of police of a state is only loyal to the IG, which in turn is only loyal to the president, can we then hold the Governor responsible for the security of a state? Can we hold northern governors responsible for boko haram? If the commisioner of police is in charge of security, then should not the security votes or a special fund allocated to the commisionerof police? Because you cannot expect a governor to fund the security responsibility of the commisionero police' especially, when they are not on good terms.

solomon111: ^^
btw,Nigeria is currently an emerging manufacturing country.
Our manufacturing sector is growing.
Close to 8% of our foreign revenues in 2012 was from the manufacturing sector.
Oil has prevented the govt from taking that sector more seriously.

Yes manufacturing has improved but that is different thing altogether from a space program. Japan, Brasil, south Korea, Canada, south africa and loads of industrial nations are manufacturing far more than us, but they do not undertake and expensive and unprofitable space program.

I should know about the increase in manufacturing activities more as i live in Ikorodu and surrounded by many manufacturing companies, the problem is the increase in manufacturing is not much beneficial to Nigerians in general. Most of these new manufacturing companies are owned by foreigners - mostly Chinese. They control 80% of the manufacturing outfits in ikorodu. They have access to cheap funds from their home governments, they have a lot of assistance from the state governments in the form of cheap or even free land, and they know how to bypass relevant laws, taxes and duties. The worse is that they bring in most of their high level workers and leave Nigeria with menial jobs that pays less than 10,000 a month. I have cousins that work in some of these companies.

What the government need to do is to provide incentives, for small and medium scale indigenous businesses, that is the hob of any industrialization drive and not a few foreign controlled mega companies.

sheyie2007: villagers, by their posts we shall know them

Only empty heads make meaningless comments. If you have any sense at all you will dispute my points instead of an emotional outburst.

I doubt you know what space means, not to talk of embarking on a space program. You need basic science education.

Edit: I regret responding to your comment after taking a look at your post history. They are all shallow, meaningless and of no intellectual value whatsoever. Next time i will look at the post history of people posting senseless posts to see if the person deserves my attention.

Nigerian security agencies are highly incompetent, how can a lawyer who does not know which court to charge a terrorist suspect ever hope to win the case.

Avenue for the minister to chop money. Do they have an idea of the cost and technologies needed for a space program? President Jonathan approves any rubbish presented to him. How many countries in the world can afford a space program? Outside the US, Russia and recently China, no other country has embarked on a space program. The whole of Europe are cooperating under one space agency and they are unable to compete with russia and the US.


It was only last week the plan to start making motorcycle in Nigeria for God sake, am i am sure what they tag "made in Nigeria" motorcycles simply means assembled in Nigeria. Ordinary motorcycle engine, they cannot make, and they want to make a 3 stage space rocket or is it space shuttle?v

IBB overthrew Buhari in August 1984 and corruption was not among the allegations to justify the coup. After much scrutiny by OBJ, nothing could be unearthed. Now after close to 20 years after leaving government IBB suddenly remembers where he kept the evidences against Buhari. IBB is truly a genius.

Afritop: AFTER REFUSING TO SIGN THE DEATH WARRANT THEY, THE GOVERNORS WILL BE CRYING OVERCROWDING IN THE PRISON CELLS

And where did you get the statistics that it is condemned prisoners that is causing overcrowding in our prisons? How many condemned prisoners who had gone through the legal process up to the supreme court do we have in Nigeria?

Some of you people are just bloodthirsty, you rejoice at the spilling of blood.

Now what should constitute a capital offense? A man that kills one person while robbing a car worth N3 million, or a man that cause the death of thousands through stealing of public money ( and pension money)?

In Nigeria our perception of what is wrong or right is truly screwed.

Nigeria is a country of contradictions, a deeply religious country that condones and celebrates corruption. A deeply christian society that preaches christ's message of unconditional forgiveness have their hearts on moses's law of "an eye for an eye"
Meanwhile they abhor abortion, saying nobody has the right to take life but sumersault in the case of a condemned criminal by handing the power of life to a governor.

But they should sign the pardon warrant of condemned embezzlers, public money thieves and corrupt government officials.

sambos994: Tell me, what were military-grade weapons doing in their premises? I mean, it's not like you can get anti-tank weapons at your local market.

The problem with my people is that they get so emotionally worked up that the jettison reason and are unable to seperate issues and input their biases, phobias and prejudices into all situations.

How does the discovery of "military grade" weapons prove terrorist allegations? How does being a card carrying member of Hezbollah amount to being a terrorist? is Hezbollah outlawed in Nigeria?

Even the Iranian that was found with shiploads of militarily grade weapons was not charged for terrorism but for illegal importation and possession of weapons. If they have evidence of terrorist acts or attempted or even planned terrorist acts by the suspects, that would be good. You do not need a cache of arms to be a terrorist, the 911 suspects only had plastic knives.

That is why it is good to leave the confines of our father's house in cities and towns and explore our surroundings. There are hundreds possibly thousands of tribes that is cut of from civilization in Nigeria and some of them are not even remote and inaccessible but relatively close to towns and urban areas. When i was in A levels in sokoto, there was a village not more than 10minutes walk from the school, where the women walk unclad. We sometimes sneak to take a peep at bouncing boobies.

Even in the south there are villages deep inside the forest without any access roads that the people still live in the stone age.


I am surprised people are surprised about this kind of thing in Nigeria and in west africa as a whole.

Honestly, this report is senseless. All it alleges is that weapons were discovered in the premises of some lebanese and based on that they concluded that the lebanese are terrorists and Hezbollah. Is that the evidence they want to present in court. Have the people caught perpetuated any terrorist act in Nigeria or they were caught attempting to blow up somewhere.

The report is so ridiculous that only two sentences were devoted to the lebanese in question, the bulk of the report gave us the history of Hezbollah, ayatollah Khomeini and zakzaky of Islamic movement in Nigeria founded in the 80's

okine4real: I HAVE SPEND MORE THEM 3.5M AS WE SPECK. THERE IS KNOW WAY I WOULD NOT DO RESEARCH BEFORE GOING INTO IT, BUT THE PROBLEMS IS, I DID NOT KNOW I WAS DEALING WITH FOOLS... I THINK FOOL IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT...JUST DONT KNOW WHAT TO CALL MINE UNCLE RIGHT NOW.. AS AT NOW.. THERE IS FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN OHH. I WOULD HAVE TO TRAVEL SOON TO IBUSA AND PUT THING IN ORDER. THATS WHY ITS GOOD NEVER LEAVE YOUR BUSINESS IN THE HAND OF NONPROFESSIONAL. I STILL AGREE ANY WAY SO I CANT REALLY PUT THING HERE NOW. HOPE I HAND THE MINE TO DO THAT VERY SOON BECAUSE AS SPECK AM PISSED OFF.

BYE FOR NOW

I appreciate the fact thatv as a young man, you have decided to take your destiny into your hands by taking to agriculture instead of waiting for a white collar job or engaging in a get rich quick scheme. I wish more youth imbibe that orientation, Nigeria would indeed be on the way to recovery. Having said that, you are allowing ego and pride to set in, which can destroy you. The fact that you have spent 3.5 million naira does not mean a thing, Big multinational companies with Harvard trained financial gurus make mistakes that cost billions of dollars. You should heed the warnings about your spacings, because of this arguments about spacings, i went to take a look at the palm tree in my uncle's house (we itsekiri's do not joke with our banga soup). He planted one he obtained from the agricultural institute in Ibadan and it is the agric specie. On looking at the lenth of the leaves it cannot be less than 2.5metres long and it is only about 5 years old. I guess that at 8 years, the leaves would not be less than 3m long each, so the spacings should be at least 6m to avoid the leaves touching each other.

Do you even know what 1.5m is? that is less than 5 feet. An average man is over 1.7m. If your are not sure the best thing is to take a tape (it is about N250) and physically measure a matured plant. As pointed out if you make a mistake in the spacings, it would have disasterous consequences on your yield.

I think you should look at the possibility of getting an agricultural loan to expand the business. There are lots of soft loans with low interest rates and long payback time to help the agricultural sector. You need to register your company and join relevant agricultual cooperatives, then approach the relevant agricultural parastatals - both state and federal. The process might be tedious but you can get quite a substantial amount.

wip7: Sir, I dont know the poster but i only want to comment based on my academic standing. Refined sugar you consume at home differs largely from Sugar can juice. Pls dont mix it up.



Sir,

Just writing to explain a bit about Sugar can juice. I am taking it from Scientific view and DOE assay. Less i pull further to help my write up. (My profile: masters and PhD degree abroad-Nanotech, medical chemistry, polymer sci).

Refined sugar (common sugar at home) differs from sugar obtained from Sugarcane juice extract.The juicy extract of sugarcane sticks has huge health benefits. Sugarcane is a rich source of vitamins, antioxidants, minerals and substantial calories.

A cup of freshly extracted sugarcane juice has approximately 11-13% total natural sugar content. This is less sugar than a cup of apple juice or orange juice and still far less sugar than most soft drinks around the market (you may read the content of the soft drinks). Fresh extract of sugar cane juice contains wide range of living antioxidants, fibre vitamins, minerals, enzymes which are all good for you. It also contains similar amount of calories as low fat skim milk.
And dont be surprise to see fresh sugar cane juice extract has low calories than apple juice, regular milk and orange juice.

Myself and my other team member have carried out some research in Turkey and North Cyprus on glucose and fructose release of some plants materials for diabetes patients using prepared alginate and hydroxyapatite. Sugar cane juice was found to be great for diabetics.

Some of the health benefits of sugar cane extract ( due to SPAMBOT here i cant post JOURNAL LINKS but you may request via my email or check nutritional benefits of sugar cane juice in American journal of public health, health journals):

1. Nutritional contents: Sugarcane juice extract is filled with vitamins and minerals that are good for the proper functioning of the body. The extracted juice of sugarcane is rich in iron, magnesium, phosphorous, potassium, calcium to name a few. Researches have shown that sugarcane juice can help recover the loss of vitamins that occurred due to febrile disorders like fever.

2. Kidney stones: One of the most effective health benefits of cane juice extract is dissolution of kidney stones which are commonly formed due to dehydration. Constant drinking of water helps dissolve the stones in the kidneys. Drink lots of fluids and also have sugarcane juice as it breaks down the stones or dissolves them.

3. Great for diabetics: Cane juice extract is healthy for diabetics as it contains no simple sugar. It is a better alternative for artificial sweetener or raw sugar. The juice's benefits by keeping the blood glucose levels balanced.

There many health benefits of cane juice, i have seen it sold and canned in Turkey, Taiwan, Thailand etc Also more than 15 industries i know personally such as pharmaceuticals use it during syrup formation and currently use in Germany Grahm malt extracts for Instant malt drink!!!

My own cent!!

Well you have superior arguments given your academic qualifications and experience. I never claimed to be a nutritional expert, i only assumed that sugar extract will have the same properties and effects as refined sugar. Although i do not doubt your claims, i wish you could provide links so i could read it up my self. i love learning new things.

Since we have dealt with the health side, we have to consider the business aspect also. Given the high cost of sugar cane in the south how cost effective would the business be? unless of course the business is set beside a plantation up north. Then how would the sugar extracted be preserved before consumption? What is the shelf life of sugar can extract before fermentation sets in. I know that vitamins depreciate quickly in fruit extracts as most fruit juice in the market have added vitamin supplements to try and maintain their vitamin content.

Since this business is new and will take time before it catches on with the population, it cannot be embarked upon by a small start up company. It will need the big giants like chivita, lacasera, etc, who have deep pockets and patience to promote the drink and make it popular.

Thanks for the education anyway, that is the beauty of nairaland, it exposes our ignorance and our knowledge.

toluxa1: There are a few things wrong with your post sir.
First of all He didn't say this business is for students...in his words - "This business is good especially to someone
that lives closer to univeristy or market
place." You can see that you got the idea wrong so you point of students not being able to afford it is invalid. Secondly you say 50litres is the size of a plastic bottle? And you were talking about drinking 50litres of sugarcane juice? Bros do you know what 50litres is? Ok, I will assume it was a typo error and you probably meant 50CL.
Lastly, you have to do your research about sugarcane juice. It is not as bad, even healthwise as you have painted it.

Sugar cane juice is the national drink of
Pakistan, where it is called Roh and more
commonly referred to as "gunney ka rus". It is
sold by roadside vendors, where the juice is
squeezed fresh when ordered. It is sold in
glasses with or without ice.Very often a hint of
ginger and lemon is also added, along with
optional salt or pepper.

Please read more here-
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugarcane_juice

My apologies for the minor errors i made in my post, when you are using a phone to post you make some errors due to the small window available for typing.

Since we are talking about small scale industries and being near students, i assume that the business should be small enough for students to undertake. So i think the OP should have giving us an idea of what a small scale business entails in terms of capital requirements.

secondly of course the 50litres is an error, plastic bottles for drinks are mainly 50centilitres.

Having said that, you have not disputed my arguments. The link you provided did not even help your argument, here is what it says

Sugarcane juice is the juice extracted from pressed sugarcane. It is consumed as a beverage worldwide, and especially in regions where sugarcane is commercially grown such as Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Brazil.

Evaporated cane juice is a loosely defined term which can include combinations of sugars including glucose, and fructose. It is less processed than bleached white sugar.[1] Nutritional benefits are minimal; evaporated cane juice contains trace minerals and vitamins but has the same amount of calories as table sugar[2] and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration defines evaporated cane juice as any sweetener derived from sugar cane syrup.[3]

It says it is consumed in regions where sugar cane is commercially grown, i am sure Nigeria does not fit that description. Also blacks are are more prone to diabetes than other races.

People have embarked on similar projects with palm wine before, which is a far more popular drink, and it did not succeeded, so what makes you think sugar cane extract drink will succeed in Nigeria?

My arguments are that i am not convinced about the viability and health implications of scale sugar cane extract business in Nigeria, that is if it can be done on a small scale at all. A more vaible alternative would be Zobo or Soya beans drinks.

I like you concept of suggesting business ideas for people, because with shrinking job prospects out there, self employment is the only way out of our current unemployment situation.

Having said that, i feel your sugar cane drink idea is at best unrealistic and at worse utopian.

First the capital needed would be huge - beyond the reach of a student. Apart from the cost of the sugar cane extractor, other costs such as space, treatment of the liquid, packaging(plastic bottles), labels, preservatives, etc would be significant. And we have not even considered the cost of NAFDAC registration and distribution logistics.

Then we have to look at the cost of the final product itself. Sugar cane is not cheap (well unless you are sourcing directly in bulk from farmers directly). A length of sugar cane would retail for nothing less than N50, so how many lengths would be needed to obtain 50 litres(the capacity of plastic bottles). Then how much would you sell to retailers.

Finally, i do not even know if drinking 50 litres of sugar cane extract is healthy, because of the high sugar content. Someone Eating sugar Cane itself only consume little of the extract as one tend to get tired easily. People hardly consume more than a small length size of sugar cane, but drinking whole bottle regularly might have long term health implications. Just my speculation.

So to convince us on the viability of the business provide us with a feasibility report and a case study where it had been done.