Big B1:

Gerri Peev needs to remain at the other side of the sea.

In United States during an interview, when statement is labelled as "OFF THE RECORD", it means that the statement is not attributable and it is usually taken out from the discussion before the interview is printed or made available to the public.

But this A hole UK interviewer doesn't understand this protocol. It is unbelievable what fools would do to get their names out there at any cost.
It's absurd how people are trying very hard to use this Obama thing to promote their impassible careers.

Gerri Peev was given an opportunity to explain the intention of Ms Power when she made an OFF THE RECORD statement, but the fool (Gerri Peev) couldn't answer the question.
She was also informed again, that in United States, reporters do not release stories that they don't understand or can not clearly explain.

Gerri Peev is a loser and should be ashame of herself!
I hope are 2 minutes fame serves her well for the rest of her life.

or maybe the same protocols don't apply in the UK? have you thot of that? she certainly should have.

this is for Mr UK (4 play) who made his crazy generalization. there are no prostitutes roaming the streets in my state oo.
just because something is the norm in some parts of lagos or other big cities in southern Nigeria does not mean it happens everywhere in nigeria.
Ignoramous!

double post!

i wish i could agree with some of the above comments that the problem is the government.

i have to ask, where does the government come from? planet corrupt? no. it comes from the people. Nigerians themselves NEED to change.

don't pay to get ahead on the embassy queue, don't drive down the wrong way when there is too much traffic, don't laugh when ur friend tells u he had to give the police officers bribe, certainly don't laugh when you hear about the expo rounds at university, do not proudly tell ur friends about ur WAEC 'dubs' that were not discovered. start caring about the country and always see how YOU can improve Nigeria not hoping that the politician will finally come to ur street and hand out N5000 to everyone on it.

i do believe regional autonomy would be a good thing. it could even bring about more accountability and certainly clear comparisons can be made between progress within regions. it would also (hopefully at least) make people shut up about the problem being the president or a particular tribe or whatever.

But my God, what about the oil money?? . the north would die, the southwest would cry and the south- south would be a warzone. iraq would look like heaven, think about it. it's bad enough now right? imagine if they could actually fight for real control.

while i understand the premise of ur article, i have to say i find it deeply flawed and very troubling indeed.

not only is classifying hausa- fulani as 'his people' wrong - because obviously we are all nigerians and Dangote should certainly not limit business opportunities to 'his people' alone, i fail to see how Dangote should be responsible for educating or creating jobs for people simply because he is from a certain ethnicity. i think ur article reflects your image of hausa people as a bunch of very backward illiterates hence Dangote should never have dared achieve anything for himself since 'his people' are still living in poverty. i also think ur article also explains why Dangote actually bases his companies in the south, perhaps because there is a bigger better educated workforce there.

Also your 'facts' are wrong. There is no company in or near Kano that employs close to a million workers, certainly not a shoe company. As of 2006, kano population was put at 9,383,682, there is no way that taking into account that over half the population of nigeria is between the ages of 0-18yrs, that at least 1 in 9 people work at this chinese shoe factory. You're saying over 10% of people in Kano are cobblers? i think we all know that is not true. simple as.

You also claim that only 7% of all Nigerian university students are hausa-fulani. Does this even warrant a response? Were your statistics based on those taken in the 1970s? or by hausa- fulani are you interpreting culture in a very narrow sense? (i.e. Yoruba, Igbo, Kanuri, Efik, Jukum, Ijaw, Mumuye - i can't mention all. We have over 200 as you know) because if that is the case then I'm left to point out that the total population of the hausa fulani people in nigeria is less than 29% of the total population (at most) of the country. factor in the illiteracy rate and the fact that not everyone in nigeria actually goes to university then according to this analysis about a quarter (24%) of hausa-fulani are actually in university. This is a subtantial %tage even by foreign standards (just for comparison the UK has about 30%).

Even after taking that into account, i still find this claim very hard to believe. Perhaps you are not aware that every state in Nigeria has a university. Not only that but most northern states also have a federal university, which is of course mostly (primarily) packed with hausa- fulani students (some parts of the north do not have a large hausa-fulani population - the middle belt and even the north-eastern part of the country are not predominantly hausa-fulani). Some of the biggest universities in nigeria are in the north and filled with hausa-fulani students (ABU, BUK, Unimaid, to name but a few).

I also find it hard to believe that Dangote somehow made the bulk of his money through his association with OBJ. Anyone who knows his company history knows that like Rome, the empire was not built in a day (or even 8 yrs of embezzlement). Do your research.

Another important thing to remember is that charity is not by force. If you are annoyed (like i am and i'm sure most right thinking northern Nigerians) about the high level of illiteracy, then it is time we start putting pressure on our respective governments to do something about it. We cannot blame people just because they have risen above the rot and made a huge success of their companies. Even if Dangote could employ more, he is certainly under no obligation to do so. (I am curious as to how many are under your employ at the moment ??)

Also, i will add very briefly that the chairmanship of a charity foundation is not necessarily a running around position or one that warrants work experience. It can be like a university 'chancellor' position. Whoever is there helps bring respect and recognition to the foundation not by working hard but by name recognition. There are other people who do the running around and pull the ropes. Ado Bayero is probably the best known, most respected and wealthiest of rulers if not in nigeria then certainly in northern nigeria. He has that vavavoom about him.

RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH. COME BACK WHEN YOU GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT.

Take care.

no i'm not in naij. i could give u my hotmail instead.

where are u?

death threats?? what

no i don't wear a hijab unless i'm in naij. not that big a deal in my family.

this is the first i've heard of a cyber hit! lol. u guys can be so over the top sometimes.

ASK NOT WHAT UR COUNTRY HAS DONE FOR YOU BUT WHAT 'YOU' CAN DO FOR UR COUNTRY. ~jfk

what have u guys done for nigeria? (oh sorry, i guess u left so we should probably thank you.)

u do have a point but it makes me laugh that Nyako decided not to move to the govt house yet this guy, i'm sure it was a 40 days 40 nights prayer marathon that Nyako be removed just so he could have his moments

i don't know y stating my religion is a problem in my post. it keeps comin up with that 'a great one' nonsense.

Really? You can be my own mistress sha, as long as you're not fair in complexion& u have long hair
(lets hope my other mistresses on nairaland don't get to read this), but who cares,if Gov Nyako can arrange 4 wives for himself why not me hahaha

Anyway, I kind of agree Atiku may be 2 much of a settlement guy to make real progress,but u need to bow to the guy's political clout.

I say AC wins the election re-run,Adamawa people's life gets slightly worse & Admiral Nyako gets a 5th wife by Quarter 4 2008
~jairzinho

discrimination against lightskin people? thats a first from a nigerian man.

sorry i'm a muslim myself so i don't appreciate the jokes about the wives and mistresses.

i do respect atiku for his clout, i'v been told its the definition of a true nigerian politician. however, thats wat i like about our man Nyako, skips the crap and goes straight to the task. we really don't need things to be worse. where are u? we can post him there.

i say u say wrong. and there i was thinkin u were concerned about justice and progress . SMH.

after i get through all the applications for the available wife/mistress position i've received, i'll get back at you with the verdict. but i tell u, its not lookin too good. jokes about lack of development, atiku support and worst of all, lack of a willingness to seriously commit amma have to beat yo ass and ur mistresses too, homeboy (head moving quickly from side to side, ghetto accent on point).

@ zillaxy, good to here that Adamawa is improving and if all those points you put down as achievements are true then it is impressive governance indeed and all in 9 months? Still though, i think it is important that if there was serious electoral malpractice then the tribunal did the right thing. We really need to discourage this culture of electoral malpractrice before it become a norm. When elections come again, if you still want him to be the leader then go and vote for him, simple as that, that is the beauty of democracy.
~sky blue

i agree. like i said i think the rulling was a good and sound one. i think it'll be good for nyako as well because now he can carry on the good work without question of his legitimacy. its almost certain he'll be back and we'll be ready to support him. (it's a shame i can't vote though, i'm not in yola at the mo)

i support objective critisism, so i was here to say it is in the best interest of all nigerians to do so, all the people in this site included. don't bash what u don't know becoz he is a good man. adamawa would be wise to vote for him.

i'm fulani and used to be against one nigeria until very recently.
i heard an igbo woman passionately talking about democracy and how great nigeria could be. she shouted a few one nigeria(s) in the end and i was sold.

but i'll still welcome going back to regional governance. the south-south can't keep subsidising the country and the north needs to wake up.
its goin to be hard coz i think there's already a 'northerner' mentality for people from the north but i blame the govt for not bringing us together in a sensible way. it should be about accepting differences not ignoring them. also, there needs to be a break of the INDEGINE mentality.

i should be speaking fluent yoruba i grew up in lagos! but no, we unite under a false umbrella of english and laugh at each other about 'h factor' and all that inconsequential crap and then go home and 'be our cultures'.

how can there be unity with no acceptance?

sorry folks. it was a constitutional requirement that he dissolve the cabinet.
news out of Yola this evening is that the cabinet and SAs and so on have been restored apart from those VERY close to the governor.

however, ur right the guy is really getting stuck in there. asking for support about HIS plan for Adamawa and all that.
plus his moved into the Government house!! lol. for about 2months. too funny.

nyako's mistress lol. no i'm not.

sorry i got a bit passionate about the whole thing. i have been reading so much 'emeka from america' nonsense that i had to reply at least one.
obviously the little letter g in God was a mistake. but u knew that already didn't u?

anyway, atiku's wrongs? where do i start?

first of all, Adamawa did not see any kind of development or even maintanace of schools or any other places of education in the state. the hospital was an absolute mess even, worse than it was before they started, because they did nothing at all to improve or even keep it the way it was. prices for treatment and drugs all went up making it very difficult for the people who need it to have access to healthcare. because of this almost all the doctors and nurses moved away from the hostipal most,  going over to the federal hostipal while others started their own practices.

our roads, God our roads. in 1999 the roads where passable and quite smooth. i always go to my village from Yola (our state catipal). in 2006 when i went back (to the village) ,  there were no roads. people had to drive in the grass beside the roads because there were soo many potholes. before that it had been bad (obviously detoriorated over the years) but God THAT was BAD. the number of fatalities had gone up so much. i doubt there are many who haven't lost someone they know to the roads. i include myself here.
the only time roads were repaired was when Atiku's daughter was getting married. all the roads leading to the govt house and airport had very quick 'pash pash' done to them. it was ridiculous.

atiku's boy boni, introduced what is known as the 'hot line' of electricity supply. so while most areas of the state were cut off others enjoyed almost constant electricity. generally the houses close to the government house and those in the old GRA. later on even this stopped as the electricity was channelled to Atiku's university. they had 24hr supply while the rest of adamawa was in darkness.

moving to his university, i think its a good thing for our state. BUT all the people who lived in the area were forcefully removed and the land was repossessed just so he could build the uni. no alternative land was even offered to them.

water supply had always been a problem. the govt never did ANYTHING to address this.
housing contracts were awarded and money was paid out but NOTHING was built. where did the money go?
the market in jimeta was closed becoz atiku bought the land and kicked all the traders out!!!
during times of floods the residents were totally ignored and left to fend by themselves even though they had nothing.
the govt in the last few months of its administration embezzled anything it could lay its hands on. from fertilizer money to money for pilgrimage. you name it they took it.

the govt 'privatised' the state owned hotel (yola international). i'll tell you what i saw the last time i walked past it. nothing! even the window frames had been stripped. govt officials, i was told by our gateman (or security guard for you yanks), had gone and taken everything in the hotel. from fridges to beds to curtains to carpets. everything. the ordinary people who had dared go there had been mercilessly beaten by the police. the hotel now lies in ruins.

to be honest i'm actually trying to think of a single good thing of that administration. well they completed the building of the state secretariat. it was almost completed by the naval guy, (kalu something) before he left in 1999. but anyway they completed and commissioned it. that was the only thing that administration did.

the problem with critisizig their regime is that there is nothing much that they actually did to start off with. the governor was always abroad, our infrastructure was let to rot, our schools where totally ignored and adamawa won the CBN crown of the most under-developed state in nigeria. we also finished at the top (number 3) of the 'highest level of poverty' list.

while there were a lot of land grabs and other things done to the detriment of we the indegines, it was the inactions that hurt the most. the fact that the govt watched everything get bad but never did anything. the fact that almost all the former govt officials bought houses abroad. the fact that our money was never used on us but instead went to anyone who was an atiku croonie. the only time we saw our money was when atiku decided to be 'generous'. long queues would form outside his back gate so he could hand out N150 to the people standing there. why do we mock our people so much?

anyway i'm at uni and have to go for a lecture.

in the meantime i beg anyone to come in here and write about atiku's achievements in Adamawa. PLEASE.
we nigerians have to remember, developments isn't a favour to us. ITS OUR RIGHT.

PS. i know a lot of you (almost all really) do not know a thing about how the previous administration was run so i'll tell you why we, the adamawa indegines blame atiku. he won our state in 1999 but passed it sown to Boni Haruna because he was called on to be the VP. boni did nothing without consulting atiku and was his boy/ stooge in every sense of the word. atiku was in charge boni was the poppet. he (Boni) has admitted this many times himself. he proudly proclaims that atiku is his godfather.

later.

BABA MAI MANGORO SAI KA YI!!!

and please can someone tell us about the bad things? coz i really haven't seen or read about it.

* SWIFT NOT SHIFT.

and yes just wanted to know how many of you here have actually been to adamawa?

hello everyone.

i just need to say that all you people abusing nyako NEED to SHUT THE Bleep UP!!!  thats right, you heard me.

i am a indegine of adamawa state, infact i know and have grown up with Atiku's childred. i happen to go back twice a year so i know how that state is.
no right thinking person who has EVER set foot there would say Nyako was a bad governor. i will even go so far as to say He is the best we have had since i was born.

in less than a year we have running water, many schools have been renovated, state roads are being reconstructed, there is now free healthcare for every pregnant woman and ALL children under the age of six, he has negotiated a deal with the camerounian government so that the dam that flows into nigeria from cameroun can be used to generate electricitry for the citizen of adamawa. he has negotiated with banks so that all citizen of the state can have easier access to loans. he even started a benefits system so that the unemployed in the state can atleast have money in their pockets each month. and of course spoke to the the federal government about THAT road that siddiqi mention. that road did infact damage the shock absorbers in our car and yes my head felt like it would explode becoz of how many times it hit the ceiling. don't forget how the flood incident was handled also. shift response that ensured the people had shelter and food almost immediately. my grandma even cried!

as for the so called bad things, the wife incident was WAYYYY overblown. i was there when the talk started and as a woman from a polygamous family myself, i know what kind of trouble it can be. the women are educated and all wanted to be on top. i don't agree with the way it played out but having said that i do not see the wives going out in convoys or buying new cars and all the other ridiculous scenes painted by the media. also there was the so called God punish the journalists nonsense. any person with even the most basic hausa skills knows that 'allah ya issa mini' means God is my witness/ God will stand for me.

so before any of you igbo people who live in america and have only probably smelt nigeria once, jump in here and say MY state should go back to the days when a bunch of greedy people CONTROLLED our lives in that state u need to get your facts right. and by control i pack a lot of meaning. Atiku that man,  God is our witness. when i have the time i'll list all his sins THAT i know of.

we are more than happy to hear critisism from you about the people's governor. if he does something wrong then say it. but do not DARE come in here and launch personal attacks on this man.

and to the person who asked why the election was annulled, it was Not for rigging. it was because OBJ and INEC in their desperation to make sure there is NO chance at all for AC to win, decided to disqualify AC's candidate a day before the elections. it turned out to be unneccessary because the man only won 4 LGAs in the end . i think the judgement is however a welcome one because first, this should set a precident that no stupid disqualifications should ever happen again but most of all it should put all the doubters in the know that no matter how many times elctions are held, the people of adamawa state will vote for progress a million times over corruption and self enrichment.

god bless us all.

MURTALA NYAKO SAI KA YI!!!!