Katsumoto:

You asked for solutions, I gave you a detailed breakdown but you failed to respond? Is it because you are afraid of the ideas to deal with looters?

Kilode?!:

You are definitely from my school of thought. I mean my ancestors were cooking up chemical reactions before pasteur! Ever been to an Onisegun before

Jokes apart, it can be done. If the will is there, how come the Japanese and Chinese have a word for every chemical even the ones they didnt discover? Or is "oxygen" spelt that way in Chinese?

ndu_chucks:

You provided some great ideas and potential solutions, I like most of them.  If I didn't know any better I'd say that you have ESP because your idea about how to deal with looters or corrupt officials, as you put it, is impractical.

You suggested the following:
4. Seize the assets of all corrupt govt. officials and their cronies and fronts
5. Short jail sentences for all corrupt officials; they shouldn't have to feed of our resources.

These ideas are dead on arrival. As a practical matter, it is impossible to find any top government official who is not corrupt – truth be told (duk barawo ne). By the time you lock them all up, there will be no one left to run the government!  A more realistic approach is to allow them to keep a substantial amount of their assets and agree to stay out of politics for ever, in return for freedom.

By the way, why did you assume that I'd be more interested in your idea of how to deal with the looters than in other solutions? Abi you think say I be looter ni?

eku_bear:

The main concern is expense, not so much "will." Like, who would pay to develop and maintain this material?

It wouldn't be cheap. Also to some extent locks you out of existing research and resources available in the West.

I don't mind promoting language/culture, but not in expensive ways that duplicate the wheel.

Katsumoto:

There are approximately 150m Nigerians; those that have looted this country are not up to 1 million. I am sure we can find more citizens who happen to be more competent that the current and past bunch. You don't have to lock them all up but certainly lock up the more brazen and greedy ones amongst them. Why would we negotiate with them? What leverage do they have? Seizing their assets and locking some up will serve as a deterrent to those coming in. Also new officials who turn out to be corrupt wont be able to argue precedence if you don't pardon these looters.

eku_bear:

The main concern is expense, not so much "will." Like, who would pay to develop and maintain this material? It wouldn't be cheap. Also to some extent locks you out of existing research and resources available in the West.

I don't mind promoting language/culture, but not in expensive ways that duplicate the wheel.

Kilode?!:

And we can always "subjugate" the smaller ethnicities, the Oyinbos did it to us now. . .

Beaf:

It is this sort of lazy thinking that has got us where we are.

eku_bear:

@fstranger and @Kilode?!:

Well, let's talk concretely. Would it be really better to switch say K-12 math education away from English to indigenous language X? Is the end result a higher quality math education for students? I don't really think you gain anything, education-wise. It isn't like Nigerians are struggling to learn math because it is taught in English, is it?

Like, would one really be able to learn addition/pre-algebra/geometry/calculus/etc more easily in Yoruba than English?

So you expend a lot of resources changing the curriculum over with no gain. And arguably there is a loss; any fruits of the mathematics research in language X are difficult to share with others (think of all the excellent work developed in Soviet math/science journals that we were not able to access in the West due to language issues.)

Kilode?!:

You are making a lot of assumptions for someone who grew up in a different culture speaking English as a first language. If they had taught me calculus and physics in Yoruba I can bet I will be way better that I was in those courses. Speaking for myself.

You probably don't understand the disadvantages if navigating two languages at the same time, especially when you are dealing with difficult concepts, we know speaking more than one language will probably make you smarter, one reason I always doff my hat for African and Asian immigrant students who excel in foreign schools -Not speaking about 2nd or 3rd generations like you Eku_bear - but at what cost?

Speaking broadly, I believe the world is definitely poorer because of the suppression of African ideas and philosophies. You can imagine how much poorer we are because of that.

Beaf:

Corruption is not Nigeria's problem, structure is. The way to fix things is to opt for true federalism, with that will come a definition for every single point in the list above.

Kilode?!:

You are making a lot of assumptions for someone who grew up in a different culture speaking English as a first language. If they had taught me calculus and physics in Yoruba I can bet I will be way better that I was in those courses. Speaking for myself.

You probably don't understand the disadvantages if navigating two languages at the same time, especially when you are dealing with difficult concepts, we know speaking more than one language will probably make you smarter, one reason I always doff my hat for African and Asian immigrant students who excel in foreign schools -Not speaking about 2nd or 3rd generations like you Eku_bear - but at what cost?

Speaking broadly, I believe the world is definitely poorer because of the suppression of African ideas and philosophies. You can imagine how much poorer we are because of that.

Not being able to access Russian ideas is the west's loss, why should I worry about what they will lose?!! Russian used their ingenuity to send man to space before Americans, they built industries and expanded the frontier of knowledge,

English speaking people had to pay the price to translate and learn that, the same way we pay to learn theirs, that is their call, that's is their headache. I don't need to bother myself about that. We can trade knowledge but Shame of me if I have to worry about their needs before mine. Tufiakwa!

eku_bear:

Hmm, ok.
Hmmz. (Btw, I was born in Nigeria and lived there for the first few years of my life, so am technically a 1st gen immigrant myself.)
But it isn't as if most Nigerians in school don't understand English at all, right? Nigerians in school understand/speak English better than I can speak Spanish (for example). But if I for some reason moved to a Spanish-speaking country and had to take a math/history/etc course there (something I strongly contemplated doing in undergrad but never had the time for), I don't think it would be much more difficult. I'd need to put in a bit more effort, but nothing impossible.

Like, it would be difficult to learn material in a language you don't know at all. But one which you have a decent familiarity with? Which you can communicate in to some extent?
Well, my point is that we would be the ones to lose. Suppose Professor X discovered a procedure for solving Problem Y in field Z that will be of great importance to Nigeria in 50 years. He publishes this in some English-language journal. If in that time we've all switched to indigenous language, then the likelihood of us coming across that paper and realizing its significance greatly drops 

This has happened a lot in certain areas of applied math. Someone solves a problem, then discover that some Soviet dude solved the same exact problem in more generality back in the 70s or 80s 

I just don't want to be the one being locked out of the existing body of knowledge the Western world has, wasting time and resources on stuff already known.

ShangoThor:

Beaf is actually bang on the money here,  he mentions 'Structure' of the State ,


hence in order to realize true Federalism Southern Nigeria might have to pursue the option to secede, or accept
that our children will be having this same conversation in 50 years time

Fix the State and you will fix the problem,

we definitely need a Sovereign National Conference
(not arrangee type)
please lets stop the use of the word ethnic minority(or minorities),

eku_bear:

@fstranger1: How do you know what to translate and what not to? And if you say, "translate everything", well that will cost a lot of resources. The volume of work published these days is enormous. . .

fstranger1:

HAHAHAHAHAh


Machine? software? some sort of new technology that can do it at a manageable cost? No?

eku_bear:

Have you ever tried using machine translation software before? Don't you know how crappy it generally is?

Simply isn't at that level yet, and unclear if it will ever be.

If that breakthrough ever happens, then yes, everybody can learn whatever language they like.

ShangoThor:

[size=18pt]@ cashful, I believe tribalism is for primitive minds[/size]

I never talk about ethic minorities in a derogatory manner.
I wish you luck with your pursuit for a 'Sovereign National Conference', but can we agree on a cut off date, i.e. if
you can't achieve this in the next five years we can start to pursue 'option b', Southern region seccession like
the Southern Sudanese have done? Shouldn't we let the people ultimately decide? Does this make me a bigot, because
I believe in the 'sovereignty of the people' or 'formulating and implementing a workable solution to our problem?

Talk is cheap, some people talk, and other peole 'act'.

[size=18pt]Fix the State, and you will fix the problem.[/size]