I respect ACN which later merge to become APC a lot but this development will not change INEC DECISION.
I have also observe APC is very quick to raise Alarm whenever any election is about to take place.

”If INEC indeed has any hope of organizing a free, fair and transparent election in Anambra on Nov. 16th, it must immediately shelve the plan to send these highly-partisan and heavily-compromised officials to supervise the election. Any action short of that will open INEC to accusations of bias – which is not what any umpire wants,” APC said.

APC is currently looking for one reason or the other to accuse INEC of Bias if they loose the Anambra Election. They have been doing this since 2011 and it will continue. They praise INEC for a wonderful and free and fair election in EDO State but accused them of bias in ONDO Election within same period.

Anambrans will decide who will Lead them and no amount of blackmail and accusations will stop them. If they want Ngige, they will vote him in. If they want Willie or Ubah, they will also vote them in. I'm sure PDP will not win this election.

I'm just observing and I have a very close contact with the Locals who are those that will vote on November 16. Not those ranting in the media or Nairaland.

India has the right to protect their Sovereign Nation but should not violate the right of others.
If we engage Indian in Diplomatic War, they will hurriedly ask for seize fire within 10 days just
as South Africa did sometime ago. This present Administration has one of the most robust
International Public Relation Service. We can engage the UK in Diplomatic War if they demand
for it and not to talk about India.

I respect them a lot because I have some of them working with me as freelancers but I will
never accept any Violation of an African by Indian Administration over a Murder case that was
executed by their own people. This issue should be settle diplomatically before it escalate. This
was how South Africa row started gradually as a joke and Jacob Zuma have to send a high powered
Delegation to Aso Rock with unreserve apology to GEJ over what happen due to yellow fever certification
palava.

I REST MY CASE

In as much as many will criticize the Governor of being too loyal or a stooge to Saraki, the fact remains that the Senior Saraki has an "Election Winning Machinery" in the past 40 years and was ready to deploy it in making his Daughter the next Governor but Bukola said no. The battle line was drawn between a Father and Son over who should continue to be the King Maker. The son won and in few months later, the Iroko of Kwara politics Died and Bukola fully inherited the mantle of Leadership in Kwara Political Dynasty. With the present Kwara political structure, if the Governor disagree with Bukola Saraki, he will be impeach within 72 hours maximum. That is the power of controling a political structure that Guarantees positive result in the past 40 years.

Nigeria politics is always built on structure and God fatherism. Its happening in Lagos, Bayelsa, Anambra, Osun, Oyo, Ogun, Delta, Abia and so forth. Tinubu Installed Fashola, GEJ Installed Dickson, Ojokwu Installed Peter Obi, Tinubu Installed Ogbeni, Ajimobi, Amosun, Ibori Single handedly installed Uduaghan and Orji installed Orji.

I can go on and on. These are the structure that were built immediately we had independence and will continue to be there until the next generation except the masses take action. IBB is preparing his Son to become Governor in Niger State and OBJ still want Iyabo to Govern Ogun State by all means. Peter Obi is working tirelessly to install Willie in Anambra State. These will continue because the poor and lower class citizens has a very slim chance of winning any election in Nigeria except it has been predestined by God.

Finally, we will continue making noise on Nairaland and beer parlor and these Guys don't give a damn. They will continue to nominate those who will lead us and they definitely continually to exact pressure on those they brought to limelight. Politics is give and take.

Let me stop here before my Oga at the Top say something else...

RIP to the late Speaker.

In as much I'm not a supporter of Ifeanyi Uba, it should be noted that good administrators don't necessary need to have PHD's in order to Govern very well. We have had people with good qualifications from Universities like Cambridge and Harvard but yet, they could not perform.

I have watch briefly the debate and it look as if Ubah and Ngige are more prepared than other candidates. Intelligence is beyond having a school degree. I have been in contact with graduates that can't write a full essay and they blame the government for their unemployment when they can't add value to wherever they find themselves.

The constitution state that with SSCE, you can contest to become a Governor or President. I won't vote for you because you have a PHD but based on your capacity, antecedent and Vision for the people. Having a PHD is not a Guarantee of Administrative Success.

God punish Devil if Arsenal no carry this season Premiership.
We have no contender and not those Lazy people that call
themselves blues. Carlin cup no be Premiership.....

President Goodluck Jonathan has restated the opposition of Nigeria and the African Union to the unconstitutional removal of a democratically-elected government.

According to a statement by spokesman Reuben Abati, Mr. Jonathan was speaking during a meeting with Ambassador Raouf Saad, Special Envoy of the Interim President of Egypt, Mr. Adly Mansour at the State House, Lagos.

He welcomed the assurance by Ambassador Saad that the Egyptian military were not currently involved in the day-to-day administration of the country, and advised the interim government to do its best to return Egypt to democratic rule as quickly as possible.

Mr. Jonathan told the Special Envoy that Egypt was very important to Africa and that Nigeria and the African Union will give the country the necessary support to ensure that it returns to the path of constitutionalism and political stability as quickly as possible.

The Nigeria leader also condemned recent terrorist activities on Mount Sinai and reaffirmed the Federal Government’s full commitment to working with the rest of the world to combat terrorism, adding that no person or group has the right to intimidate others with acts of terror.

Ambassador Saad was in Lagos to brief President Jonathan on the current situation in Egypt against the background of the opposition of Nigeria and the African Union to the unconstitutional change of government in Egypt and the country’s suspension from the continental body.

The Egyptian envoy praised Nigeria’s leadership role in Africa and sought President Jonathan’s advice on how Egypt could best overcome its current difficulties.

http://saharareporters.com/news-page/only-voters-can-remove-elected-leaders-president-jonathan-tells-egypt

Says: I’m only a noise-maker

Governor of Niger state, Dr Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, yesterday pleaded with President Goodluck Jonathan to regard his criticisms of the presidency as a mere noise-making aimed at attracting development to his state.

Aliyu, who is the chairman of the Northern States Governors’ Forum (NSGF), spoke yesterday in Zungeru, Wushishi local government area of the state, during the ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of a 700-megawatt hydropower plant, performed by the president.

Jonathan made no direct response to the governor’s plea in his own address, but instead promised to assent to the Hydro Power Producing Areas Commission (HYPPADEC) bill, which formed part of the governor’s requests, without further delay.

Apparently sounding apologetic as an aftermath of the suspension of Governor Rotimi Ameachi of Rivers state by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Aliyu said his criticisms of Jonathan were not personal and should not be regarded as an affront to the Presidency.

He said: “Regardless of the noise we are making, PDP shall make it. We are one family and we are firmly with the President”.

He thanked Jonathan for the gift of the hydropower plant, saying it has brought to four the number of hydropower stations in Niger state.

“Hydro dams would boost the economic activities of the host communities and elevate the living standards of the local people,” he said.

Laying the foundation stone of the project, Jonathan restated the commitment of his administration to the success of the power sector reforms, stressing that the initial challenges facing the sector have been overcome.

He said the Zungeru hydropower project will open up vast agricultural activities in the area, including allied industries, in addition to improving the economic potentials of the state and the country.

In his remarks, the Minister of Power, Professor Chinedu Nebo, said the nation’s power-generating capacity has risen to 4,517 megawatts, adding that the Zungeru power plant project has been on the drawing board since 1982 and praised Jonathan for bringing it to reality.

Source: http://blueprintng.com/2013/05/governor-aliyu-begs-jonathan-2

Kindly post your email or phone number here for more communication.
I'm interested but surprise that you did not have any contact details in order
to reach you. awaiting your quick response.

.

Ralphjoe: I'll recommend Airtel for you, the speed is the best in Nigeria & it doesn't disappoint at all

Ok, But I think it may consume so much Bandwidth to Watch Videos Online.

I've been having the Intention to sign up to some Online Training but wonder's
which Network will enable me watch the Video Training Effortlessly. WE all know
what the average Internet speed is in Nigeria. Can you advice me on the Network
I can use to watch Videos from Lynda.com or any application that could speed up
Video Streaming.

Almost 30 years before Rwanda, before Darfur, more than 2 million people – mothers, children, babies, civilians – lost their lives as a result of the blatantly callous and unnecessary policies enacted by the leaders of the federal government of Nigeria.

As a writer I believe that it is fundamentally important, indeed essential to our humanity, to ask the hard questions, in order to better understand ourselves and our neighbours. Where there is justification for further investigation, justice should be served.

In the case of the Nigeria-Biafra war there is precious little relevant literature that helps answer these questions. Did the federal government of Nigeria engage in the genocide of its Igbo citizens – who set up the republic of Biafra in 1967 – through punitive policies, the most notorious being "starvation as a legitimate weapon of war"? Is the information blockade around the war a case of calculated historical suppression? Why has the war not been discussed, or taught to the young, more than 40 years after its end? Are we perpetually doomed to repeat the errors of the past because we are too stubborn to learn from them?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines genocide as "the deliberate and systematic extermination of an ethnic or national group ...". The UN general assembly defined it in 1946 as "... a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups". Throughout the conflict the Biafrans consistently charged that the Nigerians had a design to exterminate the Igbo people from the face of the earth. This calculation, the Biafrans insisted, was predicated on a holy jihad proclaimed by mainly Islamic extremists in the Nigerian army and supported by the policies of economic blockade that prevented shipments of humanitarian aid, food and supplies to the needy in Biafra.

Supporters of the federal government position maintain that a war was being waged and the premise of all wars is for one side to emerge as the victor. Overly ambitious actors may have "taken actions unbecoming of international conventions of human rights, but these things happen everywhere". This same group often cites findings, from organisations (sanctioned by the federal government) that sent observers during the crisis, that there "was no clear intent on behalf of the Nigerian troops to wipe out the Igbo people ... pointing out that over 30,000 Igbos still lived in Lagos, and half a million in the mid-west".

But if the diabolical disregard for human life seen during the war was not due to the northern military elite's jihadist or genocidal obsession, then why were there more small arms used on Biafran soil than during the entire second world war? Why were there 100,000 casualties on the much larger Nigerian side compared with more than 2 million – mainly children – Biafrans killed?

It is important to point out that most Nigerians were against the war and abhorred the senseless violence that ensued. The wartime cabinet of General Gowon, the military ruler, it should also be remembered, was full of intellectuals like Chief Obafemi Awolowo among others who came up with a boatload of infamous and regrettable policies. A statement credited to Awolowo and echoed by his cohorts is the most callous and unfortunate: all is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapons of war. I don't see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight harder.

It is my impression that Awolowo was driven by an overriding ambition for power, for himself and for his Yoruba people. There is, on the surface at least, nothing wrong with those aspirations. However, Awolowo saw the dominant Igbos at the time as the obstacles to that goal, and when the opportunity arose – the Nigeria-Biafra war – his ambition drove him into a frenzy to go to every length to achieve his dreams. In the Biafran case it meant hatching up a diabolical policy to reduce the numbers of his enemies significantly through starvation — eliminating over two million people, mainly members of future generations.

The federal government's actions soon after the war could be seen not as conciliatory but as outright hostile. After the conflict ended, the same hardliners in the Nigerian government cast Igbos in the role of treasonable felons and wreckers of the nation – and got the regime to adopt a banking policy that nullified any bank account operated during the war by the Biafrans. A flat sum of 20 Nigerian pounds was approved for each Igbo depositor, regardless of the amount of deposit. If there was ever a measure put in place to stunt, or even obliterate, the economy of a people, this was it.

After that outrageous charade, Nigeria's leaders sought to devastate the resilient and emerging eastern commercial sector even further by banning the import of secondhand clothing and stockfish – two trade items that they knew the burgeoning market towns of Onitsha, Aba and Nnewi needed to re-emerge. Their fear was that these communities, fully reconstituted, would then serve as the economic engines for the reconstruction of the entire Eastern Region.

There are many international observers who believe that Gowon's actions after the war were magnanimous and laudable. There are tons of treatises that talk about how the Igbo were wonderfully integrated into Nigeria. Well, I have news for them: The Igbos were not and continue not to be reintegrated into Nigeria, one of the main reasons for the country's continued backwardness.

Borrowing from the Marshall plan for Europe after the second world war, the federal government launched an elaborate scheme highlighted by three Rs – for reconstruction, rehabilitation, and reconciliation. The only difference is that, while the Americans actually carried out all three prongs of the strategy, Nigeria's federal government did not.

What has consistently escaped most Nigerians in this entire travesty is the fact that mediocrity destroys the very fabric of a country as surely as a war – ushering in all sorts of banality, ineptitude, corruption and debauchery. Nations enshrine mediocrity as their modus operandi, and create the fertile ground for the rise of tyrants and other base elements of the society, by silently assenting to the dismantling of systems of excellence because they do not immediately benefit one specific ethnic, racial, political, or special-interest group. That, in my humble opinion, is precisely where Nigeria finds itself today.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/02/biafran-war-nigeria-mediocrity-persecution-igbo

Man city will never escape it, they will be GUN DOWN 2MOROW
We did it last season, it can be done again.
Can't wait for d match, and hopefully it will not affect
d price of CASAVA BREAD

Can IBB bow Down for GEJ?


http://news.yahoo.com/obama-clinton-seal-alliance-bow-bear-hug-045804122--election.html

sedulus: to develop a site it cost u both hosting,registration and designing all 4 just 35k if u r ready just pay me 15k den after i finish u balance me .my office is 17.fakeye strt ,agbowo u.i ibadan oyo state nigeria or cal
08035627372 .www.sedulushost.com

Are you serious with your Pricing. Kindly visit flyaero.com and explore the site before
recommending cost.

More input will be highly appreciated..

I would like to get Ideas from experience website developers
on the cost implication of developing a site like flyaero.com

I need experience website developers to give me cost estimate in
developing a website like flyaero.com.

Its getting interesting day by day.

A Federal High Court on Wednesday barred the Federal government from prosecuting any official of the Integrated Oil and Gas Ltd on the alleged N13.2 billion fuel subsidy claims. Delivering a ruling in Abuja, Justice Gladys Olotu further ordered that the ``status quo’’ be maintained pending the determination of the originating summons filed by the company. ``The government and its agents are hereby prevented from arresting, detaining, prosecuting and recovering the N13.2 billion alleged to have been received by the plaintiff as fuel subsidy claims pending the determination of the case. This summons is hereby accorded an accelerated hearing in order to expeditiously dispose of it,’’ she said.

The company approached the court on June 25 with a motion on notice brought pursuant to Order 26 Rule 2 and Order 28 Rule 1 of the Court Civil Procedure Rules 2009. The House of Representatives, Rep. Farouk Lawan, Attorney General of the Federation, EFCC, ICPC and the Inspector General of Police are respondents in the matter. The suit is connected with the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee on the Monitoring of the Oil Subsidy Regime. The company, which is owned by a former Internal Affairs Minister, Retired Capt. Emmanuel Ihenacho, dragged the respondents to court following the indictment of the company as one of the major oil marketers that fraudulently benefited from the oil subsidy.

T[b]he Plaintiff had sought for a declaration that the subsidy refunds paid to the company in the sum of N13. 2 billion in respect of petroleum products imported between 2006 and 2011 was not sustainable, as unconstitutional, null and void.[/b] The plaintiff further sought for a declaration that the resolution of the first defendant passed on April 25 which approved the report of the Ad-hoc Committee was illegal. The plaintiff sought a declaration that the Federal Government as represented by the third to the sixth defendants were not entitled by law to act or take any step on account of the resolution of the first defendant. The Company had sought for an injunction restraining the defendants whether by themselves, their servants, agents or representatives from any act or taking steps against the plaintiff and its officers on account of implementing the April 25 subsidy report.

www.omohgabriel.com/2012/07/n13-2b-fuel-subsidy-claims-court-bars-fg-from-prosecuting-coy

I've had this desire of starting a Charity Organization for so long now and would
want to start without much delay. My major aim is reaching out to poor orphanage home's
and provide basic materials that will improve the children standard of living.
I also intend contributing to their academic activities.

Kindly advice me on how to go about it. Do I need to register a name with Corporate
Affair Commission? I need meaningful contribution. I want to start something from
next week and I don't usually start new project without asking for the contributions
of others because I believe one or two people may have ideas that will help me achieve my AIM.

Zenithbank Websurfer is Accepted. I'm currently using GTB Naira Mastrecard

Published on Tuesday, 17 April 2012 12:05
Written by Chukwuma Charles Soludo

At issue in both Berlin and Brussels is whether or not Africa can be allowed latitude to conduct trade, industrial and development policies for its own development or for the development of Europe. A major difference is that the Economic Partnership

Agreements (EPAs), unlike the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, will now be signed by free African people, under supposedly democratic governments, and in contexts where the African people again have neither voice nor choice.

Currently only about 10 out of 47 Sub-Saharan African countries have either signed or initialled the EPAs. Trade ministers of the affected regions – the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries as well as African trade ministers and the African Union – have largely rejected the EPAs. Despite all of these, and the reported public protests in 20 countries against the raw deal, it seems all but certain that the EPAs will be rammed through.

In private whisperings, not many Africans or policymakers are happy with the deal but there is a certain sense of helplessness. Since 2002, the EU has been negotiating the EPAs with the ACP countries as a fully reciprocal trade arrangement to replace the previous non-reciprocal, preferential trade access of ACP countries to EU markets under the various LomÈ Conventions and the Cotonou Agreement governing the relationship between the ACP countries and the EU.

The argument, according to the EU, is that such preferential access violated Article XXIV of GATT, and that a World Trade Organisation (WTO) waiver that allowed such preferences expired in December 2007. Consequently, the ACP countries are divided into seven regions (with five in Africa) for the purposes of the negotiations. As advertised, EPAs are "set out to help ACP countries integrate into the world economy and share in the opportunities offered by globalisation". The EU points to the "failures" of the previous preferential arrangements to "boost local economies and stimulate growth in ACP countries". Thus, the new reciprocal arrangement is expected to remedy the failures of the past and usher the El Dorado to Africa.

Specifically, EPAs are expected to be "tailor-made" to suit specific regional circumstances; go beyond conventional free-trade agreements, focusing on ACP development, taking account of their socio-economic circumstances; and include co-operation and assistance to help ACPs implement the agreements.

The EPAs are also expected to open up EU markets fully and immediately (unilaterally by the EU since 1 January 2008), but allow the ACP countries 15 (and up to 25) years to open up to EU imports while providing protection for the sensitive 20% of imports. The EPAs are also supposed to provide the scope for wide-ranging trade co-operation on areas such as services and standards; and are also designed to be drivers of change that will kick-start reform and help strengthen the rule of law in the economic field, thereby attracting foreign direct investment (FDI), so helping to create a "virtuous circle" of growth.

The above sounds quite familiar, and anyone conversant with the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) documents of the 1980s will recognise the language.

Consequently, countries were rushed to initial interim EPAs before the end of 2007, and some went on to sign them later. These have mainly been single countries. Most of the sub-regions, as groups of countries, are still negotiating the regional EPAs (e.g. West Africa, Central Africa, SADC, etc).

Put simply, in order to continue to have access to European markets (on the terms that it had enjoyed for more than three decades), Africa is now required to eliminate tariffs on at least 80% of imports from the EU; in some cases, abolish all export duties and taxes; in others, countries can retain existing export taxes but not increase them or introduce new taxes; eliminate all quantitative restrictions; and meet all kinds of other intrusive and destructive conditionalities that literally tie the hands of African governments to deploy the same kind of instruments that all countries that have industrialised applied to build competitive national economies.

Under the WTO, least developed countries (LDCs) are not required to further reduce their tariffs (at least they have the choice to decide whether and when to do so), but EPAs require at least 80% of them eliminated. Indeed, Africa is being asked to comply with more stringent conditions than Brazil, India and China are required to meet under the WTO.

Almost all the flexibilities in policy choice that Africa and other developing countries won under the WTO are lost under the EPAs. Hitherto, the EU had also (in addition to the Cotonou Agreement) granted a special concession to all African LDCs – the "Everything But Arms" (EBA) initiative – allowing them to export duty-free to the EU. This was the EU’s equivalent of the US African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and African LDCs were not expected to reciprocate. With EPA, it means that the EBA is effectively dead. LDCs would have to provide reciprocal market access opening.

In addition, what the EU has failed to get under the WTO or issues that developing countries have rejected under the WTO are being foisted on Africa under the EPA. For example, the so-called trade-related issues (the Singapore issues) such as investment, competition, and transparency in government procurement, which are dead under the WTO, are being smuggled into the EPA. There are all kinds of studies on the possible effects of the EPAs on African economies. While it is fair to acknowledge that some of the presumed impacts (positive and negative) may be exaggerated, there is abundant evidence that the EPAs would be damaging. Africa’s nascent industrial sector and agriculture (which is the mainstay of the poor) would be damaged by the new import armada and dumping, thereby exacerbating unemployment and poverty. In some countries, imports of sugar, dairy, poultry, rice, vegetable oil, etc, have already increased four-fold. Tariff revenues will shrink; premature and permanent opening up of service sectors including financial services leaves them open to the full hazards of the perennial global financial bubbles; and it will badly hurt intra-African economic integration. Africa would almost be consigned to be specialists in the export of raw materials.

African countries cannot use government procurement and contracts to prop up and promote domestic companies as European companies would be required to be given equal treatment in competition for government contracts. The list of the damages is long and cannot be detailed here. Some independent studies by the EU admit these damages, and one such study predicts that EPA could accelerate the collapse of manufacturing in West Africa. Perhaps that is why the EU is promising "aid for trade" – to sooth and compensate for some of the damages.

What is worrying is that it is difficult to point to any significant net benefit of EPAs to Africa. Already 33 out of 47 African countries are considered as LDCs and therefore qualify to export "everything but arms" to the EU, 100% duty-free and quota-free. So, what is the additional benefit to these countries?

For the remaining 14 African non-LDC countries, it is curious why the EU cannot accede to the request by the African Union to treat Africa as the world’s archetypical LDC region and grant the same EBA to all of the countries. Or, alternatively there are several proposals about benchmarking and sequencing the conditionalities and liberalisation to synchronise with the economic advancement of these remaining 14 countries. So far, these proposals have not been accepted by the European Commission even for discussion.

In any case, the EU’s peculiar interpretation of Article XXIV of GATT is a convenient one. The EU relies on this Article to argue that the WTO outlaws non-reciprocal, preferential trade to Africa under the Cotonou Agreement. But the same Article refers to trade in goods, and so why has the EU brought up all kinds of issues – services, investment, and procurement – into the EPA? Second, it must be noted that this Article, crafted in 1947, is itself still a subject of the Doha trade negotiations. Third, and to be honest about it, the WTO does allow for non-reciprocal preferential trade arrangements if the motivation for the EU’s action is to assist Africa.

Currently there are more than seven active waivers in the WTO provided to the US, EU, and Canada for preferential trade schemes for developing countries and transition economies. For example, the US has a waiver concerning its AGOA for sub-Saharan Africa. Recently, the EU has obtained two waivers to grant non-reciprocal trade preferences to poorer European countries, such as Moldova, and another one to the Western Balkan transition economies (Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosovo).

It is remarkable to note the EU’s argument for applying for a waiver to the WTO in respect of Moldova. According to the EU: "Moldova is the poorest country on the European continentÖ and does not have the competitive strength to take reciprocal obligations of a free-trade agreement with the European Communities" [see WTO document of 29 February, 2008]. But Moldova (the poorest European country with per capita income of about $2,300; life expectancy of 71 years and an adult literacy rate of 99%) is far better than most sub-Saharan African countries, and not to talk of much richer ones like Croatia with about $10,000 per capita income.

Compare this to much of Africa and even the 14 African countries dubbed "non-LDC" (Nigeria has a per capita income of about $1,200; Ghana $1,475; Kenya $1,125; and in all of these countries poverty incidence is at least 50%). Something does not add up here. According to the EU, granting non-reciprocal preferential trade concessions to fellow European countries that are richer than most African countries does not violate WTO rules, but doing so for Africa does. Africa remains the world’s poorest region and perhaps the last development challenge.

The EU needs to come up with a credible explanation. It needs to come clean. It does not have to apologise for it because after all, it can argue that it is the way the world works. From the time of slavery to the Berlin Conference, Africa has either been a source of free labour and profit or a source of raw materials and market. Only the dynamics change but the substance has remained. After all, nation-states hardly act out of love but in pursuit of self-interest. Africans appreciate that the global economy today is rumbling with new tensions and challenges. As the old economic powers are largely broke, the emerging economies with cash are roaring. The BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) are seen as the "new threats". The global economic landscape is unravelling and recoupling in such a manner that would likely alter the economic, military, and geopolitical power in the medium term.

With these new pressures have emerged a demand for exhaustible natural resources and markets to sustain national security and prosperity. Since the major powers are no longer able to make use of the WTO as they wish to impose new rules on developing countries, they are now resorting to bilateral and regional policies and agreements to try and get their way.

There is a subtle war for "territories", and neo-mercantilism is the name of the game. The US is locking in its neighbours in Latin America into one form of free trade agreement (FTA) or another. Africa has once again attracted attention as a theatre of the new struggle. China is accused by the West of either "invading" or "exploiting" Africa with its peculiar brand of "aid".

In this circumstance, it could only be expected that the EU would move quickly to secure its possession – Africa. In the European Commission’s 2008 document entitled "The Raw Materials Initiative – Meeting our Critical Needs for Growth and Jobs in Europe", presented to the European Parliament and the Council, one can get a clearer glimpse of the real impetus for the EPA. Trust the sophistication of the negotiators, it is being branded as an initiative to "help" or "develop" Africa. History repeats itself in a funny way. Recall that the advertised "benefit" to Africa of the Berlin Conference in 1884-85 that cemented colonisation was to "help in suppressing slavery". The rest is history!

In terms of the technique deployed to coerce compliance by Africa, it is the old classic: divide and rule, and carrot and stick. The EU negotiates as a bloc, but ACP countries are divided into seven regions, sometimes not exactly matching the regional integration arrangements.

Even within the negotiating regions, each country is literally on its own: that way, it is easy to pick them off one by one. If Africa negotiates as a bloc, it may be difficult for the EU to get its way easily. The principle of the early bird catching the worm is applied to create what economists call the prisoner’s dilemma and thus make collective action difficult. Countries that have "signed" are allowed to continue to enjoy their preferential access to the European market while those that have not signed are under all kinds of threats. Those already in the privileged club do not want to lose their privileges and see themselves as ìspecialî while those excluded struggle to sign on the dotted lines. Different EPAs signed by different countries contain significant differences in terms of tariff lines, sequencing, and speed of liberalisation, depending on the negotiating capacity of the country/region. In some cases, the advisers to the negotiators of some African countries are Europeans!

Most countries still resist and now export under the EU Generalised System of Preferences (GSP); there is EBA for the LDCs; and the standard GSP for Nigeria, Congo-Brazzaville, Gabon and some Pacific countries. South Africa continues with its old free trade arrangement with the EU.

Even the GSP for some countries is now under threat. Power is the issue here. Given the weaknesses of the states and structural vulnerabilities of most African countries, including dependence on aid and trade with Europe for many, it is evident that what is going on is not negotiation but dictation.

The apparent sweetener to the bitter pill is the EU’s "promise" of "EU Aid for Trade" by which the EU is to provide financial assistance to EPA countries to enable them to build capacity, including infrastructure, and facilitate their implementation of the new agreement. This new "promise" for aid is indeed funny, and raises important questions. Is this going to be an "additional aid" or a rebranding of existing but unmet commitments?

Under the auspices of the United Nations, the rich industrial countries in 1970 committed to devote 0.7% of their Gross National Income (GNI) to aid. For 42 years now, it remains an unkept promise. Only 5 countries – Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, and Luxembourg have met the 0.7% of GNI in aid.

One has lost count of the numerous conferences and summits for mobilising resources for development and the numerous "promises" of increased aid. None of the previous "promises" of funding for Africa’s development has been met. Neither the Lagos Plan of Action nor the African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programme (AAF-SAP) which was approved by the UN’s General Assembly received any support.

The UN New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s did not receive the promised financial assistance. By 2001, the African Union in Zambia launched its New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), and at the 2002 G-8 Summit in Kananaskis, Canada, NEPAD was adopted by the G-8 leaders as "a bold and clear-sighted vision" for Africa and pledged financial assistance to ensure that NEPAD did not go the way of previous efforts.

At the UN Conference on "Financing for Development" (held in Monterrey, Mexico), more pledges were made. The result of all of these "pledges" is that aid to Africa has fallen since the mid-1990s in nominal and real terms.

A recent "promise" was the EU saying it would increase aid to 0.56% of GNI by 2010 (aid to all countries, not just Africa). The question is whether the "aid for trade" will be additional to the yet-to-be-met 0.7% or is a new benchmark being "promised"?

Without doubt Africa needs huge resources to develop intra- and inter-regional transportation networks to integrate the national markets as well as to address the myriad of critical supply bottlenecks that were decisive in preventing Africa from fully taking advantage of previous preferential trade arrangements. However, anyone following the developments in the EU as well as its history of delivering on previous "promises" can make some judgements as to the credibility of a new "promise".

Beside the quantum of aid, the quality of its delivery is critical. The kind of "aid for trade" that Africa needs should be in the quantum and delivery mechanism that should build the infrastructure to integrate the fragmented African markets into a common market.

Currently, it is more expensive for many African countries to trade with fellow African countries than with Europe. But aid to Africa is largely country-specific and neither the EU nor the World Bank has a robust framework for regional aid or lending.

Country-based "aid for trade" even when it is of any significant quantity and quality merely reinforces existing fragmentation, creating a hub and spoke framework whereby Europe is the hub and individual African countries constitute the spokes.

The EU’s agricultural subsidy

On a related subject, is EPA going to happen in the context of the continued existence of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) with its harmful subsidy regime? In 2006, a leading UK newspaper, The Independent, succinctly captured the travesty. According to the newspaper, the EU Common Agricultural Policy "lavishes subsidies on the UK’s wealthiest farmers and biggest landowners at the expense of millions of the poorest farmers in the developing world. The UK government must lobby hard within the EU to agree an overhaul of the CAP by 2008 to put an end to the vicious cycle of overproduction and dumping.

"The £30bn-a-year EU agricultural subsidy regime is one of the biggest iniquities facing farmers in Africa and other developing countries. They cannot export their products because they compete with the lower prices made possible by payments.

"In addition, European countries dump thousands of tons of subsidised exports in Africa every year so that local producers cannot even compete on a level playing field in their own land. Meanwhile, governments of developing countries come under intense pressure from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to scrap their own tariffs and subsidies as part of free trade rules".

How apt! As at 2011, the subsidy totalled about £48bn (about US$75bn) per year and it is expected to stay at this level until at least 2020. Yet African countries are expected to liberalise NOW. Some analysts have opined that the huge subsidy in Europe is an implicit tariff of hundreds of per cent on agricultural imports. Alternatively, some believe such subsidy amounts to banning imports of agricultural goods and promoting dumping in other countries – especially Africa.

Agriculture is the sector where Africa has comparative advantage and with the right policies and incentives, can feed Europe cheaply. A regime that keeps the status quo of harmful agricultural subsidy and the pittance of misguided and largely consumption-oriented aid, and hopes to "develop" Africa is, to put it mildly, suspect. The EU refuses to put the reduction or elimination of their agricultural subsidy on the EPA agenda. A clear signal from the EU here is that whenever its own interests are affected it is unwilling to make any concession. To make EPA a development agenda, agriculture must take centre stage.

But humanity has experience in delivering aid that works. We can replicate it for an effective and truly development-oriented EPA. The most effective aid in human history was the US aid to Europe after the Second World War – the Marshall Plan to rebuild the European infrastructure. The US felt a sense of obligation (given the historical ties with Europe) to provide a "big push" to lift Europe up after devastation by the war. One is not sure if the EU feels the same sense of obligation to Africa (given the history we all know too well).

But just imagine for a second that the EU feels a need to support Africa through a Marshall Plan kind of aid. Imagine that the EU were to stop its subsidy to agriculture and divert just three years’ subsidy fund to create an African Fund for Transformation – call it the "Brussels Plan for Africa" – and this would come to about $225bn.

Alternatively, instead of stopping the agricultural subsidy abruptly, the EU could go for a phased process, diverting just 50% of the subsidy fund into the Africa Fund over the first six years before finally phasing the subsidy out. If this Fund (akin to a sovereign wealth fund) was invested and the annual income proceeded (estimated at about $20bn per annum in perpetuity), you could over time build highways and train networks linking all of Africa, and increase the irrigation of its arable agricultural land from the current less-than-5% to more than 50%.

The point of the foregoing is that an alternative future between Africa and Europe is possible. Pervasive leadership failures have been at the heart of African underdevelopment in the last 50 years. Finally, there seem to be some flickers of light, and Africa is gradually pulling itself up by its own bootstraps. Africa has never had it better than in the last one decade, and compared to the lost decades it has begun to at least crawl. If the EU cannot assist Africa to walk and run, the least it should do is not to hinder the nascent progress.

The aggregate African economy is less than 2% of global GDP, and thus as a small open economy, it needs to integrate within and without. Africa needs the global market. But the lessons of the last two decades have reconfirmed that there are right and wrong ways to integrate into the global market, especially for poor and fragile economies.

While the world is yet to invent anything better than a market economy, it is also true that extreme market fundamentalism – that denies the existence of market failures and missing institutions – has brought more ruin than remedy.

A more balanced approach has been the winning strategy for all countries that have developed in the last century. But EPA, as currently designed, is a poisoned chalice. Fragmenting Africa and ramming through deadly trade arrangements in a manner that undermines internal African integration, ties the hands of policymakers and circumscribes the policy space, and literally enslaves the African economy. This may be smart for Europe in the short run but not wise in the long term.

If EPA is meant to develop Africa, it needs to be owned by Africans. Currently, even in countries that have "signed" or "initialled" the document, there is little or no public discussion by the private sector, parliaments, and civil societies. One hopes that if EPAs are to be domesticated, it will not be the kind of charade of "rent a crowd" consultations that were designed to rubber stamp the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). We now know better and must therefore do better.

Learning from history

Africa and Europe need a "Development Summit": we need to talk to each other frankly and directly. If the issue is ìdevelopmentî of Africa, there are certainly superior alternative proposals for a more beneficial relationship between Europe and Africa. The African Union, various sub-regional groupings, and even the ACP ministers of trade have canvassed alternatives to EPA. History should not repeat itself.

In the mid 1980s, Africa came up with the African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programmes (AAF-SAP). All African governments endorsed it; the United Nations General Assembly endorsed it, but the conventional SAPs were rammed through by the donor agencies which had the power of the purse. It took almost two decades of destruction for most development partners to admit that "mistakes were made" and that "no one had all the answers", and before the major elements of AAF-SAP became part of the Washington orthodoxy. This kind of costly experiment must be avoided. It is the lives of hundreds of millions of Africans that are at stake again. It is time to sit down and talk.

Other partners, such as China, India, and the US can join the Summit. So far, the EPA process and outcomes have more of the characteristics of a second Scramble for Africa (that is, a second Berlin Conference) than a development (Brussels’) initiative. That may not be what many stakeholders thought it was, but de facto, that is what is being delivered. We believe there is sufficient goodwill and technical capacity on both sides to craft a new rather than a raw deal.

Many scholars, statesmen and women, civil society organisations, etc, may certainly not be fully aware of what is going on. Frankly, as Africans, we do not believe that the UK, France, and the Nordic countries in particular, can, with all the recent talk about a new century for Africa, be part of this set-up. Those who care must rise to the occasion NOW, and not wait for years and then write post-mortem analyses of doom and gloom.

Some 30 years ago, Walter Rodney published his book entitled How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. At the turn of the 21st century, we must sing a new song. With sufficient will on both sides, one prays that our grandchildren will in the next few decades read a response to Rodney in a book to be entitled How Europe Developed Africa.[/b]

[b](Chukwuma Charles Soludo is a professor of economics who has served as the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, and chief economic advisor to the President of Nigeria. He is currently on the board of the South Centre, Geneva; chairman of the board of the African Institute for Applied Economics; and a member of the Chief Economist’s Advisory Council, World Bank.)

http://www.elombah.com/index.php/special-reports/10603-will-europe-underdevelop-africa-again-by-chukwuma-soludo

How much has the struggle for the actualisation of a sovereign Biafran state cost you?

It is unquantifiable. A lot of my members have been killed by paid security agents. My liberty has, at various times, been assaulted with impunity by the powers that be. So much money has been invested in the struggle to date. We have suffered casualties even when we adopted an approach that is non-violent to bring down the number of casualties. But Nigeria, being what it is, with overzealous security operatives, keeps killing my members without provocation.

Are you regretting adopting non-violence?

No way. I studied the non-violent approach of Mahatma Ghandi in India before I came back to Nigeria. Also, having worked under Dim Odumegwu-Ojukwu, who also encouraged non-violence, I had to take that option. But having used that method and the response the other agitators used and they are listened to and are begged for negotiation, you tend to regret the adoption of non-violence when violence is the only language the Nigerian state listens to quickly. Talking about the Boko-Haram, despite the callous and senseless killing of innocent people, especially the Ndigbo, the federal government is on its knees begging them and they are rebuffing all entreaties and they still go about killing. Nonetheless, non-violence remains the best approach. I have no regrets.

Critics view you as a tribalist. What is reaction to that?

Honestly, I am a tribalist and proud to be one. I have no apologies. I am fighting for the welfare of Ndigbo and that is paramount. This is because no ethnic group in Nigeria has suffered what the Ndigbo have been going through in this country. If what is happening to Ndigbo had happened to another ethnic group, I would have supported them. When the Late Chief M.K O. Abiola was denied his mandate after winning a free and fair election in 1993, I supported the struggle to actualise his mandate. I was against the cabal that robbed him of his mandate. At that time, people insinuated that I was behaving as if I was a Yoruba man. I didn’t care. I had to stand for principles and justice.

After a civil war that caused so much misery and kept Nigeria one, do you think it is wise to return to the pre-civil war situation by demanding a separate state?

I am not interested in whether the war was fought to keep Nigeria one. That is not my business. I am interested in actualising the Biafran dream for my people. The issue is that until Nigeria is split into different geo-political zones, there will not be peace. What is happening in Nigeria will continue to happen until my people and other major ethnic groups are granted independence. Until what happened in Yugoslavia or Soviet Union happens in Nigeria, peace will continue to elude us. This is because, from the outset, we were never one. The circumstances that led to the civil war are still in place. This is because of the incompatibility between the components of the so-called Nigerian state. It is a marriage of inconvenience. The components that make up Nigeria before it was amalgamated by Lord Lugard are just pretending to be united. I am a realist. I don’t deceive myself. I am not a politician and so do not aspire to become president. I don’t even belong to any political party. Those who vow or insist that we must remain one Nigeria are those who have been reaping pecuniary benefits from the contraption called Nigeria. They know that ‘One Nigeria’ is not feasible. For instance, when the North knows that it cannot stand alone on account of its lean resources, it continues to insist on the unity of Nigeria. In whose interest?

General Ibrahim Babangida recently said the the country’s oneness is a settled matter and that he is ready, at 71, to go to war with anybody who wants it divided. What is your reaction to this?

He said what he is expected to say. By the way, who fought the war and who fought for one Nigeria? [b]He is not sincere by saying Nigeria must remain as one. Let him address the issue of Boko Haram. Is it not from the North? What is he saying about it? Let him solve the problem of Boko Haram. What is Boko Haram asking for? Are they not saying they want 12 states in the North Islamised? They are fighting for self determination and their own sovereign state. In a country where you have Christians and Muslims, a group is callously killing Christians, targeting them on Christmas day and killing them because you don’t want Christians in your Islamic state. Their places of worship are, on a daily basis, burnt. Majority of those being slaughtered are southerners and Igbo. And IBB is saying we must remain one? At 71, is IBB going to carry guns and fight? Will he join the army now as a combat soldier or what? I think he is just talking for the sake of talking. I don’t think he is making sense at all. Do you know all the problems of today are caused by this set of rulers and leaders? I mean the IBBs and the Buharis of this world. They are the problems plaguing Nigeria today. They are involved in corruption, ethnicity and anything that tends to shake Nigeria to its foundation.[/b] Babangida ruled the country for nine wasted years and yet, he wanted to come back to power. One of them said if he did not become the president of Nigeria, the country would not know peace. What are we witnessing today? Has there been peace? How does he think Nigeria will be one? They want one Nigeria for their selfish interest.

They want to rule and rule and continue to appropriate the wealth of Nigeria, exploit the oil for themselves and for their children. Nigeria was far better when the British were in power. Immediately Nigerians took over, corruption and other vices crept in. Who are the people sponsoring Boko Haram? Are they not the same people? They boasted that if power was not given to them, there will be no peace. They lost in the power game and there has not been peace in the country. They are causing separation and insecurity and yet say Nigeria must be one. How can Nigeria be one? They should be realistic and objective. IBB or no IBB, we are not goats they can lead. I started reading about IBB and Buhari in my teens, but today, they want to remain in power. I just learnt that Buhari said he will contest the presidency again.

That is exactly why they want one Nigeria, a place where they can build their own colony. They claim that the North was born to rule in perpetuity. They should go and rule their own people because whenever power slips out of their hands there is crisis. They want us to remain amalgamated to continue on this uncivilised path. We will not accept it. Nigeria must split. Nigeria’s unity at whose expense? I am still sending vehicles to convey our stranded Igbo brothers and their families back home. I know how many people we went to bury the other day–12 persons from one village! How many people died in Minna? They were all Igbo. Were they killed because of one Nigeria? Before they were killed, they were asked to go home. He should go settle the Boko-Haram issue first before telling us about one Nigeria. They have to be practical, realistic and objective. One Nigeria is nothing but a huge lie.

There are fresh and loud calls for a Sovereign National Conference. What do you make of such?

I am not interested in any Sovereign National Conference because the representation will be manipulated. Those who will attend will be the likes of IBB, Buhari, the Emirs and others who have turned Nigeria upside down. The same people will manipulate the process to ensure that the country remains the same way so that they will be richer than the country. Today they own companies without explaining how they came about the wealth that yielded those companies. After such a manipulated conference, they will lie to the whole world that we have agreed to remain one. Hardliners will be excluded from the conference. The only condition under which I will attend any Sovereign National Conference is if the only agenda is self-determination. But if SNC is called and it is being asked if Nigeria should be divided or not, it will be utter rubbish. I won’t attend.

It is not only Boko-Haram that has affected the Ndigbo. The killing of Ndigbo in the North started way back in 1945. Even when two traditional rulers quarrel in the North, the Igbo are killed. When Qu’ran is allegedly desecrated, in places like far away Denmark, the Igbo are killed in the North. When Mr. Salman Rushdie wrote The Satanic Verses, the Igbo were killed and their shops, homes and places of worship burnt. It has been taken as a normal thing for the Igbo to be killed in the North at the slightest provocation. [/b]Yet, someone is saying we are one and we must remain so at the expense of the Igbo and because of crude oil. It is their tradition to kill our people. This is made possible because they cannot move to other parts of country, like the Ndigbo, and do business or invest. [b]The Igbo are killed by the people funded by the same northern leaders who insist that we must remain one. The leader of Boko Haram, who bombed and killed over 40 Christians and maimed many others on Christmas day, was caught in a governor’s lodge in the North and was set free by a commissioner of police from the North and they say we are one. That is the same country where someone is saying we are indivisible, whereas he is one of those funding Boko Haram. [size=16pt]It is nonsense! He should wait. When he sees a war, he will run away. At the age of 71, he says he is ready to fight. Let him come and fight; we are ready for him. Let us bury our leader, Dim Ojukwu, and we will come out and fight. In Nigeria, it is only the Igbo who have fought the whole of Nigeria made up of the Hausa, Yoruba and the Niger Delta. Britain, Russia and the Arab world teamed up against us. We fought for three solid years. So, nobody can talk about fighting when foreigners fought the war for you. Let them wait. This time, they will see real war. We are not like the Boko-Haram who detonate bombs and run away. When we start, the whole world will know. The war will be in the North and we shall fight them there. We will take the war to their doorsteps. When they come out, they will see us and they will run. The boasting 71-year-old will see us and we will settle the matter on the battlefield. Nonsense![/size]

Nigeria has been described as a huge bomb ready to explode. Do you agree?

The bomb has exploded already. The same thing that is happening now happened in 1966, when the superpowers supported Nigeria because of oil. Today, they are regretting. If they knew that what is happening today would happen, they would not have supported Nigeria. The Boko Haram bombed the United Nations building in Abuja. When you are supporting evil, it is like throwing a stone in the market place. You don’t know who it will hit. That is what is happening. The people that died in the UN building were not only Ndigbo. Foreigners were there. Nigeria has exploded, but the full ramification is what we don’t yet know. Nigeria is a problem to everybody. [size=16pt]You keep killing a people from a particular tribe for no other reason than envy. That we have kept quiet does not mean that we cannot do anything. When you talk about bombs and weapons of war, we produce them. We have that talent from God. No ethnic group has a monopoly of violence. We manufactured Ogbunigwe without assistance from any foreign power. Today, we have advanced in technology. We can use an ordinary handset to manufacture Ogbunigwe. When we start, they will all run. [/size]H[size=16pt]ope you remember kidnapping started in the Niger Delta. But when it came to Igboland, it took a different dimension. Boko Haram throws bombs and runs away. When we start, we will be launching them, like missiles, straight at their doorsteps. They will be forced to run and then complain later that Ndigbo have started again[/size]. Today, nobody is talking. Their leaders in the North are not talking; the President is not talking. Yet, one person is threatening that he will go to war to keep Nigeria one. They are hiding killers and bombers in government lodges. When arrested, they release them from detention. But by the time we start, they will all run away. Just wait and see. Did you notice that Ndigbo have not raised a finger against our killers? Do they have a monopoly of violence?

Chief, you are sounding very angry…

Why won’t I be angry? I am angry. The other day I buried 12 corpses from one village. People who were killed out of hatred and because of the belief that nobody will say anything. [/b]The tales we have been receiving are so painful. People go from house to house, killing people, especially the Igbo, and nobody takes note of that. They are locked up in their houses and cannot come out for fear of being killed. The federal government has failed. You expect me to be happy when my people are being killed? It is when we start that the federal government will start talking. UN only commented when its building was bombed. They are not condemning the wanton killing of the Igbo. It is when we start they will start sending jet bombers to kill us. They only condemn Boko Haram verbally without any action against them.

[b]Have the governors in the South-East assisted you in resettling the returnees?

You should ask the governors. We, the Igbo Elders Forum, are doing our best for them. Most of the governors even have dual identity. If you are talking to them, you may be talking Igbo-Minna or Igbo-Yoruba, anointed from Otta and now from Otuoke. They won’t listen to us because they too want to take care of their political interests. They are asking our people to remain in the North. Perhaps they have concluded arrangement with northerners to continue killing our people. The governors of the East were not elected by the people so they don’t represent the interest of the people. They are killing your people on a daily basis and you still ask them to remain because someone has promised you an Igbo presidency that will never be. Obasanjo promised all of the governors of the South-East. At the end of the day, none of them got it. The round of promises has started again. This time, Jonathan is doing the promising. On the strength of the promises, Igbos should remain in the North and be slaughtered. At the end of the day, they won’t get it. It is the Igbo Elders Forum, of which I am a member, that is resettling the refugees the best way we can.

How do the returnees feel about Nigeria?

Predictably, they are unhappy. We advised them to invest their resources in Igboland, but they ignored the advice. Someone who built skyscrapers in the North cannot be in his right senses if he does not have such in the South-East or his village? How can you do that when you are so hated and at the end of the day the buildings will become abandoned property? It has happened before and it will happen again. We continue to tell them to come home and invest, but they ignore us.

Don’t you think you have to reach out to other ethnic nationalities to achieve your aim of a sovereign Biafran state?

Which ethnic group? Is it the Yoruba who betrayed us before? They will do it again. When we start our fight for self-determination, they will align with the North. Niger Delta will be afraid that we will dominate them because of our size and their oil. So who shall we align with?

When Boko Haram asked people from the South and Christians to leave, who were their main targets? Yorubas are also killed. But Igbos are always in greater numbers. This is because anywhere in Nigeria, aside from the owners of the land, the next largest ethnic group are the Igbo. The poor leadership in the East makes their homeland hostile to commerce and investment. The Yoruba supported one Nigeria. If there is a war today, the Yoruba will join the North to fight us because of this natural hatred for the Ndigbo. They have done it before and will do it again. Though northerners don’t like them, they still prefer them to the Ndigbo. We learnt that after Boko Haram asked southerners to leave the North, Niger Delta people started having secret meetings with the Yoruba at Awolowo Hall. The Igbo were not invited. That shows that if there is real war today, they would align with our foes.

Is the solution to the problem a confederacy or for the country to split into many countries?



I don’t support the North becoming a republic and the South doing same. Yorubas should be on their own, Ndigbo on their own and Niger Delta people should be on their own. As a matter of fact, each of the six geo-political zones should become a republic. The Niger Delta people will be afraid that the Igbo will dominate them because of their oil wealth and so they should be allowed to be a republic. If I hate domination and oppression, I should not dominate others. If the North wants a republic, it can have it or split into three geo-political zones. Each zone has the resources to keep it buoyant. This will also bring about healthy completion for development. The insistence that Nigeria must remain one is in the interest of the Caliphate and those stealing the resources in the evil arrangement called Nigeria. If there are no special selfish benefits they get, why are some people who have ruled this country for many years dying to come back to govern again? Is Nigeria their personal estate? The people of the North arrogantly threaten everybody that they are born to rule Nigeria forever and if they don’t, Nigeria will not know peace. What have we got since then? A non-Muslim southerner is in power today. Have we known peace since then? Who created Boko Haram? It is a tool of political bargaining by those who lost out in the power game. Let us not deceive ourselves. This is a country where some people who claim they love Nigeria could turn a blind eye to the killing of innocent youth corps members and future breadwinners of their families because they helped conduct elections. Do you realise the magnitude of hatred a man must feel to drive a bomb-laden car into a gathering of people or densely populated areas? They want a pure Islamic republic in their areas. Let them have it. But they should also allow others go their separate ways. You cannot be killing my people and at the same time say we must remain one united country. When Abiola won, they denied him power and so many people died. So it is only when you are in power that there would be peace? If you are not there, you create Boko Haram. Go to the North, an average northerner is very poor. Wealth is in the hands of the ruling class. We know the reality of Nigeria, but we pretend that it is not so. Nigeria must break into the six geo-political zones for there to be peace.


http://thenewsafrica.com/2012/02/13/igbo-will-go-to-war

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That will be a blunder. ACN/CPC will easily win the Presidential Election.

barnabasj:

Thank God we have a Map expert in d house

Please Becomerich  help us to do d Map thing ASAP so  that we can now where we belongs to

One of the best advice I've seen so far. You see, I've been taking every post by Becomerich very
serious. Many people keep on saying He's a lunatic but in my view, This Becomerich is definitely an
Intellectual. Don't forget he also predicted about the breaking up of Nigeria a week ago. I think we
should be giving this guy more attention.

Though in as much that i won't support Delta, Edo, Bayelsa state and Yourba to be handed over to
Benin Republic, i think most of his Map and Satellite pictures are amazing.