@ landis

If yu hate obj that much, at least show some respects for the women and children he is trying to save. Even tony was once or still the special envoy on middle east, what about koffi annan in kenya. No matter how much we dislike our africa leaders we should always support them when they are pro active in saving lives.
cheers

deor03:

Yes i do,

That is why i do want my fellow poor Nigerians to be running after your car endangering their lives to sell gala to you in your air-conditioned car.

That is also why i don't want your kids to request for caprisone and you will just beckon on their AGE MATE to sell it , so that you can give your thirsty kids in your car.

spot on

good law indeed

Siena:

I fully support the fines.
They may be exhorbitant, yes.
But, if you abide by the Law, you won't have to fork out all that money.

As for folk who drive against traffic, they deserve to go to jail for longer than 20 days.
Back in '87, a sonofab1tch did just that, and ended up ploughing into my mom's car, killing her at age 46.

Siena am sorry to hear about your Mum, very sad indeed several years after it seems we are yet to learn any lesson with the number of people opposing the fine, i just hope Lagos state step up with more laws and order.

@ Olowotee

I am glad yu could see my point and i also got your point, its all about accountability which am glad a lot of people here have suggested like putting clear sign posts and warning , better infrastructure like good roads and more alternative roads because at the end of the day if you are not stuck in a traffic for hours yu wont have to drive against the other traffic yu get me. I wish lagos state all the best.

@ olowotee


Exactly what i expect from a lawyer-Governor cant wait to see more laws. I am glad your location is in nigeria and you are talking about Youth Development which made me reply your post cos normally i would just move on.

Now talking about lagos state do you aware of these projects in lagos state, Eko atlantic city, Energy city, Lekki free trade zone, Lekki port and more , all these need investors and no serious investor would come to a place like lagos unless we begin to change from what is on ground.

However maybe you thinking whats that got to do with Youth development, am glad to let yu know its got to do with everything , jobs, jobs, jobs and more jobs and i think Lagos is in the right direction except for two things, security and power which i know they are on top of it and we all know those who are fustrating their effort.

Anyway i think what we should be focusing on is how those fine would be use effectively.

what exactly do we want as a country, the other day they ban street party some people say the fine is too small , now the fine is too much na wa for my people , anyway i think its a good law because every country just like every state is different . they can afford to have a lesser fine in uk or us because people naturally obey laws but for lagos i think its a good step when yu think of 250k yu might have a rethink before yu break the laws.

however i would advise lagos to use hand camera as an evidence to prosecute people in court, so some people wont come here to tell us they are unlawfully charge to court.

The North must walk fast
By Kole Ahmed Shettima

COUNTDOWN to Reducing Maternal, Newborn and Child Deaths: A Collective and Integrated Responsibility is the theme for this year's Safe Motherhood Day celebrated on May 22. In Nigeria and indeed the whole world, the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) depends on progress in northern Nigeria.

About 500,000 women die due to complications of pregnancy worldwide; 54,000 of the death or 10 per cent occurs in Nigeria although we are only 1.7 per cent. In other words, a Nigerian woman dies every 10 minutes from the complications of pregnancy. Before you finish reading this article, a woman would have died due to childbirth.

Northern Nigeria has double responsibilities on the achievement of the MDGs. If the global indicators and especially MDG 4 (reduce child mortality) and MDG 5 (improve maternal health), are to be achieved, significant progress must be recorded in Nigeria; and for Nigeria to make remarkable progress, the indicators in northern Nigeria must change. Hence our strategy on the MDGs should focus on the part of the world, which carries the highest disease burden, northern Nigeria.

All available data on maternal and infant health show the dire situation in northern Nigeria. A facility-based maternal mortality survey conducted by the Society of Gynecology and Obstetricians of Nigeria (SOGON) reveals the number of maternal deaths per 100,000 births in Lagos (3380), Kano (7523), Maiduguri (727), Jos (846), Calabar (2972) and Enugu (783). A survey by the Federal Office of Statistics and UNICEF confirmed that maternal mortality is more serious in the northern part of the country: 165 in the Southwest, 286 in the Southeast, 1025 in the Northwest and 1549 in the Northeast. Infant mortality and under-five mortality follow the same pattern as maternal mortality. For example, infant mortality is 125 per 1000 live births in the Northeast as against 66 in the Southeast, and under-five morality is 269 live births in the Northwest as against 113 in the Southeast.

Medical and sociological causes of maternal mortality are known and so are the interventions. The medical causes are: bleeding (23 per cent), hypertension (11), infection (17), insufficient blood levels (11), unsafe abortion (11), malaria (11), obstructed labor (11) and HIV/AIDS and others (five per cent). Infant mortality is largely due to neonatal (26 per cent) and malaria (24 ). Poverty, gender inequality and other forms of cultural and social discriminations are at the root of maternal and infant mortality.

Two of the underlying causes of maternal and infant mortality are also part of the MDGs. These are poverty (MDG 1) and gender inequality (MDG 3). As expected the prevalence of poverty and gender inequality are also worst in the northern part of the country. For instance, the incidence of poverty as measured by Food-Energy household consumption is as follows: Northeast (70.3 per cent), North-central (66.5), Northwest (65.4), South-South (55.8 ), Southwest (46.1) and Southeast (39.. Jigawa State has the highest incidence of poverty of 90.9 per cent. What is equally disturbing is that inequality within the north is greater than within the south.

The gender disparities in education illustrate the level of gender inequality in northern Nigeria. Whereas 75 per cent of women have no education in the northwest, in the southeast the figure is eight per cent. Of the 13 states with gender disparity in primary and secondary education, 11 of these states are in the north. A survey in 2006 in the Northwest and the Northeast recorded enrolment rates for girls in Junior Secondary School lower than Sub-Saharan Africa average of 26 per cent.

Fortunately, low cost and simple medical and social interventions to prevent and reduce maternal mortality and infant mortality have been documented. Bleeding can be effectively managed with a simple device called the Anti-shock garment. This device can keep a bleeding woman a live for up to 48 hours until she can be given blood transfusion. Magnesium Sulfate is a well-researched medication for hypertension, and it costs about N1200 to treat a patient. Medical doctors in Murtala Specialist Hospital, Minjibir Hospital and Wudil Hospital have referred to Magnesium Sulfate as "wonder drug" and "miracle drug". I recently had a pleasant visit to these facilities to see the use of the Anti-Shock Garment and Magnesium Sulfate to save the lives of women. At the MacArthur Foundation, these two medical interventions, that can be used to respond to about 33 per cent of maternal deaths in Nigeria, form part of our strategy to accelerate the achievement of MDGs in Nigeria and around the world. In deed, the SOGON facility survey revealed that bleeding and hypertension accounted for more than 70 per cent of maternal deaths in most facilities.

Two fora convened by Northern Governors in November 2007 and March 2008 on health and education respectively have also outlined policy changes that could accelerate the achievement of the MDGs. These include free pre-natal, delivery and post delivery services; free child and under-five medical services; and free and compulsory girl-child education up to senior secondary school. Certainly financial resources are not a constraint.

The total Federation Account allocation to the 19 northern states from 1999 to 2007 is N2.4 trillion. What is lacking is the political will. If the Governors muster the political will there is hope that the world will witness appreciable progress on the attainment of the MDGs. Nigeria could be in the forefront of the renewed attention to the MDGs. Northern Nigerians nay Nigerians can walk with their shoulders high.


Dr. Shettima, is Director John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation, Abuja.

Culled from the Guardian Newspaper Monday 09 june 08
© 2003 - 2007 @ Guardian Newspapers Limited (All Rights Reserved).




please check the links below too

http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art20080609602331



I know some people want Nigeria divided, which i really do feel their fustrations, but i would suggest we go back to regional government and at the same time fight for more education in the northern part of Nigeria because i could see that is the weapon the elites in the that region use against them.

Most people would agree with me that Education is the first step out of poverty and diseases , am not saying its the solution but at least a step in the right direction.

Anyway just my 2cent, please free to discuss and please and please no ethinic war here just discussion please

On Obasanjo and his critics | Print | E-mail
Written by Douglas Anele
Sunday, 23 March 2008
AT the beginning of his tenure as a civilian president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo enjoyed some degree of goodwill amongst Nigerians who felt that he has the necessary experience to provide result-oriented leadership for the country.
That was the encouraging scenario when Obasanjo appointed respected Nigerians like late Chief Bola Ige and Professor Bath Nnaji as ministers. Chief Obasanjo created the EFCC and the then National Assembly gave the bill creating the anti-corruption body legal backing.

Over the years, basically in his pronouncements as president, Obasanjo tried assiduously to convince the Nigerians and the international community that he was determined to fight corruption, especially at the topmost levels of public life.

Some highly placed Nigerians alleged to be “enemies” of the president were investigated by the EFCC. In this connection, former governors of Bayelsa and Plateau states, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha and Joshua Dariye became infamous for gubernatorial looting, so to speak.

Meanwhile, there were indications that Chief Obasanjo himself was not really impervious to the miasma of corruption. His critics cited the presidential library project, the two hundred million so-called “blind trust” shares in Transcorp and others to prove that the erstwhile president could not resist the magnetic pull of easy money using the apparatus of government.

Now that Obasanjo is out of power, the gargantuan level of corruption perpetuated during his presidency is gradually becoming well known, which means that all along he had been pretending to Nigerians to be a “Mr. Clean” who has zero tolerance for corruption with the iron will to combat it. It is unnecessary to spell out in details here some of the shameful acts of perfidy allegedly committed by Chief Obasanjo.

But I wish to note that he has two qualities which anyone aspiring to be an effective Nigerian president must have in order to achieve some measure of success. The first one is self-confidence. In his speeches, mannerisms and interactions with subordinates, Chief Obasanjo exudes an aura of self-confidence which creates the unmistakable impression of someone who is really in charge.

The second trait, which is connected to the first, is stubbornness. Chief Obasanjo is a stubborn man. He is the type of person that can take a decision and stand by it, despite pressures on him either to change such a decision or not to take it at all.

As an example of the latter, the indefatigable director-general of NAFDAC, Professor Dora Akunyili, in a recent interview revealed that when Chief Obasanjo appointed her to her current post, there was serious opposition to the appointment from different quarters. But Chief Obasanjo refused to change his mind.

Therefore, most critics of the former president are usually uncharitable to him. They fail to acknowledge the positive decisions of the former president which stem from those very character traits of the man which they condemn so trenchantly.

I am firmly convinced that, all things considered, Chief Obasanjo performed below average during his eight year tenure. Yet, objectively speaking, one must call attention to the fact that he did a few things right, and could have achieved more if he had the moral stamina to put in abeyance his own selfish interests by working for the well-being of Nigerians.

It is tragic that Chief Obasanjo did not utilise well the great opportunity he had for eight years to rebuild Nigeria, considering the quantum leap in the amount received from crude oil exploits. He presented a picture of an honest Christian devoted to the progress of his fatherland.

In his rhetoric as president, he orchestrated the war against corruption, occasionally enlisted the services of selected prominent clergymen in prayer sessions, and repeatedly emphasized that for his administration it was no longer business as usual.

Corrupt administrations

Since Chief Obasanjo left office in May 29, 2007 it is becoming increasingly clear that he presided over one of the most corrupt administrations in Nigeria.

For a large number of Nigerians, the dishonour of being the worst kleptomaniac regime before Obasanjo came into power as a civilian president belonged squarely to Ibrahim Babangida’s tenure. But the sordid revelations at the probe panel in the House of Representatives regarding the expenditure of about sixteen billion dollars in the comatose power sector threaten to make Obasanjo’s tenure from 1999 to 2007 the worst in terms of conscienceless misuse of public funds, thereby displacing Babangida’s regime from that enviable status.

Details of how the high and mighty, so-called senators, honourables, chiefs and other pigs in the animal farm called Nigeria debased themselves by collecting funds for contracts either shoddily executed or not executed at all makes the stomach churn with disgust.

It is clear that Chief Obasanjo, and two former ministers of power and steel, Liyel Imoke and Olusegun Agagu, have serious questions to answer concerning the scandal surrounding the integrated power project.

It is an understatement to describe the revelations at the probe panel as a debasement; it is perfidy of the worst kind. One can conjecture the amount of financial mismanagement in the petroleum sector controlled directly by Chief Obasanjo and his cronies. The most critical impediment to industrial, economic, social and scientific development of Nigeria , apart from mediocre leadership, is inadequate supply of electricity.

Therefore, it is wicked for the leaders, knowing the pivotal role of electricity in national development, to steal with impunity scarce funds earmarked for power projects.

If I were a supporter of death penalty, I would have suggested that those found guilty of corruption in the power projects probe should be executed by crucifixion, so that they would feel the excruciating pains of the people whose lives have been made bitter by consistent power outages.

Chief Obasanjo is a lucky man; he had the best opportunity, more than any Nigerian dead or alive, to build a great Nigeria. Sadly, he misused the opportunity, perhaps because he lacked what the German philosopher, G.W.F Hegel, called “cool passion”.

In other words, Obasanjo lacked a philosophical understanding of the essence of his mission as a leader of the most populous black country in the world.

The inability of Obasanjo to see himself as an instrument for the historic mission of positive transformation of Nigeria was manifest in his inability to separate, both imaginatively and concretely, his interests as an individual from the much more important interests of Nigerians, especially the poor and underprivileged.

It appears that for Obasanjo and members of his family, cronies and “alleluia chorus boys and girls”, Nigeria is a vast reservoir of easy money which should be depredated for personal enrichment beyond the bounds of reason.

Thus, it happens that Obasanjo has, by his own bad choices and decisions, sullied his not-so-so-good reputation which he had before assuming office in 1999. It is one of the intriguing twists and turns of history that a man who believed he has what it takes to provide good leadership for his people ended up attracting to himself a lot of odium and opprobrium from the very people he was supposed to serve.

This leads me to the recent criticisms of Obasanjo by Anthony Anenih, Atiku Abubakar, and Theophilus Danjuma, widely reported in the media. In my view, these three “big men” should keep their over-fed mouths shut and stop adding insult to open wounds they and Obasanjo, together with other primitive accumulators in government inflicted on our people.

All these men played prominent roles in the nightmare that lasted from 1999 till date. Superficially, it would appear that the scales have fallen off their eyes, and, now, they can see clearly the logs in Obasanjo’s eyes, so to speak. Anenih, it is generally known, was a supporter of the vainglorious and wrongheaded agitation for the continuation of late Sani Abacha as head of state. As a minister of Works, it is alleged that he spent about N300 billion on roads, with little to show for it.

Atiku’s reputation as a customs officer is far from being squeaky clean, and as Obasanjo’s vice president he presided over the privatization programme of the federal government in which some of our national assets were sold at give away prices to people in power, members of their families, friends, relations and cronies.

Danjuma played a big ignoble part, according to Chuks Iloegbunam’s Ironside, in the murder of J.T.U Aguiyi-Ironsi, Nigeria ‘s first military head of state. Lately, Danjuma has been castigating the late Aguiyi-Ironsi who, while alive, was his superior by far, for no good reason. All the three men are very wealthy.

They, including the subject of their criticisms, are part of the hunchbacks which have been weighing the country down especially since the end of the civil war. Until these morally uncultivated men and their ilk are rendered impotent in the geopolitical power equation of this country, the legitimate aspirations of Nigerians for a better future would be like the experience of waiting for Godot, as described by that maverick writer Samuel Beckett.

tRoOE:

Why that pics do lie some times

@Garamond

When i landed in Naija last xmas, the place was not like clean like the pics that are posted

Nor does the inside looks anything like that, maybe it changed a little but nothing major

It seems you dont know the difference btw Domestic and International Airport, and since you can read i hope the definations below will help you. FYI the airport we are talking about here is the Domestic Airport in lagos.

A domestic airport is an airport which handles only domestic flights or flights within the same country. Domestic airports don't have customs and immigration facilities and are therefore incapable of handling flights to or from a foreign airport.

These airports normally have short runways which are sufficient to handle short/medium haul aircraft and regional air traffic. They have in many countries not had any security check / metal detector, but such checks have been added in recent years.


An international airport is an airport typically equipped with customs and immigration facilities to handle international flights to and from other countries. Such airports are usually larger, and often feature longer runways and facilities to accommodate the large aircraft commonly used for international or intercontinental travel

naijaking1:

Every person who has studied one day of economics knows that privatization, non-government interference is the key to efficiency.

Look at the airlines, compared to Nigerian Airways, and private phone companies compared to Nitel.

OBJ knew that privatisation was the only solution for naija power, but corruption no fit agree m do the right thing!

Thou i agree with you in some ways but i will like to add a few. Maybe its was too late for Obj to realise that simple fact but at least he gave some level playing field in the Airline and phone sectors,all yaradua needs is to do the same with power and transportation sector, while he focus a lot more on Agriculture.

Thanks a lot buddy this will be very useful for lagos motorist. However the state should educate people about their right concerning fines that might help in reducing corruption.

I am not sure if this article is relevant though its a bit late but i think it might be useful.


Fresh plot against bank consolidation
By Our Reporter - 27.01.2008

Unease has gripped the financial sector following credible hints that the Yar’Adua government is considering the reversal of banking consolidation. The consolidation exercise, which was engineered and supervised by the Dr. Charles Soludo-led Central Bank of Nigeria, was successfully concluded on December 31, 2005.


But in a move that is geared towards reversing the gains of this exercise, highly placed sources close to a presidential working group, disclosed to Sunday Tribune that the group has almost concluded work on a proposal to be presented to President Umaru Yar’Adua on “Banking Reforms”. This working group is charged with working on the details of the seven-point agenda of the Yar’Adua administration.


The chief economic adviser to the president, Tanimu Yakubu Kurfi, Sunday Tribune learnt, is coordinating the process. Although, our source revealed that Kurfi was sick recently and had to be flown abroad but could not confirm if he was back in the country.


The case against consolidation, our sources revealed, is based on the view that “Northerners” lost out in the consolidation process, which was believed to have “placed the banking sector more in the hands of the Southerners”. This ethno-regional view of things, sources stated, is largely responsible for the move, even though it is being clothed in the “language of economics, fiscal policy and even development”. The working group is said to have considered the statistics indicating that consolidation shrank northern ownership of the banking sector to only eight per cent. Members of the inner circle of the Yar’Adua government who consider this “totally unacceptable” have resolved that the best way to reverse this without risking a backlash from the south with the resultant political crisis is to effect regionalisation of the banking sector which would enhance greater northern ownership.


Although a few voices in the group were said to have warned that the reversal may create un imaginable crisis in the economy and destroy growing confidence in the Nigerian economy, particularly the Stock market, the hawks in the group were said to have dismissed the predicted crisis on the basis of the fact that access by Northerners to the commanding heights of the economy through the banks, including bank directorship and its associated pecks, have been lost through consolidation and would have to be regained “anyhow”.


The deconsolidation that is being proposed as a policy response to the perceived “southern domination” of the banking sector include effectively limiting banks to strict zones of operation, that is regions. Despite the boom in the number of branches which has resulted from consolidation, deconsolidation will be advertised as the best method for achieving the aim of multiplying the number of banks in the country, and filling the landscape with supposedly smaller but nimbler banks.


The working group will also recommend that should the government consider regionalisation unattractive, it might be desirable for the public sector to acquire distressed banks such as Societe General Bank and Savanna Bank which would then be recapitalised and unleashed to compete in an altered financial landscape. Such acquired banks can then be used as instruments of reversing the “loss” of the “northern” region in the last consolidation, reasoned the members of the group.


Sunday Tribune gathered from informed actors in the financial market that this plan to insert government as an owner and operator of banks reflects the statist inclinations of the leading lights of the Yar’Adua administration. It is argued by the core of this group that a government whose hands have been removed from the commanding heights of the economy would have less “largess in the area of economic activities that it can distribute to its own supporters”.


Sunday Tribune learnt that bank chiefs, who already have hints of this proposal, are worried by the severe disruption that deconsolidation and regionalisation would cause and the ethno-regional undertones that are believed to be behind this. It is feared that it would endanger the health of the banking sector as the banking regulators would be overstretched. A financial expert added that there is nothing in the new plan that can guarantee the safety of so many small banks.

@ poster

sorry i dont have answer to your questions but i think a lot of folks here have actually did but i want to know how long it take for your visa to get thru.cheers

too late too little good finishing however from yankhongo

BabaIbeji:

please join me if you are interested in joining the odimigwe for senator supporters club. This man-boy is making my day.

am in . yahkongo is a minus

too bad for odimigwe

BabaIbeji:

Odimigwe! This guy is the future of Nigerian future

absolutetly he has really  done well so far

goal its a goal

slakubu is a disaster,he should never play for nijja again

toshmann:

the worst eagles team in history.
e for better if we carry umuneke community development secondary school football team go ghana.
at least them for try hussle ball

same ere

God help us with yakubu ooooooooo

@ Dafur

yeah its a shame i am not in nijja at the moment but my heart is all ways in nijja i love the country so much even though its not my country of birth cos i was raised in nijja i remember my primary and secondary school days cos my parent dont live in nijja i was in the boarding house throught out those years and if anyone has been to boarding school yu will know what i meant ,you just got to learn how to survive and am glad it is paying off for me now.

Now back to the topic,am glad people have started asking question in nigeria as you claim but please i dont want to see the kind of kenya style in my dear nijja o rather i would suggest we go back to regional system of government just my own suggestion.

I-man:

The plan is so ridiculous that its obviously not true.

I'm sure there are Northerners worried about their perceived "disenfranchisement" from the top echelons of the banking sector,but the alleged means by which they may seek to address this is obviously a figment of the writer's imagination.

do you have anything to show that it is not true, ofcourse its would sound ridiculous for any well meaning nigerian but not to those that has been destroying our "dear country" for their own tribe so to speak. I think a newspaper like the Tribune would not just published something that could undermine our unity as a nation. I can imagine how people in the US or UK would react if something like that is coming from one of their dallies. I see why they are govern better because they would not just sit in their home and say hey No its not true without asking questions.

Fresh plot against bank consolidation
By Our Reporter - 27.01.2008

Unease has gripped the financial sector following credible hints that the Yar’Adua government is considering the reversal of banking consolidation. The consolidation exercise, which was engineered and supervised by the Dr. Charles Soludo-led Central Bank of Nigeria, was successfully concluded on December 31, 2005.


But in a move that is geared towards reversing the gains of this exercise, highly placed sources close to a presidential working group, disclosed to Sunday Tribune that the group has almost concluded work on a proposal to be presented to President Umaru Yar’Adua on “Banking Reforms”. This working group is charged with working on the details of the seven-point agenda of the Yar’Adua administration.


The chief economic adviser to the president, Tanimu Yakubu Kurfi, Sunday Tribune learnt, is coordinating the process. Although, our source revealed that Kurfi was sick recently and had to be flown abroad but could not confirm if he was back in the country.


The case against consolidation, our sources revealed, is based on the view that “Northerners” lost out in the consolidation process, which was believed to have “placed the banking sector more in the hands of the Southerners”. This ethno-regional view of things, sources stated, is largely responsible for the move, even though it is being clothed in the “language of economics, fiscal policy and even development”. The working group is said to have considered the statistics indicating that consolidation shrank northern ownership of the banking sector to only eight per cent. Members of the inner circle of the Yar’Adua government who consider this “totally unacceptable” have resolved that the best way to reverse this without risking a backlash from the south with the resultant political crisis is to effect regionalisation of the banking sector which would enhance greater northern ownership.


Although a few voices in the group were said to have warned that the reversal may create un imaginable crisis in the economy and destroy growing confidence in the Nigerian economy, particularly the Stock market, the hawks in the group were said to have dismissed the predicted crisis on the basis of the fact that access by Northerners to the commanding heights of the economy through the banks, including bank directorship and its associated pecks, have been lost through consolidation and would have to be regained “anyhow”.


The deconsolidation that is being proposed as a policy response to the perceived “southern domination” of the banking sector include effectively limiting banks to strict zones of operation, that is regions. Despite the boom in the number of branches which has resulted from consolidation, deconsolidation will be advertised as the best method for achieving the aim of multiplying the number of banks in the country, and filling the landscape with supposedly smaller but nimbler banks.


The working group will also recommend that should the government consider regionalisation unattractive, it might be desirable for the public sector to acquire distressed banks such as Societe General Bank and Savanna Bank which would then be recapitalised and unleashed to compete in an altered financial landscape. Such acquired banks can then be used as instruments of reversing the “loss” of the “northern” region in the last consolidation, reasoned the members of the group.


Sunday Tribune gathered from informed actors in the financial market that this plan to insert government as an owner and operator of banks reflects the statist inclinations of the leading lights of the Yar’Adua administration. It is argued by the core of this group that a government whose hands have been removed from the commanding heights of the economy would have less “largess in the area of economic activities that it can distribute to its own supporters”.


Sunday Tribune learnt that bank chiefs, who already have hints of this proposal, are worried by the severe disruption that deconsolidation and regionalisation would cause and the ethno-regional undertones that are believed to be behind this. It is feared that it would endanger the health of the banking sector as the banking regulators would be overstretched. A financial expert added that there is nothing in the new plan that can guarantee the safety of so many small banks.

more reason why Nigeria should split


Fresh plot against bank consolidation
By Our Reporter - 27.01.2008

Unease has gripped the financial sector following credible hints that the Yar’Adua government is considering the reversal of banking consolidation. The consolidation exercise, which was engineered and supervised by the Dr. Charles Soludo-led Central Bank of Nigeria, was successfully concluded on December 31, 2005.


But in a move that is geared towards reversing the gains of this exercise, highly placed sources close to a presidential working group, disclosed to Sunday Tribune that the group has almost concluded work on a proposal to be presented to President Umaru Yar’Adua on “Banking Reforms”. This working group is charged with working on the details of the seven-point agenda of the Yar’Adua administration.


The chief economic adviser to the president, Tanimu Yakubu Kurfi, Sunday Tribune learnt, is coordinating the process. Although, our source revealed that Kurfi was sick recently and had to be flown abroad but could not confirm if he was back in the country.


The case against consolidation, our sources revealed, is based on the view that “Northerners” lost out in the consolidation process, which was believed to have “placed the banking sector more in the hands of the Southerners”. This ethno-regional view of things, sources stated, is largely responsible for the move, even though it is being clothed in the “language of economics, fiscal policy and even development”. The working group is said to have considered the statistics indicating that consolidation shrank northern ownership of the banking sector to only eight per cent. Members of the inner circle of the Yar’Adua government who consider this “totally unacceptable” have resolved that the best way to reverse this without risking a backlash from the south with the resultant political crisis is to effect regionalisation of the banking sector which would enhance greater northern ownership.


Although a few voices in the group were said to have warned that the reversal may create un imaginable crisis in the economy and destroy growing confidence in the Nigerian economy, particularly the Stock market, the hawks in the group were said to have dismissed the predicted crisis on the basis of the fact that access by Northerners to the commanding heights of the economy through the banks, including bank directorship and its associated pecks, have been lost through consolidation and would have to be regained “anyhow”.


The deconsolidation that is being proposed as a policy response to the perceived “southern domination” of the banking sector include effectively limiting banks to strict zones of operation, that is regions. Despite the boom in the number of branches which has resulted from consolidation, deconsolidation will be advertised as the best method for achieving the aim of multiplying the number of banks in the country, and filling the landscape with supposedly smaller but nimbler banks.


The working group will also recommend that should the government consider regionalisation unattractive, it might be desirable for the public sector to acquire distressed banks such as Societe General Bank and Savanna Bank which would then be recapitalised and unleashed to compete in an altered financial landscape. Such acquired banks can then be used as instruments of reversing the “loss” of the “northern” region in the last consolidation, reasoned the members of the group.


Sunday Tribune gathered from informed actors in the financial market that this plan to insert government as an owner and operator of banks reflects the statist inclinations of the leading lights of the Yar’Adua administration. It is argued by the core of this group that a government whose hands have been removed from the commanding heights of the economy would have less “largess in the area of economic activities that it can distribute to its own supporters”.


Sunday Tribune learnt that bank chiefs, who already have hints of this proposal, are worried by the severe disruption that deconsolidation and regionalisation would cause and the ethno-regional undertones that are believed to be behind this. It is feared that it would endanger the health of the banking sector as the banking regulators would be overstretched. A financial expert added that there is nothing in the new plan that can guarantee the safety of so many small banks.

i think its too late ,eguavon or what is name must be blame for this

Can an undergraduate not majoring in computer science do  SAP BW training and if yes can he get a job with it . I am sorry if this question might be stupid but i will appreciate it if people in the house with the knowledge can enlightened me on this .thanks  a lot

what yu guys think ?

this reply is kind of late but i have to say OLANAJIM you are indeed a great guy ,nice posts and could you pls teach me more about the mirror thing am just curious,recently have just came accross david deangelo work maybe yu have heard of him but its been a great help in my relationship. thanks

to the poster i think it depends what role your mother played in your life. mothers are different don't make it general.

But for me,

No one like her i meant my MUM ,  am not married tho but don't think marriage would change my love for her {MUM}.she is my friend, my inspirations both physically and spiritually, love you always sweet mother of Africa.

Hi Everyone,
Am in my late twenties and really desire to have a degree but cant leave my job because have got responsibilities.However am considering starting a degree in the open university[uk] am in uk and very passionate about this course, i know its not going to be easy but i need to hear from someone that has done this before.

Thanks