'@ J

Well, my little contribution would be first see ourselves as One Nation....One Nigeria with a beautiful mix of tribes.
I believe Nigerian are a force to reckon with...If we actually walk together.
Since I dont live in the country at the moment all I would really like to see is an attitude adjustment.
I seriously pray for the GOOD, honest, God ordained Leadership. One that will unity the nation, with a global vision, Because it will first have to start from the head (that is a principle that can not be broken)
We should embarrass foreign input, but not let it rule or divide us any further.
People like yourself, Dipo, Deolu Akinyemi and may other that have a heart to help change the mindset of the next generation of Nigerians from waiting for something to happen instead of actually making something happen.

In one word my contribution would be Right mind - Right attitude a better Nigeria.

Actually Angela you are right even Gen. Abdulsalaam Abubakar said it in his maiden address to the nation that «there is no need crying over spilt milk, all we can do at this point is to forge ahead»

Please angela what are some of the ways that you believe that we can forge ahead in Nigeria and mend old wounds?

All well and good with what cause the problem, but we have grown ( or I hope we have).
I dont believe in ADULTS blaming everything and everone for the misfutune or lack of progress, that is why you are an adult ( grown-up) you should do just that GROW-UP , STOP WHINING AND TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR LIFE .....
That what I would like us as Nigerians to do and stop blaming the white man!
Insted of using up all how energy figthing ourselves we should be putting heads together for progress ( since we know better now)
Blame game is not but and excuse not to do anything!
or take resposibility.

my point is that we have to sometimes look at the trend in the past (history) to predict the future and that oyibo r the cause for nigeria not forging ahead. even in ruwanda with hutu and tutsie tribe in one country! Same in ghana with ashanti and fulani and in Sudan (dafur) caused by french amalgamation.

We may in the not too far future end up having to split up back to how we were in nigeria before the british/oyibo come along. But this would not be without a major conflict ie a 2nd civil war it is already in the making with all these independent militias, and unless we absorb them into the goverment militiawe should gradually prepare for niaja to split up into 3 major areas, but this would still see the imposition of certain leaders such as Ike nwachuku as president of briafra (we all know he is not 100% igbo, but half fulani and have igbo) so that will cause a sub break up of Ibgo land and when an area is threated with a sub break up there are some oppourtunities such as selling of arms or you can attack and claim their land becuase the individual smaller entities are much weaker than the original bigger entity. basically oyibo are the ones that brought up problems where as we already had our own systems set up with little or no problems

back in the days if i planted cocoa in an area and it did not grow, it was deemed that was not yoruba-land, or sugarcane did not grow then that is not hausaland etc or if horse could not survive due to humid temperature/ tse tse fly then it was not hausa land, Yam in benue/tiv tribe The benin people in Edo felt their dieties/gods blessed them with certain natural resources such as Plantain and palm oil etc this is the same belief with most tribes
A river or lake would be used to seperate tribes, these were how the borders were set they were natural borders not physically demarcated per say such as concrete block with «welcome to ogun state/goodbye from lagos state»

@ J

Please what is your point??

As for this concept of country and democracy in Nigeria or any country as a matter of fact we have the caucasions/white people (british) specifically to blame for this because the concept of modern nation state with official borders was only a thoery it does not seem to be practicable in reality this is the reason for nigerias ethnic clashes, everybody demanding thier own state, in fact it was the reason for the yugoslavian conflict and the conflict in iraq with kurds and sunni and moslims. what obtained prior to the british coming ie tradition nation state with no borders seems to be more practicable.

In a recent documentary that i watched about a retired british army officer who was part of cornel/lord Lugard detachment of, he said » we made a big mistake with Nigeria, we the the other officers recommneded to Lugard not to amalgamate nigeria and west africa as a whole, we advised that the Nations be split up into the various major tribes that were already on ground, this was also the recommendation by british clergy, historians and even the local chiefs and kings had appealed for this system, but lugard refused and all we could do was to carry out the order from above»

Similarly, the Queen of England when asked what happened in this documentary said » She gave Lugard her blessing based on his recommendation as the most senior officer and representative and based on what he told her that the amalgamation is what all parties involved are clamoring for by both british and the locals and that the amalgamation system established in other parts of africa was going on well. But i can now see that we the British make a mistake»
You will should have noticed a blame system game going on in the case of amalgamation of nigeria!!!!

This is a similar blame game system that is going on in the case incloving Gen Bamaiyi, Almustapha, Sgt Rogers etc and this blame game that particular situation is actually turning into a comedy. Soldiers are taught how to do this from day one of thier training.

what im getting at is that this system of what we call a country is only an experimental thoery from geographers and politicical PHD's and students. This experiment seems not to be proven to work, if not in nigeria we would not have had a civil war, we would not have had ethnic clashes in various parts of the country or groups such as Movement for biafra, Odua Peeples Congress, or Niger delta peoples force etc

you will notice that before the british came the northerners had their own for of country which they called «Arewa» meaning collection of states or collection of many kingdoms to form an empire. This is similar to the the yoruba they termed it Odua meaning a combination princedoms/kingdoms that were headed by the children of Oduduwa.
Ibgo Uwku is also the term for the collection of idependent igbo cities.

the british in historial and anthropological text have traced their origins to the youruba in fact that is the reason why the british women kneel down before royalty and the men bown down before royalty ie «do-bale» and this was one of the other reasons why they came back. apart from to trade slaves, goods etc they followed ancient migratory paths from information passed from one generation to another ie oral history

The Germans have traced their roots to the Hausa Fulani and the south african zulu and the cameroun area including the similarities in their languge lexicology and prenounciations. this is why they also went to the cameroun around the time the british came to nigeria apart from political competion reasons.

if i have to blame anybody for putting us in this mess called nigeria its the Queen of england, but even she cannot be fully blamed because of a PHDs' experiment. And she and the PHD's have learnt from their mistakes. But even she knows that the system of country does not work and that she is the queen of england, Northern ireland, australia, canada and even america! and that the prime ministers there are the figure heads and this is what we should realize in nigeria this is why IBB gives more respect to the traditional rulers in Nigeria than any other head of state or president has because he has read his history very well unlike some people (obj)!

Fellow Nigerians,

Once again after carefully considering everybodies input i have my own perspective. In terms of blame, obj under amnesty international blamed the ibb and abacha administration for gross human rights and mismanagement but we can all see that he is doing the same thing. In fact Just the way Jerry Useni was minister of all the ministies under IBB and Obj is the way Femi Fani-Kayode has been minister about 3 times. I call it political musical chairs.

It is also the case that alot of people see thier bosses at work and feel that they are proud or show offs with thier personal assistants, official car etc but if they put you in their position you will do the same so dont criticize them! Instead start your own company or wait for your time!

There is a solution to the political musical chairs ie use change management we can simply change the names of the ministries or merge some ministries or change the name or the states or merge the name of the states. This way people in political positions previously look stupid in public! similarly.

Similarly you can change the title of Mananging Director to Vice chairman etc once you get there! this will make previous MD's look stupid

dipo i mean, commoooon!
what do you mean by «sex sells is a flimsy argument???» ok, «Titanic has the highest Box Office sale world wide, the Bible is the best selling book of all time, and Passion of the Christ sold far more than Basic Instinct.» so what?, does that excuse the fact that sex sells, or are you telling me that you are immune to the wiles and techniques of these artists. Look at Hugh Hefner (owner of Playboy) for instance and tell me again that sex doesnt sell. At least Bill Gates is being sincere with where he stands with his faith and Microsoft and the Bill Gates Foundation has done more for the world and humanity than all these artists combined. I mean, have you listened to some of the lyrics of these rappers and watched their videos and witness how women have been reduced to nothing more than «mere animals and sex toys». dont get me wrong i'm not trying to be hypocritical here. i do listen to their lyrics and i can tell you firsthand they influence me both positively and negatively, and they have impacted on my lifestyle in more ways than one.

As for Thisday and its so called promoting Nigeria?!? that's a story for another day and a not so pleasing one, i might add! now, how does smoking marijuana and swearing on stage help Nigeria, with all our problems of corruption, valuelessness, e.t.c. ... i leave you to decide

My dear Dipo and friends ,my input as to the blame game is-
when you make a decision and something goes wrong you should blame yourself for what went wrong, but if you let me make the decison for you then i should get blames wrong. In summary mr a should not blame mr b for a decision that mr a made.

olujimi

@gift - I did not appologise for making the statement - but in the in the manner it might has been miscontrued at - for example - word like trash is derogatory and I felt I should have used a more appropriate word or choice of words when the comment was made. I felt it came across rude and insensitive. But the statement still stands.