Showing posts with label Lagos State Government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lagos State Government. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 6, 2023

The Terror Of Being Nigerian

 By Obi Nwakanma

Last year my son made plans to buy a ticket and fly down on his own to Nigeria, and spend the summer with his uncle in Abuja and in the village, East of Nigeria. He was twenty, young, and raring to go. He wanted to explore Nigeria on his own.

It was I that stopped him from traveling to Nigeria, much to his chagrin. I had to beg him to stop. News coming out of Nigeria scared the bejesus out of me. Still does. Kidnappings. Assassinations. Disappearances. The sheer terror of being Nigerian today is so overwhelming that just thinking about it gives one a headache. My son, needless to say, was very disappointed.

Friday, August 25, 2023

Crocodile Tears For Victims Of Preventable Accidents

By Andrew Erakhrumen

What used to be unexpected tragedies in the past gradually became clearly regularly expected, unpreventable, acceptable and accepted “disaster-in-waiting” because of past and present governments’ non-responsiveness and irresponsibility coupled with the followers’ complacency, unseriousness, inability, and/or refusal, to confront collective challenges; and when these ‘expected’ disasters occur, all that is done is the predictable, regular, short-lived, mostly valueless, unproductive, mechanical public uproar that dies almost immediately as it starts!

This has always been the pattern and those in government are perfectly aware of it! After all, they are supposed to be from amongst Nigerians! Then, are we – as Nigerians – a serious people? This informed our opinion, concerning the 12-year-old Sylvester Oromoni Jnr., whose death occurred on November 30, 2021, that “...it was as if the ‘unusual’ happened. 

Friday, November 23, 2018

The Death Of Truth In Nigeria

By Passy Amaraegbu
People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election 
– Otto von Bismarck. 

The first documented census in Nigeria was carried out by Britain in 1866. Following this, others in 1971, 1896, 1901, 1911, 1921 and 1952/53.

However the first census after independence was in 1963. Thereafter, the degree of reliability of the figures has been on a spiral descent and decline. The official Nigeria position is that Lagos State with a population of 9,013, 534 is second to Kano with a first position of 9,401, 288 (Nigerian Finder). However, the Lagos State government puts the census of the State at 22 million while the United Nations puts it at 14 million.

Monday, July 30, 2018

Special Status For Lagos Long Overdue

By Dan Amor
Alongside the experience of history and the role of national and international identity, the one theme that emerges in the evolution of cities throughout the continent of Europe is the impact of ideology, whether conservative, ecological, feudal or socialist. Past ideologies have created cities that are memorials to the divine monarch (Versailles), to the imperial mission (Vienna), and to utilitarianism and the pursuit of profit (Bradford). It has been suggested that the morphology of the city is not only the product of the civilization that houses it but also a factor in the creation of that civilization.
*Governor Ambode
At a more prosaic level, it is clear that in cities such as Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Helsinki, attitudes towards conservation, social housing provision and public transport reflect the contemporary dominant social-democratic ideology of the Scandinavian countries. In contrast, the development of many West German cities in the immediate post-war period occurred within the framework of a social-market economy and a certain rejection of planning resulting from the experience of twelve years of National Socialism.

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Nigeria: At Once Poor, Proud And Profligate

By Bayo Sodade  
Nigeria parades a plethora of unflattering socioeconomic indices. With a poverty head count of 53.9%, the population of the poor in Nigeria of about 100 million is more than the whole population of Egypt(93m), United Kingdom (65m), France (64m) , Turkey (79m), Democratic Republic of Congo(79m) among others. Nigeria’s Human Development Index value for 2015 of 0.514 is below the average for sub-Saharan Africa, putting the country in the low human development category, positioning it at 152 out of 188 countries and territories under the UNDP ranking.

Nigeria’s life expectancy at birth of 52.8 years is among the worst in the world compared to 60.6 years average for other low HDI countries and 64.1 years for Ethiopia and 58.7 years for Democratic Republic of Congo. The World Economic Forum uses Human Capital Report to rank countries on how well they are deploying their peoples’ talents. The index takes a life-course approach to human capital, evaluating the levels of education, skills and employment. The 2016 Human Capital Report ranked Nigeria 127 out of 130 countries, the worst country in Africa except for Chad and Mauritania.
Juxtaposed with these bleak statistics is monumental profligacy enshrined in our ethos and manifesting in the debasement and perversion of our cultural values. We habitually squander scarce resources on our routine household and business tasks, on parties and celebrations.
According to experts, for every one million population 1000 megawatts of electricity is required to satisfy every need. With a population of about 180 million, Nigeria’s optimum power requirement is about 180,000MW compared to more than 50,000MW that South Africa, with a population of 53 million, generates and distributes. Ironically, enormous amount of the grossly inadequate energy is being wasted. A study carried out by Lagos State revealed that 4,358Kwh of electricity is wasted annually. By switching to energy saving bulbs only, N12.7 billion could be saved in Lagos State alone. Only 1% of Lagosians practise energy conservation leaving the planet groaning with 9.5 billion pounds of carbon footprints per annum.