Thread of fenetics among Nigerian-Americans

What speak ye, friends? What is all this tumultuous phonetic pronunciation of "girl" as "gurl“? It is incredible, this style has dominated your speech like a ferment. In your morbid craving to acquire american way of English speech, have you not surrogate the beauty of the accent of your Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Ibibio, Fulani et al? He who thinks more deeply will not be satisfied with all the loquacious pomposity of English speech, as an excuse to surrogate his africanness. No matter how fluently you might have mastered your american speech, you should remember, an angenegbode would always be an angenegbode, irrespective of any mouth contortion, nose distortion or american speech acquisition. So, it is enough time we disuse illogical fenetics. All hail AFRICANS. ====DEOLA.

Guardian Newspapers

Guardian Newspapers: "The political economy of foreign reserves
By Kenneth Amaeshi

HAVE you ever wondered where the U.S. foreign reserves are? What of those of Britain and Japan? The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the newly created Presidential Steering Committee on the Global Economic Crisis appears poised to fiddle with the economy to stave off the country from the impending catastrophe that is currently unleashed by the global financial system. One of the mechanisms at the disposal of the CBN, in particular, is the control over exchange rate and external reserves. For example, the CBN has recently switched from the Wholesale Dutch Exchange Mechanism (WDEM) that has been in place since 2004 to the Retail Dutch Exchange Mechanism. One of the reasons the CBN offered, which could hold some water, is that the WDEM fuels currency speculations, which further erodes the value of the naira. However true this may be, it is difficult to isolate the entire global economic crisis, and indeed the responses of economists and central banks all over the world from some political influences.

There is a tendency for some economists to give the impression that economic postulations and theorisations are as constant as natural laws. This inclination often stands in the way of critical reflections on the nature of economics and economic behaviours. Despite the desire of economists to position economics as a physical science - often obfuscated through the mathematisation of the physical sciences - economics still remains intrinsically a performative art and presents an arena of power struggles and interest contestations. This understanding of economics is often suppressed in the neo-classical approach to economics and its operationalisation, by its agents.

What is not often presented to the public is that economics, as a discipline, gains its dynamism through strife, rivalries of views, and socially constructed experimentations, so that at each point in time the discipline is disciplined by uncertainties. In other words, economics is not always about the science of the real and the certain. It could as well be an indulgence in academic sophistry and the performance of artificialities. This indulgence is not better expressed anywhere in economic thoughts than in its corner stone expression: 'ceteris paribus - all things being equal.' What is certain and real is that all things will never be equal. The truth is that economics can be very economical with the truth. It is from this perspective of economics as an art of performance, uncertainty and political contestations that one may appreciate the economic hegemony on which the themes of foreign reserves policies are interpreted and enacted.

Neo-classical economic principles and mechanisms can be weapons of mass subjugation by those who have control of them. At the moment, the U.S. appears to be the master of this weaponry and exercises its hegemony parsimoniously through the market system. Since the great wars of the last century, the U.S. domination of the world currency market has not waned. The U.S. dollar is the major reserve currency of the world. This gives the U.S. cheaper access to the reserves than any other economy and helps to save it from currency crisis since every other currency will be chasing it and thereby enhancing its value through a high demand. There have been attempts by some governments - e.g. the Chinese Government - to de-link their currencies from the U.S. dollars. These attempts are often met by high level of politicking, which goes a long way to suggest that economic thoughts and mathematisation alone do not offer the solution. To extend its domination of the world, the amount of foreign reserves a country has determines its credit rating.

An understanding of the politics of foreign reserves perpetuated through neo-classical economic doctrines induces one to wonder why it is not necessary to rethink our foreign reserve policies. Will it be best to have these reserves outside our economy while poverty ravages significant number of Nigerians or to use them to build our institutions and capabilities to be competitive in the short and long runs? This question is even more pressing now that it has been reported that some credit lines from foreign banks to some financial institutions in the country towards infrastructural and other projects are being withdrawn.

One way to go about it is to ensure that the effects of the withdrawal of funds from external sources on Nigerian financial institutions are cushioned through the substitution of such funds with some proceeds from the countries' foreign reserves. The current global financial crisis may provide a window of opportunity for the economics of the foreign reserves rhetoric and its antecedent globalisation mantra to be politically undermined by national economic patriotism. The Nigerian businesses need all the support they can get to weather the impending global economic recession. The so-called big economies are nationalising their businesses, saving jobs and stimulating their economies, in the name of financial bailouts. Didn't they advise us to deregulate and de-nationalise our businesses? Why have they suddenly changed their tune?

Although the suggestion to de-link from the foreign reserves system may appear simplistic in outlook, it recognises the enormous political will required to enact it, even if it sounds reasonable. First and foremost, Nigeria lacks the economic and political resources to de-link its economy from the reserve currency system. What would we tell the U.S. - the headmaster of the world? What will happen to our oil revenue if the U.S. decides not to buy from us any more? The incentives for the Nigerian economy to be tied to the foreign reserves doctrine, even as the credit lines for Nigerian businesses dry up, arise more from the country's weak negotiating base than the economic superiority of the argument to stick to dictates and demands of the foreign reserves systems. Tied to this weak base negotiating power, the risks of having all our eggs in one unreliable basket - i.e. the corrupt Nigerian politics and the elite class - is even more frightening.

But what does the alternative of investing in local businesses hold for us? One of the likely outcomes of the deliberations of the Presidential Steering Committee could be investments in property and infrastructure, agriculture and '...how best to use the pension funds to continue to sustain liquidity and to fund long term development in the economy' (ThisDay, January 16, 2008). What appears missing or at best taken for granted is that these postulated outcomes would require strong institutional base to function - including the rule of law, strong civil society, good corporate governance, responsible business practices, strong sense of national and economic patriotism, et cetera.

Unfortunately, despite the many pledges to fight corruption in the country and build a civilised society based on the rule of law, lip service appears to be the best we can achieve as a country. The death of national patriotism in Nigeria is the death of our economic independence and political will. In this regard, the hope of building a strong economic foundation and or the political will of de-linking from the foreign reserve system will continue to be an illusive aspiration. Politics and economics are intertwined and should be appreciated as such. The economics of foreign reserves can only be fully understood within its politics and power struggles.

* Dr. Amaeshi is with the Cranfield School of Management in the United Kingdom"

FOR MY ENGEL!!!

Eniola;

Deep in my heart;

Your picture fuels;

A deep dreaming;

And, sensual need;

Becomes high;

All day through night;

My love's on roll;

How I wish;

To be close to you!

 =DEOLA

Errors of conviction

"Man should not believe in things he cannot grasp! He must try to understand them; for otherwise he opens wide the door to errors, and with errors the Truth is always debased"-ABD-RU-SHIN

yoke of success

"Blessed be all sorrow, hardships and endurance that demand courage. Blessed be these things: for of these things cometh the making of a man" The longer the cloud has time to grow in darkness, and density, the more dazzling and terrifying will also be the lightning it generates. Apart, "we meet challenges on our feet, not on our knees"-TAI SOLARIN

The crumbling of a wild era

Considering our eight yrs journey and travail in the bush,it's worthy of every sensible people to celebrate our emergence into barack-our twilight of hope and security,in a morbid believe that all that is dead in the economy will be awakened,so that it may pass through the mill of purification of the holistic hands of Obama. All hail Americans. ==DEOLA==

My love rings

Without the given of love, life of man would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. ==DEOLA McAGUNS==

Re: Chris Okotie attacks T .B. Joshua ( nigerian vangaurd: jan 10, 2009)

CHRIS OKOTIE



T.B. JOSHUA

Is Chris okotie worth our time to waste? No. It is only his like, that is, people of his identical plumage who would applaud his devious tactics to reach a rooted ambition. Listen, you despondent ones, the anointing from God is not designed in the standard of human-being. Proficiency in learning is not a prerequisite. Hence Christ Jesus choose his disciples not among the learned Pharisees or Scribes , but among the simple, natural people, because they had no need to struggle against the delusion that the anointing from God requires college education and a church affiliation. Is it necessary, first of all, to set up a university in order first of all to acquire the abilities to recognize the conception of the Godhead? To what lengths will this mania, which is mostly rooted only in ambition, drive Okotie and his gangs against T.B.Joshua? Ladies and gentlemen, you might be seeing the resurrection of the Pharisees and the scribes as was foretold by Christ through the revelation to John, otherwise, why should Okotie and his cohorts condemn the anointing of a man from the angle of intellectual periscope? Was it not the same tactics employed to nailed Christ to the cross-(”was this not the son of carpenter? Where did he get his knowledge from? He uses the power of Beelzebub” these are just few of the mind bulging accusations). Until he died before His death was feigned as redemption. Heed the admonition of the Lord, you who are seriously seeking the light, the Pharisees and the Scribes have once again have their heads arose, and blessed is he who will not be lulled to sleep forgetting to replenish the oil in his lamp. The greater the condemnation of T.B, the more it is necessary to recognize his sublime calling. ===DEOLA===

Re: Fall of Naira

Fellow Nigerians, we gotta be fully awake by now, from the hallucinating pill given us by Yar-adua and Soludo, It is too late for us to tarry and watch. The truth has come to pass, the mountain of petroleum price is now established in Washington DC, and OPEC is flown unto it, singing, ye members, we have gone up to the white house, to the house of the god of price; and he has told us of his price, and we will walk in his choice: for out of DC cometh forth the law, and the determinant of petroleum price with adjutant control of nations budget, and your currency will be offended because of it. Please, take no offense. It is the law, which is binding on us. The Zulus were the spiritually gifted, like the wise men, who had foreseen the ethereal happening before the gross manifestation, hence their shout of "koom, koom" in reverential awe of the greatness of the Americans.===DEOLA McAGUNS-(Nigerian-American from Dallas TX)===

In the light of truth

Fellow Nigerians, I once again wanna redirect your mind back to the issue between the speaker/representatives of the house and barrister Keyanmo. It’s gotta be our collective prerogative to stand out for the truth, as was preached by Christ and Mohamed. If we open our mind to the stream of truth, it won’t be too difficult to see the truth of fraudulence in the purchase of these cars, as exemplified by keyanmo. The defense of Peugeot automobiles isn’t tenable. PAN has no right whatsoever, to distort specification as ordered. It is most unfortunate and heartbroken this crime is getting buried, while in our abnormal religious intoxication, we have forgotten the admonition of Christ and Mohamed to stand up for the truth. We will rather have God fight our justice than for us to take cue from Martin Luther King Jnr and his fellow clergies.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is enough time we disallow these disgruntle and dishonorable men from representing us in any arm of government. They will always offer stones for breads, believing nobody among us is able to differentiate between bread and stone. They are nothing but wolves in sheep skin.
Yet, one thing about this issue is most wonderful. As Keyanmo rose and risked his life to fight for justice in this matter, some air-heads, even in spite of college education would stand , clap and dance in praise of these vagabonds who intend to enslave us forever. If we are gonna be great, we gotta stand for the truth. ===DEOLA McAGUNS; DALLAS TX.

Happy new year?

Let’s be awake, fellow Nigerians, out of our laden slumber and recognize the ignoble hardship that awaits us this 2009. Of what does 2009 budget consists? Hollow promises and infatuations that can never rise above the released effervescent and suffocation of United States bail-out missile. No matter how laboriously our accountants try to apply economic theories and statistics abstractions, the economy is doom. So, let the wise be on guard for the gloom that is come, and happy is he who grabs hold of this admonition of truth in order to soar aloof in a moderate gnashing of teeth in structural economy adjustment. ===DEOLA McAGUNS; DALLAS TX, USA