Discussion: Scientist to prolong life of convicts so they can spend up to 1000yrs in jail

A group of scientists at Oxford University have been exploring controversial technologies that could extend human life for criminals who commit the cruellest offences.They say billions are being invested in techniques that could mean the cruellest criminals will be kept alive indefinitely in condition befitting their crime

Uk mail reports that....
According to their research, prison firms could also develop drugs that make time pass slowly, making an inmate’s sentence feel like an eternity. The pill that could make someone feel like they were serving a 1,000-year sentence.This is more like artificial hell

According to lead scientist Rebecca Roache "Some crimes are so bad they require a really long period of punishment, and a lot of people seem to get out of that punishment by dying,’
She feels this must be done because the punishment metted out to some criminals are laughable giving them access to things the people they murdered didn't
‘They will, for example, be fed and watered, housed in clean cells, allowed access to a toilet and washing facilities, allowed out of their cells for exercise and recreation,.

‘Dr Aubrey de Grey, co-founder of the anti-ageing Sens research foundation, believes that the first person to live to 1,000 years has already been born,’

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Discussion: Why Kerosene Sells So High

One gets the feeling that beyond the unresolved issues of the exact sum spent on kerosene subsidy and the legality or otherwise of the policy, a critical part of the discourse threading through it all is the issue of why kerosene continues to sell above the pump price of N50 per litre.

There is a sense in which this fact should matter to all well-meaning contributors to this discourse. Not just to members of the National Assembly who as accredited representatives of the people are paid to oversee the welfare and comfort of their constituents, especially as elections approach, but to anyone concerned with how public policy impact on the lives of citizens.

It is essential that we get to the bottom of the matter...

A good look at the processes it takes for kerosene gets to the end-user will no doubt help everybody understand why prices remain consistently high despite years of subsidy. In the end, it is clear that however the number of litres supplied and whatever the stipulated pump prize, there will always be people willing to circumvent the system. And these people do not necessarily work for the NNPC or PPMC.

The first thing to note is the fact that demand for the product is unusually high, far outstripping supply in some instances, even though supply is quite high. And until we can move more people from poverty to the middle-class or other forms of affordable fuel sources, the need for kerosene - as the population continues to grow so fast - will remain uncontrollable giving room for manipulation outside the control of structures put in place to protect the populace.

According to the head of the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company, Mr. Haruna Momoh, the figures for kerosene supply in the respective years show that government has made great efforts to make the product readily available as indicated herein: 2010 (2.5 trillion metric tones); 2011 (1.9 trillion metric tonnes); 2012 (2.6 trillion metric tonnes); and 2013 (2.6 trillion metric tonnes).

But as the man took pains to explain, the job of the agency ended with the bulk supply of the product, and it should not be held responsible for how it reached the end-users. That part of the distribution chain is normally handled by regulatory agencies, which together with the law enforcement agencies should “ensure seamless distribution of kerosene.” One reason to account for the high price and scarcity of the product despite the metric tonnes supplied annually might be because a good proportion of the product gets diverted to neighbouring countries where the product is not subsidised, to be sold at higher prices. Our porous borders must be better policed if we are to stem the tide of smuggling that seem to grow progressively out of control. No matter how hard the NNPC worked to provide kerosene, as long as the police and custom officials who man our borders continue to remain powerless to these smugglers, we shall continue to have less kerosene to sell to our people and as every student of basic Economics know, the higher the demand, the higher the price.

Moreover, although kerosene is essentially used for cooking by most households, a good deal of it is also used for road construction as well as aviation fuel. Then there is the ever-present scourge of vandals who damage pipelines with their bunkering. Their constant interruption of the supply chain has had less than salubrious effect on the whole process of kerosene supply.

During the question and answer session at the sitting of the House committee recently, members showed data from the National Bureau of statistics, which implied that there is no evidence that the quantity of products quoted was consumed in the country. As usual, this data is not complete because they fail to take some other factors into consideration, including as we have pointed out, the quantity diverted, those stolen from pipelines, those used for road construction and those smuggled out.

A subsidy policy that attempts to make a popular commodity like kerosene, used by most households, affordable for the masses cannot be wrong. What is wrong is for the loopholes in the logistical chain to dampen the lofty efforts by the government alleviate the suffering of the low-income masses. The debate should not be about why there is or isn’t a subsidy but what can we do as a body responsible for the well-being of the masses to plug the holes – provide better fiscal and regulatory structures to ensure the system of monitoring pump price is ramped-up; smuggling is dealt with and a good push to move the populace onto other forms of cheaper fuel sources, are put in place.

I heard Mr. Haruna Momoh say this a few times at the hearing but the clutter and noise of political wrangling seemed to drown him out and block ears. I say lets dwell on fixing our structures, our supply chains and lets see if the whole country will not benefit from the well-meaning actions by our government. Until we can find the means to make this investment for the future, any monies further spent, recovered or remitted for that matter may well go down the drain.

By Ayo Benjamin

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Discussion: Sex as an act of immorality

This is the era of séx marketing. If you turn right, séx leaps into your face; if you turn left, séx jumps at you. In the street, in the shopping mall, in the church, in the office, on your computer and phone, and even in your living room, séx chases you around.
Séx – subtle or barefaced – has become all-pervasive in our society. Our society has become so séx-charged that the safety of our children is no longer guaranteed. Before, the rule was that during the children’s belt on TV, materials with adult content were not shown.
Then there are the so-called Nigerian and Ghanaian home videos that are anything but homely. Even though many of these films are rated 16 or 18, they are shown on regular TV stations during the day when children are home watching TV. Even within early news bulletins when families are expected to be watching TV, film trailers with smooching scenes are advertised. What do you do?
These days, the only things that are not shown on our TV from morning to about 10 pm are commercials of alcoholic beverages. Any other thing goes. At such periods, TV stations are competing on which will show more Mexican soaps featuring deep kissing and erotic scenes every five minutes. Almost all the stations dedicate about two hours per day to music videos with bikini-clad girls dancing with men with lewd abandon.
Ban your children from watching TV? That is not an option for me. The only thing within my power is that I have ensured that they do not watch any TV/video material that is rated over 13. But what do I do when these adult materials are slotted into family belts?
If I drive to the news vendor with my children in the car, there are pornography magazines littering the table that it becomes a crime taking children to such a place.
If I drive into a filling station or drop by the post office to check mails, I am confronted by some men selling the local Viagra. The horrible thing about these men is that they flash their products with obscene pictures as you are parking. On one occasion at the car park at Ikeja General Post Office, Lagos, my children were in the car when one of these unscrupulous men flashed their séx-dripping packs at the car window, saying: "Oga, man power!" I was so angry I felt like slapping him.
What one sees at social events is another story altogether because of the if-you’ve-got-it-flaunt-it policy that is in vogue. One does not complain because it is a free world. But the one that surprises one as inexplicable is seeing grandmothers in some churches trying to outdo teenage girls on who would flaunt a deeper cleavage.
Even the social networks are constantly attacked by séx hackers. A couple of times, Facebook was attacked with pornographic pictures littering everywhere. The network always reacted as fast as it can to cleanse its channel. But with such fears and also the possibility of some mindless people posting nude or semi-nude pictures, one has to be careful not to leave one’s laptop facing the children anytime one is on the social network.
Yahoo is not left out of the séx bait. In recent times, Yahoo has been showing adverts of girls with plunging neckline asking you to chat with them. Sometimes the picture of a girl pops up by your Yahoo home page asking to click on her and undress her. Such adverts confirmed to me that Facebook had eaten so deep into Yahoo’s business that Yahoo does not have any scruples about collecting all kinds of adverts. To check my emails on Yahoo, I have to turn my screen away from my children to avoid such pictures flashing in their face.
Then there are the hordes of bloggers who want to draw traffic to their sites so as to start making money from advertising. One common way they use for this is to post sensual adverts on the internet urging you to click and see what one celebrity did with another celebrity. Knowing the power of séx, they believe that with such a bait, people would click and be taken to their blogs, which have counters that record the number of visitors.
Also, any time I attend a party like a birthday and children are told to dance, I always feel embarrassed at the type of érotic moves made by girls who are less than 10 years old. At one of such parties, a friend whose eight-year-old girl came first in the dancing competition was so shocked at the way her daughter wriggled her waist and backside that she vowed that she would not allow her watch music videos on TV anymore. The dancing of the little girl looked more like what a professional strip tease woman would do rather than what a girl of eight would do. The mother confessed that she had seen her daughter dance with her siblings and friends now and then but had never seen her dance in such an obscene way.
Furthermore, a contemporary novel that is not dripping with séx is “archaic.” I remember reading Half of a Yellow Sun of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie some years ago, and when my niece in secondary school saw me with it and asked me to give it to her after reading it, I told her stories for weeks, all in a bid not to let her have the book. I told myself that I would not be the one to give her a novel with so many love-making scenes. If she had to get such a book, let her get it herself, not through me.
In the same vein, I heard of one of the rave-making novels of the world in recent years, which was described as a success story in self-publishing, and decided to read it: 50 Shades of Grey by E. L. James. I only read a few pages and stopped. Almost every other page featured raw séx, violent séx, animalistic séx. The “novel” is just an out-and-out porno book: the only thing missing in it are pictures! Sir Salman Rushdie said about the book: “I’ve never read anything so badly written that got published.” Many authorities have described its prose as low, yet the book has sold 90 million copies since 2011!
It is obvious that most people have realised that nothing sells like séx. So, they therefore exploit séx as sale bait: whatever negative consequence on society is not their business.
Nobody knows if the recent high rate of rapé in our society has any connection with all these factors that have made our society séxually charged. Because we live in a free society, the dress code of people may not be determined by law, but the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission has the power to regulate what should be shown on TV when our children are awake and watching TV. Those who sell the local Viagra in packs decorated with glossy obscene pictures need to be arrested or chased out of public places.
Interestingly, any time one complains about the all-pervasive séx in our society, one is either told to close one’s eyes, or to stop being a hypocrite. But surprisingly, I have never seen any of these so-called non-hypocrites have séx in broad daylight by the roadside or in the market. Among human beings, sex is a private thing, done behind closed doors. Only animals have séx in the public.
An adult mind may not be adversely affected by séxually explicit materials, but exposing our children to such materials has a very negative impact on them. We must not fold our arms and wave it off as modernity.
Written by Azuka Onwuka

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Discussion: REVEALED: The Way Forward For Nigerian Unemployed Graduates

The strength of the economy of any state, they say, is determined by the contribution of the youth. The strength of the youth therefore, cannot be over-emphasized in terms of national growth.

It is the understanding of the roles expected of these group that a necessitated the need to acquire necessary moral, academic and ethical credential to ensure that one is fit to meet with the demands and the challenges of the society to study.

We cannot compare the relevance of academic certificate as obtained in the classical era of independence and what is obtainable today in the labour market.

Professor Eskor Toyo said, during a social action summit at Aluu, that in the early 60s and 70s, corporate organizations such as banks and insurance company would visit schools and grants the students employment in advance because of the desperate need of human resource.

He added further that some companies would jingle the bell around their host communities for vacant positions in their respective companies.

The graduates of those days had the luxury of choice to pick from as there were jobs at both private and public sectors.

He opined further that it is those who failed secondary schools that usually secure front desk jobs in banks and were handsomely paid.

This was the period that Nigerians who had to travel abroad for any reason would only do so reluctantly.

The chronological phase of event has turned the taste of education sour as the number of unemployed graduates has out weighed the few lucky ones who would stick their neck and balls to any job available even if the "take home pay" would not take them home.

According to publications by the National Manpower Board (NMB) and Federal Bureau of Statistic (FBS), only about 10% of graduates released annually into the labour market from tertiary institution in Nigeria are employed. The survival of the fittest became the rule as even the public sector only have hinge-hole vacant space for the teeming graduates that flood the society.

Former Minister of Interior, Major General Godwin Abe (Rtd) recently said that 43 persons died in the recent recruitment exercise into Nigeria Prison Service (NPS), wherein over 300,000 applied for less than 700 vacancies.

Similarly, 20 persons were reported died during a recent recruitment exercise into Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS). The Scramble for desperation for 3000 vacancies by over 195,000 applicants caused the deaths.

Nigerian graduates now find solace in entering for various reality shows and dance hall competitions where the chances of being chosen even as a participant is very slim.

It is on this sad premise that a youth corps member said at the Orientation Camp in Lagos that he "feared that he is leaving the university" as three of his siblings who are already graduates are still at home with their parents.

"I fear that I might join the wagon of the unemployed" he concluded.

Femi Aborishade of the Committee for the Defence of Human Right (CDHR) noted that there is the need for government to revive old and seemingly dead sectors that once and still can contribute to the growth of the economy.

Ajaokuta Steel Company, according to him, is enough to accommodate over 60,000 jobs. Also, the textile industry is fallow in operation but can employ lots of thousands of graduate if revived.

Same are other sectors such as the Railway and the Shipping line that dies about 20 years ago.

He believes that the government can look into these dead industries and use the graduate to revive them, thus increasing the county's GDP.

The International labour organization (ILO) has estimated that only about 2% of the world GDP committed to social good would abolish poverty from the face of the earth. What stand in the way of allocating 2 per cent of the world GDP is the priority given to the protection of the profits for a few, rather than the needs of the overwhelming majority of humanity.

In other words there is the need to eliminate the chaos and antagonism among individual capital owners, nations, international and regional bodies.

A shared purpose they say, can give moral enemy a common ground.

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DISCUSSION: Must read! Chimamanda Adichie Advocates For Repeal Of Anti Gay Law In Nigeria

Article written by award winning writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie titled 'Why can't he just be like everyone else?'

I will call him Sochukwuma. A thin, smiling boy who liked to play with us girls at the university primary school in Nsukka. We were young. We knew he was different, we said, 'he's not like the other boys.' But his was a benign and unquestioned difference; it was simply what it was. We did not have a name for him. We did not know the word 'gay.'

He was Sochukwuma and he was friendly and he played oga so well that his side always won. In secondary school, some boys in his class tried to throw Sochukwuma off a second floor balcony. They were strapping teenagers who had learned to notice, and fear, difference. They had a name for him. Homo.

They mocked him because his hips swayed when he walked and his hands fluttered when he spoke. He brushed away their taunts, silently, sometimes grinning an uncomfortable grin. He must have wished that he could be what they wanted him to be. I imagine now how helplessly lonely he must have felt. The boys often asked, "Why can't he just be like everyone else?"

Possible answers to that question include 'because he is abnormal,' 'because he is a sinner, 'because he chose the lifestyle.' But the truest answer is 'We don't know.' There is humility and humanity in accepting that there are things we simply don't know. At the age of 8, Sochukwuma was obviously different. It was not about sex, because it could not possibly have been - his hormones were of course not yet fully formed - but it was an awareness of himself, and other children's awareness of him, as different. He could not have 'chosen the lifestyle' because he was too young to do so. And why would he - or anybody - choose to be homosexual in a world that makes life so difficult for homosexuals?

The new law that criminalizes homosexuality is popular among Nigerians. But it shows a failure of our democracy, because the mark of a true democracy is not in the rule of its majority but in the protection of its minority - otherwise mob justice would be considered democratic. The law is also unconstitutional, ambiguous, and a strange priority in a country with so many real problems. Above all else, however, it is unjust. Even if this was not a country of abysmal electricity supply where university graduates are barely literate and people die of easily-treatable causes and Boko Haram commits casual mass murders, this law would still be unjust. We cannot be a just society unless we are able to accommodate benign difference, accept benign difference, live and let live. We may not understand homosexuality, we may find it personally abhorrent but our response cannot be to criminalize it.

A crime is a crime for a reason. A crime has victims. A crime harms society. On what basis is homosexuality a crime? Adults do no harm to society in how they love and whom they love. This is a law that will not prevent crime, but will, instead, lead to crimes of violence: there are already, in different parts of Nigeria, attacks on people 'suspected' of being gay. Ours is a society where men are openly affectionate with one another. Men hold hands. Men hug each other. Shall we now arrest friends who share a hotel room, or who walk side by side? How do we determine the clunky expressions in the law - 'mutually beneficial,' 'directly or indirectly?'

Many Nigerians support the law because they believe the Bible condemns homosexuality. The Bible can be a basis for how we choose to live our personal lives, but it cannot be a basis for the laws we pass, not only because the holy books of different religions do not have equal significance for all Nigerians but also because the holy books are read differently by different people.

The Bible, for example, also condemns fornication and adultery and divorce, but they are not crimes. For supporters of the law, there seems to be something about homosexuality that sets it apart. A sense that it is not 'normal.' If we are part of a majority group, we tend to think others in minority groups are abnormal, not because they have done anything wrong, but because we have defined normal to be what we are and since they are not like us, then they are abnormal.

Supporters of the law want a certain semblance of human homogeneity. But we cannot legislate into existence a world that does not exist: the truth of our human condition is that we are a diverse, multi-faceted species. The measure of our humanity lies, in part, in how we think of those different from us. We cannot - should not - have empathy only for people who are like us.

Some supporters of the law have asked - what is next, a marriage between a man and a dog?' Or 'have you seen animals being gay?' (Actually, studies show that there is homosexual behavior in many species of animals.) But, quite simply, people are not dogs, and to accept the premise - that a homosexual is comparable to an animal - is inhumane. We cannot reduce the humanity of our fellow men and women because of how and who they love. Some animals eat their own kind, others desert their young. Shall we follow those examples, too?

Other supporters suggest that gay men sexually abuse little boys. But pedophilia and homosexuality are two very different things. There are men who abuse little girls, and women who abuse little boys, and we do not presume that they do it because they are heterosexuals. Child molestation is an ugly crime that is committed by both straight and gay adults (this is why it is a crime: children, by virtue of being non-adults, require protection and are unable to give sexual consent).

There has also been some nationalist posturing among supporters of the law. Homosexuality is 'unafrican,' they say, and we will not become like the west. The west is not exactly a homosexual haven; acts of discrimination against homosexuals are not uncommon in the US and Europe. But it is the idea of 'unafricanness' that is truly insidious. Sochukwuma was born of Igbo parents and had Igbo grandparents and Igbo great-grandparents. He was born a person who would romantically love other men. Many Nigerians know somebody like him. The boy who behaved like a girl. The girl who behaved like a boy. The effeminate man. The unusual woman. These were people we knew, people like us, born and raised on African soil. How then are they 'unafrican?'

If anything, it is the passage of the law itself that is 'unafrican.' It goes against the values of tolerance and 'live and let live' that are part of many African cultures. (In 1970s Igboland, Area Scatter was a popular musician, a man who dressed like a woman, wore makeup, plaited his hair. We don't know if he was gay - I think he was - but if he performed today, he could conceivably be sentenced to fourteen years in prison. For being who he is.) And it is informed not by a home-grown debate but by a cynically borrowed one: we turned on CNN and heard western countries debating 'same sex marriage' and we decided that we, too, would pass a law banning same sex marriage. Where, in Nigeria, whose constitution defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, has any homosexual asked for same-sex marriage?

This is an unjust law. It should be repealed. Throughout history, many inhumane laws have been passed, and have subsequently been repealed. Barack Obama, for example, would not be here today had his parents obeyed American laws that criminalized marriage between blacks and whites. An acquaintance recently asked me, 'if you support gays, how would you have been born?' Of course, there were gay Nigerians when I was conceived. Gay people have existed as long as humans have existed. They have always been a small percentage of the human population. We don't know why. What matters is this:Sochukwuma is a Nigerian and his existence is not a crime.

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How to borrow airtime from MTN

I just dont know when all this network will introduce a better data plan for mobile users.

MTN newly introduced another product called MTN Xtra Time.

This new product according to them
allows you request for Airtime from the
network on credit, when you have run out of Airtime and pay later.

The airtime once received, can be used on any billable activity on the network regardless of whether it is voice, data or a Value Added Service.

The service is available to prepaid customers that have between 0 - 12 Naira on their account balance, and meet an unspecified including tenure on the network, and recharge frequency.

How Can I Get This Services?


==> Dial *606#

==> Use the display menu to check if you are eligible.

Mind you, this services attract 10% charge of what you are requesting for. If I where you, I will cross check all my dumped MTN sim to see if they are all eligible.

From MTN!!!

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