Nigeria Content Online

Cell phones have become such a major part of our existence and for most people, our telephone bills have become a large monthly expense.

Have you ever returned from abroad to find a shocking mobile phone bill awaiting you? When you use your phone abroad, as soon as it is detected on a roaming partners network, expensive international roaming rates and charges kick in.

Roaming costs have tarnished the wonderful memories of many vacations, but fortunately, there are practical steps you can take to stay in control of your phone bill and still stay connected with family, friends, and business associates.

Know before you go

Do you know what you are being charged for? Before you leave your country, ask your service provider about roaming fees for both phone and data use so that you have at least a rough idea of the cost of using your phone abroad.

When travelling internationally, you are typically charged both for receiving as well as making calls, for sending text messages, accessing e-mails, voice mail messages, surfing the web, and downloading videos, music, and images in the countries you are visiting.

What services do you really need?

Do you need to be able to make and receive calls? Do you need real time Internet access, or other data services on your device? Do you really need to check your e-mail instantly? This will determine how you should use your device on your trip.

Send and receive text messages

It is free to receive texts abroad, but there are significant charges to receive calls, so if you are having regular conversations with people in Nigeria, try to encourage them to make your interaction text based.

Use Skype

By using a web-based phone service, you can keep your bills down. Service providers such as Google and Skype, offer free calling at relatively low rates on international calls.

If you are travelling with your laptop, you can use Skype at any wireless hotspot or from your hotel room.

Be careful of your voice mail

Even if you are careful with your mobile phone use and avoid making unnecessary calls, do you know that if someone leaves a message on your voicemail, you are billed as though you were receiving an international call? Even worse, you will be charged again to listen to those messages.

Buy a local SIM card

Buying a local SIM card can be the cheapest way of using your mobile abroad, particularly if you plan to spend an extended period in the same country. Replace the SIM card in your phone or buy a cheap GSM-enabled phone as an alternate phone.

Switch data roaming off

The new-generation smart phones such as the iPhone and the Blackberry have become hugely popular devices providing access to your emails and the Internet, a world of shopping, and social networking applications just a touch away. We thus unwittingly leave ourselves open to international roaming charges on our smart phones as soon as we switch them on.

The continuous activity utilizes data bandwidth and this leads to constant charging and huge bills in accidental roaming fees. If you do not need data services on your trip and can’t resist the temptation to sneak a quick e-mail check on your smart phone, then turn off the data service when you are roaming.

The good thing about smart phones is there are options and you can choose which services to cut off. After disabling data services, you will still be able to make and receive calls and text messages. In addition, you can turn this feature on and off at will so you can still check your emails periodically.

Use wi-fi

If you will have access to wi-fi hotspots, business centres, or Internet cafes at your destination, you won’t have to use your mobile phone all the time and can use your laptop.

However, be cautious and only connect to wi-fi hotspots that you feel you can trust. Use ‘free’ hotspots with extreme caution; they may be convenient but are not always safe as there is always a danger of hacking or snooping.

To at least reduce your vulnerability, use strong passwords and install some security software. Wi-fi access, whilst it may not be free, is usually much cheaper than paying data roaming costs.

As a mobile phone user, you must take some responsibility for staying informed of the cost of services that you subscribe to.

It is also important that mobile phone operators are more proactive about providing cost information for users rather than for subscribers having to stumble on information after a bad experience. Much of the information on the service provider websites is confusing and not that easy to understand.

Clearly, what subscribers want, need, and deserve is more transparency, so that they can confidently use data services when roaming, as well as some sort of control mechanism to ensure they do not incur excessively large bills when roaming and without even realising it.

Write to personalfinance@234next.com with your questions and comments. We would love to hear from you. All letters will be considered for publication, and if selected, may be edited.

In the evening hours, at the National Stadium in Abuja, Samson Siasia, the Super Eagles manager, will lead his players out in a crucial 2012 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Ethiopia, his first competitive match since taking charge of the team in December.

Unsurprisingly, the Eagles’ performance in that game will be the topic of choice for football’s chattering classes, considering their parlous state since last year’s World Cup disaster and the country’s desperate desire to see the team return to the flamboyant form of yesteryear.

But besides hoping, of course, that they earn the needed win, the team’s ‘exile’ to that overpriced concrete contraption called a stadium in Abuja, a place without a football culture, ethos and soul, evokes deep and bitter feelings in me.

Any genuine connoisseur of our game knows the National Stadium in Surulere, Lagos, criminally neglected by our federal government – as its decrepit, ugly form hauntingly reminds us – is our real theatre of dreams and Nigerian football’s spiritual home.

Who can forget the pleasurable and anguished moments on its hallowed but now patchy, miserable looking turf?

It staged our first Africa Cup of Nations triumph in 1980, when, to the delight of over 60,000 fans, Green Eagles captain Christian Chukwu proudly walked up to the arena’s state box to lift the Cup of Unity.

And who can forget August 12, 1989, when, amongst thousands of other fans in the terraces, I unknowingly watched midfielder Samuel Okwaraji convulse, collapse and die on its turf, in that unforgettable, tragic 1990 World Cup qualifier against Angola.

Or how Nigeria’s painful failure to win the 2000 Nations Cup final – after Victor Ikpeba’s penalty goal against Cameroun that never was – made captain Sunday Oliseh weep like a newborn baby?

“I cannot begin to recall all the important moments of my life, and in the lives of many great footballers, that took place in that stadium. That the ground is in its current state leaves me with nothing to say,” says former Nigeria captain Segun Odegbami.

And the dilapidated state of the stadium is made all the more poignant by its healthier, smaller next door neighbour – Teslim Balogun Stadium, the only decent football ground in Nigeria’s largest city.

After the Eagles’ unbelievable eight-year absence from the city, the recent friendly game against Sierra Leone, at the Balogun ground, served as a timely reminder, at least to me, of how the national team’s return to Lagos is the key to reviving its dwindling fortunes.

Given a bad rap

Rather than mollycoddle the present set of Eagles, some of whom are risk-averse and have to be pampered into doing their very minimum for the country – and hoping that they can get away with it in Abuja, where the crowd is quite temperate, putting the players feet to the searing Lagos fire will certainly improve the team’s work ethic.

Given a bad rap by previous FAs for their refusal to ‘blindly’ support the national team whilst playing at Sports City, as the National Stadium is nicknamed, Lagos fans are, unfairly, being given the proverbial bad name in order to ‘hang’ them.

The unadorned truth is that whilst a bit unruly at times, Lagos fans demand top draw performances from those wearing the colours of our country and are intolerant of sloppiness or an obvious lack of commitment. Lagos fans, at least most of them, can tell the difference between a national team that loses gallantly, after giving everything they’ve got and one that just couldn’t be bothered to deliver.

Why should their loyalty and support of the Super Eagles not come at the price of excellence and diligence?

The nauseating state of the National Stadium continues to offer an excuse for the Nigerian Football Federation, which points to the artificial turf at Teslim Balogun, admittedly not as good as a natural surface, as a reason not to stage competitive games in Lagos.

Few men or women can defy the fury of Lagos bus conductors – truly a breed apart. They are often compared to the Matanga, their brothers in Nairobi who rule over buses called Matatu – a rambunctious bunch, frequently drunk on changa’a, a poisonous local brew mixed with chemicals, more virulent than our paraga or shepe. But there the comparison ends.

Where our conductor leaves the Kenyan in the shade is in his limitless vocabulary for abuse, his complete disregard for passengers, his volcanic mood swings.

The matatu is not a comfortable means of travel by any means, but it is not a danfo or molue. The Kenyan buses usually have tickets and bus numbers; sometimes have arrival and departure times; fixed number of passengers and well defined routes and bus stops. Another thing, the matanga is polite to his passengers.

The Lagos bus conductor enjoys fighting his passengers. And veterans of such battles sometimes have symptoms akin to post traumatic stress disorder; like soldiers after a war. They look dazed long after the encounter; walking and talking to themselves, hardly conscious as they cross the road.

I have seen nice women turn ugly with rage within minutes with a conductor, and gentlemen act like thugs. Yes, Lagos conductors do bring out the worst in us. So, most people run away from the experience, guarding their brittle self-esteem from the ferocious attack of those who seem to have lost theirs.

But, occasionally, one comes across people who really don’t mind the roforofo fight. At Lekki, the other day, I took a bus going to CMS, when a young man in sparkling orange long-sleeved shirt and earphones, came on. “CMS na N100,” said the conductor.

Moments later, the youth brought out ₦70 and gave the conductor, who promptly rejected the money. “You no hear me when I say ₦100?” he hissed. The young man unplugged his ears. “What are you bitching about now?” he asked.

“Your money is ₦100,” spat the conductor.

“But why didn’t you tell me that before I entered?” demanded the passenger.

The conductor turned to the rest of the bus. “Una dey help me see trouble? I no talk am say na ₦100 for any drop?” Nobody answered.

The young man vigorously denied hearing anything like that. “Why would I have entered for a hundred? Am I crazy?”

The conductor screamed, “How you go hear when you put that thing for ear?” The guy shouted back, ‘’Bone that thing. I am not paying you ₦100!”

The driver had taken a detour through Oniru, to avoid traffic. But we kept hitting these bumps and when we hit a particularly bad patch and the bus jumped so high, the woman beside me screamed, “Driver, no commot my belle o, I take God beg you,” the driver chuckled, “Madam, no worry, oga go put another one back.”

“You no well,” she said.

One man asked, “So are you going to pay her husband for all the work then?” The driver smiled, “How I go pay another man for enjoying his own wife?” he asked.

One man was, however, not amused by the driving. He wore a torn shirt and a gaunt face and his voice was loud. “Oga this is the last time you go hit my head for this bus,” he said, rubbing his brow. “No try am again. If I wound, when I come down, I go wound you!”

As soon as we reached the bus stop, the young man with the earphone jumped down. The conductor immediately grabbed him. ‘’You wan go with my money?” he asked.

The young man warned, “If I count three and your hand is still holding my shirt, I will cut it off!” The conductor discarded his slippers and stood bare feet on the hot asphalt. “Make I help you count am?” he said, and went, “One, two, three… Oya now!” The passenger pocketed his earphone and calmly began to fold the sleeves of his shirt.

The driver came down. “Collect the money,” he said to the conductor. “For, surely, there will always be temptations like this. But we don’t have to fall.”

The conductor snatched the money and turned to him. “This one wey you don turn pastor so,” he said.

If not for the NN24
presidential debate, one would never have known just how much of a
president the Kano State governor is capable of being. He spoke and
answered questions well, backed with empirical evidence; and dished out
information that showed he probably did or has been doing a bit of
homework to pass his April exams.

This debate
brouhaha just confirms one thing: damned if you do, damned if you
don’t! Suddenly, debates have come to stay and any aspirant must now
seriously consider whether elective office is truly for them,
especially if they doubt their ability to participate in a public
debate. It’s probably okay if one is mildly cerebral, not stupid and
able to put one’s opinions across succinctly. But if one is not
academically strong, a doer rather than a talker, it may be a bit of a
struggle. Hence, it is a decision one must reach after mature
deliberation: to debate or not.

The down side to
not debate is that many will think the unwilling candidate is not
capable, has nothing vibrant to say, lacks a certain charismatic appeal
a la Obama and is so lacking in all ramifications that he/she would not
want these foibles to be revealed to the world. Thank God the president
has agreed to participate in ONE debate at least, before it becomes an
albatross on his campaign.

Nigerians were not
thrilled at his absence during the NN24 presidential debates. In
addition, the excuses proffered for his absence did nothing to assuage
one’s feelings. All candidates and especially the president must be
seen to grab EVERY opportunity they have to convince Nigerians that
they have the capacity. If campaigns had been planned before the debate
was finalised, it merely calls for prioritisation by the candidate.

What do the people
consider as the most effective way for candidates to show what plans
they have for the electorate: televised debate between candidates or
campaign at a stadium? We all know what happens at these stadium
campaigns: they hold at venues which will NEVER be available to the
opposition for their own campaigns; they are crowded with people who
will NEVER have an opportunity to ask ONE simple question of the
candidate; the candidate merely spews out what he THINKS he’ll do from
a speech, probably not written by him, and with no chance to question
the rationale behind his plans. The speech will be full of meaningless
clichés, which even the maker has repeated monotonously without emotion
forever.

Yes, as a
candidate, please don’t debate if you know you’ll fail; rather, rely on
making the rounds of every stadium, park and square in Nigeria. While
your colleagues are shifting misconceptions or confirming conceptions
about themselves, and making a great impression on the electorate a la
NN24-Shekarau-style, you can hope that one-on-one interaction is
overrated and at your own peril.

With a society that
thrives on gist, you will never live down not participating, but who
cares? Jokes will be made about how you demanded ‘EXPO’, didn’t get it
and withdrew. In fact, all your achievements in life, academically and
otherwise will be certified the result of ‘EXPO’. If/when you finally
agree to debate, people will then doubt the integrity of the medium you
choose. You know how it is, this integrity-doubting process: YOU become
the debate.

People will forever
question why you chose to do one and not the other? Is government
organising the one you are taking part in? Furthermore, focus on and
scrutiny of the questions put to you will be divertive: mild, the
questioner is dead meat; tough, with great answers, you saw ‘EXPO’. If
you don’t do well in the debate, you’ll be dead meat. Everyone will
criticize your sense of judgment, asking what type of president you
would be, when, knowing your inadequacy, you went ahead to participate
in a process that would embarrass, humiliate or ridicule? Is this how,
in spite of his and our limitations, he’ll embarrass, humiliate and
ridicule country and us?

Last count: Lagos
governor has participated in at least three debates with other
contenders. Every time they’ve appeared, people get a fresh chance to
continuously decide whom they want for governor. Some changed their
minds; some have not. But they got their opportunity to decide. If you
are a candidate and decide not to debate, you are within your rights to
not be rushed into doing something that you know you can’t excel at. At
least, if you did not write the exam, no one will really be able to
tell if you would have passed or not!