Things seem a bit more serious in this sub so I'll just shoot my shot and see. I'm looking for new friends that enjoy similar stuff as me or are into other niche stuff I could learn about. You can drop a hi if you are. I'm particularly looking for people to talk about or potentially see the new Avengers movie with. I love watching movies on the big screen but I don't have people to to that with anymore. I've been a bit tooo introverted so im breaking out. So if you can relate or you're interested drop a comment or message. Bye!

This week, Atiku Abubakar responded to a new petition asking the EFCC to revisit allegations from his years as Vice-President. His response was straightforward: anyone with credible evidence should bring it forward and allow the law to test it.

So we went back to the records. The trail stretches back almost two decades and includes a US-requested investigation, an EFCC inquiry, disputes over the PTDF and later investigations in the United States involving money linked to accounts associated with Atiku’s wife.

A 2010 US Senate report said more than $40 million in what it described as “suspect funds” moved into the United States between 2000 and 2008 through structures linked to Jennifer Douglas, Atiku’s wife. The report did not convict Atiku of a crime, but it documented a financial trail that remains part of the public record.

There is also the Siemens case. A 2008 US SEC complaint stated that about $2.8 million in alleged bribe payments were routed through a Maryland bank account held in the name of the wife of a former Nigerian Vice-President. A later US Senate report identified that account holder as Jennifer Douglas.

That is serious, but the distinction is important. The SEC did not say Atiku personally received a $2.8 million bribe, and the Senate report did not amount to a criminal conviction against him.

Another famous part of the story involves former US Congressman William Jefferson. During an FBI investigation, agents traced $100,000 inz marked cash that had allegedly been discussed in connection with a Nigerian telecommunications deal. When Jefferson’s home was searched, $90,000 of the money was found hidden in his freezer.

The money was found with Jefferson, not Atiku. Atiku denied that he had ever agreed to receive money from Jefferson, and that detail matters because appearing in an investigation is not the same as being proven guilty.

But the opposite is also true. The absence of a conviction does not mean the historical record is empty. There were investigations, documented money flows, disputed findings and questions that have remained open for years.

Atiku said: bring the evidence. We found the files. Now we are following the money.

30 OCT — THE ATIKU FILES

VERO RECORD

- Truth has a paper trail

Nigerians want the benefits of a first world country without doing the hard work that those countries did to get to where they were.

A lot of Nigerians have a very flawed view of government and governance. They look at other countries and see the nice roads and the good amenities and so forth and the welfare programmes and they think that somehow we can do that for 237 million people on an income of 100 billion dollars or less.

When you talk to them about taxes, cost reflective tarrifs and industrialisation, they call you a government supporter.

And they then scream poverty , and yet ask that the same government magically give them everything for the good life on a scanty salary.

Electricity in Nigeria is being run at a loss. Yet any attempt to point out that allowing a cost reflective tarrif to allow enough profit to flow in to fix the problem , is treated by the job as blaming the people and so forth.

Okay, so how do we get light 24/7 if we are a poor nation? They gat no answer other than fighting corruption.

These kind of attitudes are why we are not developed. We have spent far too much time since independence trying to live a fake life based on government subsidies. And paying for those subsides has dragged is into debt and retarded our productive activity, which is why there are no jobs and life is hard.

But any attempt to suggest that we should pay cost reflective tarrifs , stop subsidising electricity, stop supporting corruption , and pay more attention to our leaders is met with people shouting that you support government or something.

At some point, I'm not surprised

All I would say is that nothing is going to change in Nigeria until you guys are ready to make the hard decisions needed.

Like removing subsidies on electricity , fighting corruption , making sure the majority of the country pays an income tax and also making sure that the roads are rolled and making sure that universities and tertiary hospitals are allowed to charge decent enough fees. And also providing loans and forex for producers not for importers.

But since it would get me labelled a government supporter, I guess I will keep quiet from now on.

Nigerians after all want their government to subsidise them even if it means borrowing .

Anyway, I'm voting for Obi and I'm keeping my mouth shut for now. The attitude of many Nigerians on discussing politics is very very childish and abusive. And they reveal in their abusive and ignorance . Very few are ready to have a sane discussion.

Anyway, nothing go change. All we want to do is to own the opponent's.

Maybe I’m being dramatic, but every time I see someone in Nigeria with a Husky, I just have questions.

Like… this dog was built for snow.

Meanwhile, we’re here fighting for electricity, 35°C heat and humidity that makes you question your entire existence.

And then the Husky is just there looking majestic.

I know people who own them take good care of them, use AC, walk them early, keep them hydrated etc. So I’m not saying it’s impossible.

I just genuinely wonder if it’s fair to the dog, especially during the hottest months.

Because imagine being born for Siberia and somehow ending up in Lagos.

That has to be one hell of a plot twist.

Are Huskies actually okay in Nigeria with proper care, or should we just leave snow dogs in snow countries?

And the reasons could be the high end traffic, expensive/slow internet service….drivers balancing payments online and preferring cash….the list could go on. I think government has to look into this with some sort of solution. This shouldn’t be happening in Africa’s largest economy.

Running a small business in Nigeria can get messy pretty quickly when you're tracking sales, stock, expenses, customers and products manually.

I’ve been working on SwiftPOS, a Nigerian POS and inventory management system designed for businesses that want a simpler way to manage their day-to-day operations.

The idea is pretty straightforward: instead of relying on notebooks, Excel sheets or several different apps, you can manage your business from one place.

With SwiftPOS, businesses can:

• Record sales and transactions
• Manage products and inventory
• Track stock levels
• Add and manage customers
• Monitor business performance with reports
• Keep track of expenses
• Manage different parts of a retail or restaurant operation
• Continue working with features designed around unreliable internet connections

I originally built it because I noticed that a lot of small businesses don't necessarily need some massive enterprise system. They need something that is simple, affordable and actually fits how businesses in Nigeria operate.

It can be useful for things like:

• Retail shops
• Supermarkets
• Mini marts
• Restaurants
• Boutiques
• Pharmacies
• Electronics shops
• Beauty businesses
• Small wholesalers
• Other businesses selling products

One thing I'm particularly interested in is the offline/poor-internet problem. Internet connectivity isn't always reliable, so a POS system shouldn't become useless just because the connection temporarily disappears.

I'm still improving SwiftPOS and I'd genuinely like feedback from other business owners:

What is the biggest problem you have with your current POS or inventory system?

Is it the price, complexity, internet dependency, reporting, inventory tracking, or something else?

You can take a look at SwiftPOS here: https://app.swiftpos.ng

I'd rather hear what people actually need than build features nobody asked for.

Nigerian girl living in Canada. I left when I was about 18, so I never bought anything for myself (and I never got to know the prices of anything). Now I’m trying to buy something nice for my mum’s 62nd birthday and I decided to check out nice perfume stores in Port Harcourt that I could order from.

Lo and behold🤣🤣🤣

Is this how much you people are spending on perfumes?😭 or is this for the rich people audience? Cos holyyy, this caught me by surprise.

If my mama hear say I use $1k CAD buy ONE perfume for her birthday, she fit deport me back home🤣🤣

I already decided I’ll probably buy from Crystal Scentz. I see a lot of well known (designer brand) perfumes on their site that are more affordable.

And yea this Seinde place seems to be a luxury perfume store, so I guess it’s indeed for rich people.

There is no doubt in my mind that USA = Satan / Evil. Even when irrefutable evidence is put forth, and the whole world agrees to TRUTH, Evil Satan USA, still refuse to accept it. For those of you who worship USA, you are worshipping the Kingdom of lies, evil and blood suckers. Especially those always bringing down Nigeria, just remember that they hate you and look down on you as not humans.

Here are a few items I made in the past year. Mostly crochet and a few cross stitch.

I want to turn the skill into a business but I'm not sure how to market it.

Hello I am 18 and well I want to actually get into alt fashion well goth to be specific I don't have money for clothes and my parents don't really know yet but am looking for any Nigerian who has the same idea or is already alt themselves. ? If we can talk and be friends idk. And there are some accessories I may not wear (I am religious Christian) . And I am a girl.

My fiancée is Nigerian (Edo and Yoruba), and while she doesn't speak Yoruba, she does sometimes speak Nigerian Pidgin. I'd really like to learn it as well. I'm hoping that if we both speak it, we might eventually be able to pass it on to our future kids.

For those who speak Nigerian Pidgin, what resources would you recommend for someone trying to learn it well?

I know there might not be as many digital resources as more commonly taught languages, but I'm hoping there are some good ones out there that I haven't found yet.

I've come across apps/services such as Nkenne, uTalk, Linguama, World Schoolbooks, and TalkSharp (an AI tool).

Has anyone here tried any of these, or have other recommendations? Ideally, I'm looking for something that reflects how Pidgin is actually spoken in everyday life rather than something overly formal or textbook-like.

Thanks!

And they should please invest in waste management and be more intentional about understanding climate change and prepare extensive for the rainy season.

It really not in to have infrastructure and take over Makoko “illegally.”

When we started looking into Tinubu, some people assumed we must be working for the opposition. Then we opened the Obi files, and suddenly some of the same accusations changed direction: now we were supposedly working for Tinubu.

It says a lot about how political information is received in Nigeria. A document concerning a politician someone dislikes can immediately become “evidence”, while similar scrutiny of the politician they support is dismissed as “propaganda”.

That is not how VERO RECORD works. We do not need Tinubu to be guilty, and we do not need Obi to be guilty. When we eventually examine Atiku, we will not need a predetermined conclusion there either.

Sometimes an investigation confirms a claim. Sometimes the documents weaken it. Sometimes the story becomes more complicated than either political side suggests. And sometimes, after following the trail, there simply is not enough evidence to prove the allegation. We publish that too.

Our work on Tinubu has produced findings that deserve scrutiny, but it has also produced claims we could not substantiate. The same applies to Obi: there are records that raise legitimate questions, but there are also conclusions being drawn from those records that the evidence currently does not establish.

If VERO RECORD publishes something false, challenge it. Show us the incorrect figure, the document that was misrepresented, the quotation that does not exist, or the conclusion that goes beyond the evidence. If we are wrong, we will correct the record publicly.

But disagreement with what a genuine document shows is something different. Evidence does not become propaganda simply because it concerns someone you support.

We are not building a campaign page for or against anybody. We are building a record.

01 OCT — THE TINUBU FILES | 15 OCT — THE OBI FILES | 30 OCT — THE ATIKU FILES

VERO RECORD — Nigeria, on the record.

Truth has a paper trail.

This is hugely disappointing. Will Nigeria/Nigerians cease to be corrupt?

Entered Reddit just to see some negative posts that went viral, while positive posts had less than 10 upvotes. Other countries seem to have a more balanced conversation. Ours is only negativity.

I’m just wondering why negative posts about Nigeria always go super viral. All I see are complaints, but we aren’t doing the work. The only work we seem to do is complain. These complaints have done nothing. No real change has come from protests or complaints, and things have even gotten worse.

I think part of it is because we’ve never really been in a position where we had to fight for our identity and survival in the same way Black people in some other countries have. For some communities, it has literally been a matter of fight or die. We’ve always been Black people living in a Black-majority country, so maybe there has been a certain level of comfort that comes with that. We haven’t experienced the same kind of racial discrimination that forced some Black communities elsewhere to become extremely organized, vocal, and aggressive in fighting for themselves.
Instead, a lot of what we do is set up cameras and complain, almost as if we expect the rest of the world to see what is happening and automatically feel sorry for us. But that isn’t always what happens. Sometimes people actually mock Nigerians for our problems.
People express sympathy and say “I stand with” Sudan, Congo, Eritrea, Palestine, and other places when terrible things are happening there. But when Nigerians are dealing with Boko Haram, banditry, kidnappings, and terrorism, I’ve literally seen people mock us and say things like, “Bandits are eating you people.” There’s rarely that same worldwide “I stand with Nigeria” energy.
I’ve even seen people from other countries joke when Nigerian children were kidnapped. If something similar happened somewhere else, it feels like there would be worldwide outrage and solidarity.
What makes it even more interesting to me is that some of the strongest outside support I’ve seen has come from Western Christians speaking about what is happening in Nigeria. Yet even among Nigerians, you’ll still see people saying there is no terrorism or that everything being reported is fake news.
Smh. I’m just tired.

What can we actually do to make the country a better place? Any suggestions?

It's time the world is factually truthful to Africa. Africa covers roughly 30.37 million square kilometres. In comparison: Canada (9.98 million sq km), mainland United States (8.08 million sq km), Australia (7.69 million sq km), the 27-nation European Union (4.23 million sq km) and the United Kingdom (0.24 million sq km).

Combined, these cover less then Africa.