Return from the bay of the sheikh

Sharm el sheikh means bay of the sheikh

I'm back from Sharm, had a nice time even though i had to attend a conference as well lol.

The Egyptians are a very nice and friendly people (especially the ones trying to flog some dodgy statute of Ramses with a big 'instrument')
Unfortunately i didn't have enough time to visit the pyramids and the Sphinx, as they are hundreds of miles away from Sharm el sheikh (that’s for another trip)

One thing i was slightly surprised about and i don't know if this is just in sharm, was the subservient attitude of the locals to European tourists. I was quite disappointed, come on, you guys were building pyramids, temples and monuments before the rest of the world even had a clue about anything.

Another slightly annoying thing is the lack of respect by European tourists for local customs. Egypt is a Muslim country and it clearly states in most travel brochures/guides that women should wear appropriate clothing. So imagine my surprise when i saw a woman walking around topless at Nabq bay (I admit it was a great sight LOL) but seriously, i thought it was extremely disrespectful and it really makes me wonder what price Egypt is paying for tourism.

Another interesting thing i also discovered was that there are hardly any Egyptian women in sharm and all the people who work in the tourist industry are men, who travel from other parts of Egypt to live in Sharm during the tourist season.


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A Post sElection Analysis 1

I suppose if the elections had gone well, many of us in blogosphere will have spent this week looking at the new set of political office holders and what to expect from them when they assume power next month..

So assuming nothing major happens before may 29 ; ) I'll be looking at some of the characters the 2007 "elections" has thrown up, starting with my favourite state (at least thats what it used to be before Tinubu became governor) - Lagos State

The "new governor" is Babatunde Raji Fashola. Anyone expecting anything radical from him for Lagos has probably not seen his website, http://www.tundefashola2007.com/

clicking on the link to find out 'His vision for Lagos state' all you get is 'This page will soon be updated please check back' . You get the same thing when you click on 'Accomplishments' (none of the pages has been updated since the site launched last year)

Well i guess that sums it up really, it just goes to show you how unimportant 'vision' and 'accomplishments' are in the Nigerian political scene, all you really need is a political godfather (which explains why the site is full of pictures of Fashola with Tinubu)

What to expect:
He is Tinubu's boy so i expect it's going to be 'business as usual'

What NOT to expect:
Any meaningful program like the utilisation of Lagos's waterways for mass transportation or a probe of Lagos state's finances since 1999

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Victims of our own Circumstances

Could Nigeria go Orange?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6587161.stm

There's an interesting point in the above article from Richard Dowden (executive director of the Royal African Society) as to why Nigerians should not expect much assistance from the international community.

[snip]Mr Dowden also doubts there will be any sanctions, simply because it is difficult to hurt Nigeria. "It is not Malawi," he says.
"You can't take their aid away because there isn't any. It's such a huge, powerful country that there is very little leverage that either the Commonwealth or Britain could deploy against Nigeria, and Nigeria is too powerful for other Africans to criticise.

"Nor do I think the Americans will make too much fuss about this because of the oil and Nigeria's strategic significance."[snip]