Can
Nigeria Leapfrog into
the Information Age?
Computers and the Internet have already enabled Nigerians living abroad to form a virtual
community called naijanet whose one thousand members live in the United States, Australia, Japan,
Finland, United Kingdom, South Africa, Namibia, and even Nigeria. At naijanet, we hold daily
discussions on Nigerian-related topics. In the latter instance, the e-mail effectively removes
national boundaries. In fact, ideas generated within naijanet are now published in Nigerian
newspapers.
In terms of future employment, the implication is that a Nigerian contract programmer will not
need an immigration work permit to work in the United States. Conversely, Nigerians living
abroad who are not yet ready to return home can lend their expertise to Nigerian communities,
without being there.
You might wonder “Why have an Internet in a continent where telephone and electricity services
are unreliable?” First, the $1.3 billion Africa ONE project will directly connect Lagos to Europe
with ultra fast fiber optic cables buried underneath the Atlantic ocean. The copper wire used in
the Nigerian telephone system can transmit 48 conversations simultaneously. A fiber optic
cable can transmit 10 million conversations simultaneously. When this project is completed, it
will be unnecessary to use Nigeria’s unreliable telephone system to access the Internet. Nigerians
can use the Internet by making a local telephone call.
Second, communicating by Internet is less expensive than communicating by telephone. It is
sometimes faster and cheaper to travel by road, in spite of our bad roads, than to make a
telephone call between two Nigerian cities. Thus, sending e-mail messages would reduce the need
to make frequent trips and telephone calls.
An e-mail message is 20 times cheaper than a fax message and 100 times cheaper than a telephone
conversation. The low cost of e-mail can put it within the reach of many Nigerian families,
business, and government.
Subscribers pay a flat monthly rate of $5 (and free from some providers) for an unlimited amount
of e-mail to any country. In contrast, telephone owners pay 250 naira, about $3, naira a minute to
call the United States.
It is even much faster to send an e-mail message than mail a letter. The e-mail arrives a few
seconds later. A letter from Nigeria takes up to two months to arrive, if it arrives at all.
The Internet can be used for other things besides e-mail. I receive Japanese radio broadcasts from
the Internet. I read Zambian newspapers on the Internet. I spoke to a friend in England on the
Internet. I read books on the Internet. The list of things that can be done on the Internet is a very
long one.
The Internet contains more information than the world’s largest libraries. Therefore, Nigerians
with access to the Internet can retrieve information from the world’s largest information database.
Since it is cheaper to get connected to the Internet than to buy a television, Nigerians cannot
afford to be left out.
The Abuja Technology Village was first conceived by Philip Emeagwali in this 40-page speech delivered in August 1997 in New York City. [Photo: PHARMACEUTICAL ESTABLISHMENT
of Abuja Technology Village]
African cities that will be fully
connected to the Internet
when the Africa ONE project is completed in 1999.
