This is one of the interview I had like you guys to share with me. It is about how Africa can make a progress in this new millenium.BBC Network Africa interview the Nigeria Computer Giant, Philip Emeagwali.
Think through it.

BBC Network Africa: What can technology do for Africa in the new millennium?



EMEAGWALI: A few millennia ago, Africans were the first to enter the Agricultural Age. The first to build in stones. The first to pioneer in technology.
Today, Africa is behind every continent in technology and as a result is the poorest continent. Technological knowledge can be used to create wealth and alleviate poverty in Africa.

Kwame Nkrumah also said: "Socialism without science is void." Therefore, we cannot reduce poverty in Africa without scientists and engineers.

The lack of technological knowledge is the reason for the wide disparity between the rich and the poor nations. The 500 richest people on Earth has more money than the 3 billion poorest people on Earth. Because the rich nations are getting richer much faster than the poor nations, the gap between the rich and poor will continue to widen.

This gap can be closed African nations focusing on developing an economy that is knowledge and technology based, instead of one that is based on the export of natural resources.

MEDICINE
The present life expectancy in Africa is 50 years. By the end of this 21st century, medical science will make it possible for an African to live up to 150 years. Today, it is impossible for a person to live beyond the age of 125 years.

A child born today could live long enough to see the middle of the twenty-second century. In a sense, African children of today will be time travellers that will live in and connect the twentieth (20th), twenty-first (21st) and twenty-second (22nd) centuries.

Unfortunately, we will find that long life will be a mixed blessing because many Africans will be working to support their grand parents, great grand parents and great-great grand parents.

Therefore, we need to have retirement taxes and will be used to fund social security payments for the elderly. And if life expectancy increases to one hundred years, we will be forced to raise the retirement age to 90 years.

In this century, we expect to make medical discoveries that will cure AIDS and save the lives of 22 millions of Africans that are threatened by HIV/ANDS.

We expect to eradicate malaria and tuberculosis. We expect to eradicate Guinea worm by providing safe drinking water to all Africans.

POPULATION
It is the technology of the 20th century that increased food production, reduced infant mortality rate and increased the population of Africa. A century ago, less than 100 million people lived in Africa. Today, 800 million people live in Africa. Africa cannot ignore to implement family planning.

In this 21st century, Nigeria could become the third most populous country in the world. Only China and India will be larger than Nigeria and the population of Nigeria will be three times larger than that of Russia.

I am the oldest of nine children. Because my parents could not afford to raise my siblings, I brought all my brothers and sisters to live in the United States. If my siblings and I were to have nine children for nine generations while non-relatives of mine have two children, the descendants of Emeagwali in America could form the third largest nation on Earth, behind only China and India.

Five hundred years ago, there were 500 million people on Earth and five million people in Nigeria. It took 10,000 generations for Nigeria's population to reach five million. Yet from my great-grand-father's generation to mine, Nigeria's population has increased from five million to 120 million.

The human species emerged 160,000 years ago. If our ancestors had an average of nine children, the Earth will be so overcrowded that they will have been no room for forests and animals to co-exist with the human race. This means that we would have run out of food a long time ago.

I believe that the main reason the quality of life has not improved in Nigeria, despite our great natural resources, is that our population is increasing faster than our natural wealth. Put differently, if we want the quality of life we see in American television, we must have fewer children than even the Americans.

On the other hand, if we insist that our wives must have six or seven children, then we should make fathers to prepay for their child's education. We should write it into our constitution that the percentage of our national budget devoted to education should be proportional to the percentage of our population that is of school age. One in two Nigerians is in school. Therefore, one in two petrodollars should be invested in education.

Having a large labor force will not be an advantage in the new global economy of the 21st century. The wealth of the future will be created largely by knowledge and technology and not by natural resources and a large population. Therefore, it does not make sense to have a large family of seven children who will grow up uneducated and unemployed.

Since the African economy does not have enough jobs, it will be difficult for the next-generation to afford education, health services, housing and food. Reducing the number of children per family is a requirement for reducing poverty in Africa.

Family planning must be part of the school curriculum in Africa. The best way to alleviate poverty is for each family to have one child and invest heavily in that child's education.

INFORMATION AGE
The rich nations use knowledge and information to create wealth. Africa tries to create wealth by exporting raw materials to the more affluent nations. The lesson we learned from Nigeria is that a massive inflow of petrodollars will not bring an economic prosperity. In exchange, Nigeria spent its petrodollars on aircrafts, cars and swiss bank accounts.

What Africa needs to do is to acquire technological knowledge so that it can export technological products to Europe and the United States.

Africa should reduce its investments in agriculture and industrialization and make long-range plans to leapfrog into the Information Age in which knowledge is the most valuable commodity.

It happened in Ireland. Malaysia plans to do so. Similarly, Africa can leapfrog into the Information Age by having fewer children, investing in education and eliminating military spending.

In the Information Age, millions of good paying jobs will require computer literacy and it Africa should start preparing by focusing on education and technology.

The Internet now makes it possible for an African to be employed by an American company. Many companies will rather pay $15,000-a-year salary to an African professional than pay an American $60,000 a year.

Africa can attract these high-technology companies by investing heavily in technical education, introducing lots of computer courses and producing one million scientists and engineers a year. There are still opportunities in computer programming.

In terms of future employment, the implication of the Internet is that an African contract programmer will not need an immigration work permit to work in the United States.




BBC Network Africa
What kind of technology is appropriate for Africa's development needs?


EMEAGWALI: The kind of technology that creates the most wealth. However, I will like to caution that understanding how to use technology is more difficult and of far greater importance than acquiring. It is dangerous to acquire hunting gun technology without an understanding of the restrict hunting. In Nigeria, all the big game animals have been hunted to extinction. The Nigerian rainforest has been completely destroyed by unrestricted logging for timber. Nigeria cannot have eco-tourism in the future. The only thing left is petroleum and a few minerals. With reckless abandon, we issued unrestricted license to oil companies and "foreign investors" exploit, extract and export our natural resources so that it will be used to further develop the more developed nations. Officially, we claim that we are developing our natural resources. It is a misnomer to claim that we are developing our petroleum resources that were formed millions of years ago. An oil field becomes dry after about 20 years. We can extract and exploit our oil fields but we cannot develop it. The harvest of tomorrow is purchased with the seed corn of today. By mining and exporting our natural resources, Africa is eating the seed corn of tomorrow.
Education and understanding of how to use technology is more important than acquiring the technology itself. Medical technology will give us information about how to reduce infant mortality. But it is education that gives us the understanding that reducing infant mortality without practicing family planning will result in overpopulation and an increase in the level of poverty.

Going back to your original question: What kind of technology is appropriate for Africa's development needs? Africa has been encouraged to focus on low technologies such as the development of solar, hydro and wind energy. Solar panels and wind mills have been and will always be inefficient technology. These low technologies didn't work in the America and will not work in Africa.

As a former civil engineer, I know that hydroelectric dams and reservoirs has negative impacts on the environment and in some instances resulted in the flooding and destruction of historical relics, as in Aswan Dam in Egypt.

Also, low level agricultural technology has not contributed much to food production in Africa. We need to shift from sustainable agricultural technology into computer information age technology.

Since high technology creates more wealth than low technology, Africa should focus on high technology. Sixty percent of the wealth in the developed nations is created from technological knowledge. Since the wealth of the future will be created from technological knowledge, Africa must invest in technological development or risk being left behind.

Computing, communications, Internet are the physical infrastructure of the Information Age. If Africa fails to invest on the latest technology it will be find itself isolated from the global community.

In the global village, nations have to specialize. What we have today is a situation in which Africa provides the raw materials while Europe and America provides the technology, manufactured goods, and capital. By the end of this century, the natural resources of most African countries will be exhausted and Africa will have nothing to trade in the global economy. Africa has to plan for the rainy day when all its natural resources are gone.

Africa must leapfrog from low agricultural technology to high information age technology. Because of high birth rates, Africa has 350 million school children. Like new languages, children can understand computer language faster than their parents, it makes sense to invest in computer education.





BBC Network Africa:
One of our listeners has predicted that an African will be the first person to land on the planet Mars - do you think that might happen?





EMEAGWALI: Yes, an African can be among the first crew of astronauts to land on the planet Mars. I have applied to become an astronaut and NASA sent me a note last week, informing me that my application will be reviewed in January. Even if I don't get selected as an astronaut, I expect an African to be selected in the future and to travel to the planet Mars by the middle of the 21st century.
Space of exploration is now a co-operative project which several countries contribute money and astronauts. The international space station is jointly owned and operated by the United States, Japan, Russia and other nations.

It will cost a trillion dollars to send a person to the planet Mars and the United States cannot afford to make that voyage alone. Therefore it is conceivable that the first astronaut crew to land on the planet Mars will include an African, Asian and a female. In the 21st century, Africa could contribute money and astronauts that will travel to the planet Mars.

We don't go to a planet because we want to be the first race to get there. Americans won the lunar space race by landing the first man on the Moon. The astronauts returned with lunar rocks. When we discovered that the Moon is the most expensive and most useless piece of real estate in our solar system, we cancelled all trips to the Moon.

The exploration and development of the planet Mars is not as important as improving the quality of life on Earth. Landing on Mars is not as important as finding a cure for AIDS or saving the rain forests.

We should be looking towards the Earth in the 21st century and not towards the planets. The Earth is the best place for the human race to live in. Compared to the Moon and Mars, the Earth is a paradise.

Unfortunately, Mother Earth is ill. Her lungs, the tropical rain forests are disappearing. The African rain forest is a paradise and the birthplace of humanity

When the rain forests are gone, many species will be extinct. Since the human race is connected to other species, whatever happens to the trees and animals of the rain forests will happen to the human race. We are merely custodians of the rain forests. We did not inherit the rain forest from our ancestors. We borrowed it from our children.



BBC Radio Producer: Can you see yourself, and other Africans who've been successful overseas, returning to live in Africa in the new Millennium?



EMEAGWALI: The brain drain is a historic as well as a recent phenomenon. Over four centuries, the slave ships brought the ancestors of 200 million Africans now living in the United States, Brazil, Jamaica and in the diaspora. These 200 million diasporan Africans have the highest standard of living and possess the education and skills that can be used to develop Africa but it will be impractical for them to return to Africa.
Today, one in three African university graduate now live and work outside Africa. There are more Sierra Leonean medical doctors in the city of Chicago than in the entire nation of Sierra Leone. Africa's most important export to Europe and the United States is trained professionals, not petroleum, gold and diamond.

It seems like there are more African intellectuals living abroad than within Africa. African officials come to the United States to seek technical assistance from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

According to the United States Census Bureau, Africans are the most educated ethnic group in the United States. Therefore, our leaders can seek technical assistance from Africans living in the United States. Sixty-four percent of Nigerians in this country has one or more university degrees. There are one million Africans living in the United States.

We came to America to study. We planned to return home. But things got worse at home and we decided to remain in America.

It wasn't always like this. When Nnamdi Azikiwe and Kwame Nkrumah arrived in the United States in 1920s and 30s. Back then there were about 20 sub-Saharan Africans in the entire United States. A hundred percent of those that came to the United States returned home. In fact, up till about 1980, most African students returned home.

The widely held myth is that Africa is only exporting raw materials to the west. Africa is also exporting talented human resources to Europe and America. One million Africans are working outside Africa.

At the same time, Africa spends four billion dollars a year on the salary of 100,000 foreign experts. Yet, African nations are unwilling to spend a similar amount of money to recruit one million African professionals working outside Africa.

The problem is getting worse. One in three African university graduate live and work outside Africa. In effect, we are operating one third of African universities to satisfy the manpower needs of western nations.

One third of the African education budget is a supplement to the American education budget. In effect, Africa is giving developmental assistance to the United States.

There are more Sierra Leonean medical doctors in Chicago than in Sierra Leone. At the rate medical doctors are leaving Nigeria, we could eventually have more Nigerian doctors working outside Nigeria than within it.

We also need engineers to help provide constant electricity, clean water and safe roads.

We also need scientists. We use science and technology to discover and recover petroleum. We use medical science to reduce infant mortality rate.

We world has changed a lot in the last fifty years. In today's world knowledge creates wealth. Therefore, we need people with brains, not muscles. Unfortunately, it is the best and brightest that can obtain visas to the United States. What is left behind is the weak and less imaginative. It means that Africa will be getting poorer while the United States gets more affluent.

Put simply, Africa is exporting both natural and human resources. In the end, there will be no resources left within Africa. It means a slow death for Africa.

How can we reverse brain-drain?

We build a data bank of Africans abroad. Then we offer them meaningful employment and compensation that will entice them to return home.

Medical doctors cannot live on a salary of fifty (50) dollars a month. To make ends meet, some medical doctors raise poultry or manage beer parlor.

We need to change our national priorities.

We should stop spending one million dollars a day in fighting in Sierra Leone. One million dollars is greater than the daily salary of one million school teachers. While we are keeping peace in Sierra Leone, some teachers have not been paid their salaries for six months.

We must change our priorities be reducing our defense budget and increasing our education budget.

We must increase our investment in science, technology and education.

As we approach the end of this century, it is appropriate that we reflect on our legacy for our children. In the next century, it will be technological knowledge that will create wealth. Therefore, our legacy to our children will be the investments that we made on their education.

QUOTES AND BELIEVE:

These are part of the quotes that I love so much and it will updated almost everytime,enjoy it.

-A genius is a talented person who does his homework.
-The roots of true achievements lie in the will to become the best that you can become.
Re-evaluate your,your personal standards of quality.Whatever you thought was good enough for now,add 10% more.
-To many engineers,weekly progress reports are among the most disliked tyrannies that have nevertheless managed to remain one of the most valued devices of the profession.
-Mathematicians describe and define,scientists discover and predict,engineers create and solve,but first they have to discover,predict and describe.
-Persistence is stronger than resistance.
-Everyman who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself,to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full,significant,and interesting.
-Thinking is a factory where destinies are made or marred.Thinking is the force behind every outstanding invention.
-The world belongs to those who can think tyhe unthinkable thoughts,see where no one is looking and take action before it is obvious.
-The mind is either a factory or a prison based on how we use it.If you wish to know where you are likely to be five to ten years from now,read the thoughts that are dominant in your mind presently,because with time,you are going to be transformed to be one with those thoughts and images.
-It is in doing small things well that we fix great things right.
-Every big problems was a small problems that wasn't handled on time.
-If you want success in life you must decide what success means to you and set some goals.Make each act of the day successful.This produce a successful day;a series of successful days produce a successful week;a series of successful weeks produce a successful month;a series of successful months produce a successful year;and a series of successful years produce a successful life.Just think of it,It all starts with one successful acts.
-You are the same as you are
going to be in the next five years except for two things:The type of books you read and the people you associate yourself with.

Can Nigeria Leapfrog into
the Information Age?


Philip Emeagwali

As prepared for delivery at the 1997 World Igbo Congress in New York

With letters from the Nigerian Internet community




Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I thank the organizers of this convention for inviting me to share my thoughts with you. On a personal note, I appreciate the invitation to be speaker and guest of honour. But more importantly, I believe that inviting a scientist to speak at this convention is a recognition of the potential role of technology in improving the standard of living in Nigeria and Africa. I would like to share with you my thoughts on how to formulate a strategic plan to launch Nigeria and other African countries into the Information Age, in order to achieve economic development and prosperity. I am particularly interested in the Nigerian Vision 2010 which I believe should have been used as a blueprint for leapfroging our nation from the Agricultural Age into the Information Age. Later, I will propose a three-track approach that will enable Nigeria to invest evenly in agricultural, industrial and information sectors.

For a better understanding of where we are going, we need to retrace our steps. About 10,000 years ago, Africans in the valley of the River Nile entered the Agricultural Age when they discovered that cultivating the soil for crops and shepherding herds of animals would provide more food than just hunting animals and gathering fruits. This leap into the Agricultural Age motivated Africans to develop mathematics, chemistry, astronomy and medicine as tools for the new age. Our advanced technological knowledge enabled us to build majestic pyramids, the tallest buildings in the world for 3,700 years. These pyramids withstood all types of desert storms and still stand today, like the Rock of Gibraltar.

Europeans learned our technology, used it to enter the Industrial Age and became more prosperous than we are. They learned to put capital together and mass-produce consumer goods. Unless Africa leapfrogs into the Information Age, the economic gap between Europe and Africa would widen because Europe is about to enter the age. In other words, to catch up, Africa must take two steps for every step Europe takes.

Many Nigerians believe that our country takes one step backward when other countries such as South Korea, Malaysia, and South Africa take one step forward. This belief is substantiated by the World Bank which now ranks our oil-producing nation as the 13th poorest country in the world; and has declared that the standard of living in pre-independence Nigeria was higher than what exists today. We have indeed, taken several steps backward. While acknowledging that we squandered and mismanaged our petroleum revenues and that we are no longer the "Giant of Africa," we must accept that now is the time for a new Nigeria.



Already we have a master plan --- "Vision 2010," to work with. If we succeed, that will create a better society for our children and future generations.

The Nigerian Vision 2010 was inspired by the six-year-old Malaysian Vision 2020 plan. Shortly after her independence in 1957, Malaysia sent people to Nigeria to learn how to grow palm trees. Today, Malaysia employs Nigerian oil palm experts, produces and exports more than half of the world’s palm oil, and sells palm oil to Nigeria. This is one example of how the best Nigerian minds are helping other countries achieve significant economic growth.

In fact, Malaysia has become so prosperous that its prime minister has projected that the Malaysian Vision 2020 could enable his country to become a developed nation by quadrupling its $9,000 per-capita income by the year 2020.

How did Malaysia, a multiracial nation of about 20 million people, become so prosperous? What lessons can Nigeria learn from Malaysia? What does Malaysia have that Nigeria does not?

Malaysia invested in manpower development through education, while Nigeria invested in a strong military, a new capital city of Abuja, and continues to maintain unprofitable state-run enterprises such as the Nigerian Electricity Power Authority (NEPA), the Nigerian Telecommunications (NITEL), the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the ill-conceived $6 billion Ajaokuta steel complex, and oil refineries that have not solved the problem of fuel scarcity even inside of Nigeria.

Malaysia was thinking long-term while Nigeria was thinking short-term. After comparing the Malaysian Vision 2020 to the Nigerian Vision 2010, I have come to the conclusion that Malaysia is still thinking long-term whereas Nigeria is still thinking short-term.

The Malaysian Vision 2020 includes the development of a $40 billion Multimedia Super Corridor, a 750 square-kilometre (468-square-mile) technological city that will replace its vast oil palm plantations. The Nigerian Vision 2010 yet has no plan to build its technological city. Put differently, Malaysia plans to enter the Information Age by the year 2020 while Nigeria plans to remain in the Agricultural or Industrial Age.

The Malaysians have recognized the emerging Information Age and are poised to enter it based on a strategy that is similar to the one used to send astronauts to the moon. Because the moon is constantly revolving around the Earth at a speed faster than a bullet, astronauts select their flight path so that their spaceship and the moon will arrive at the same location at the same time. Like astronauts, Malaysians have calculated that the Information Age will arrive by the year 2020 and their goal is to bypass the Industrial Age and leapfrog directly into the Information Age by the year 2020.
Similarly, the flight plan for Nigeria should be to land us in the Information Age in the least amount of time. This is important because 60 percent of the wealth of many countries is presently derived from knowledge-based goods and services. In contrast, Vision 2010’s goal is for Nigeria to derive its entire wealth from agriculture and industry. Vision 2010 will make Nigerians the hewers of wood and fetchers of water for those nations that have arrived in the Information Age. My recommendation is that we should not put all our eggs in two baskets, namely agriculture and industry. Since, it is not necessary to become fully industrialized before entering the Information Age, Nigeria should use a multi-pronged attack strategy to enter the Information Age. Therefore, I propose a Vision 2020 for Nigeria in which a greater emphasis is placed on education and technology. Vision 2020 should be a supplement to Vision 2010 and should: (1) be formulated by the year 2000 to help improve the standard of living of Nigerians by the year 2020; (2) enable Nigeria to catch up with Taiwan, Malaysia and South Africa in 50 years; and (3) enable Nigeria to catch up with European countries in 100 years.


How can Nigeria take a quantum leap into the Information Age and catch up with the four Asian tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan)? We must realize that we do not have the resources to do everything we desire. Therefore, we must specialize and focus on doing a few things well.

The 1996 defence budget of Nigeria was greater than its education budget. Fifteen billion naira was spent to maintain an 80,000-man army. Less than fifteen billion naira was spent to educate 60 million Nigerian school children. Money can be saved and military coups discouraged by replacing our career soldiers with an all-volunteer citizen-soldiers or elite part-time National Guards. We should direct 40 percent of our budget to education and 10 percent to technology development.

After the United States defeated Japan in the Second World War, it forced Japan to redirect its resources to non-military areas. The result: Japan became one of the wealthiest nations on earth. Nigeria should never have built a massive army after its independence in 1960 and should have reduced its military strength, as soon as possible, at the end of the Nigerian Civil War (1967-70). Germany, Costa Rica and many other nations have done well without a sizable army. Imagine where Nigeria will be today if all the military budgets since independence had been spent to educate our children.

Our students are taught how to read and write by uninspired teachers who are porly paid. Nigeria’s one million unemployed graduates should be retrained and offered attractive salaries to become primary- and secondary-school teachers.

Education at the primary school level may be considered more important than university education for the simple reason that “Learning Builds on Learning” or “One Thing Leads to Another." A child who did not learn much in primary school cannot learn much in secondary school or at the university level. This is why the developed nations invest heavily in their children’s primary school education.

Since it is unquestionably a better investment to educate a great number of young students rather than a few elite university students, Nigeria should invest more in pre-university education. Adopting a compulsory period of 12 years of formal education will reduce the internal education gap between northern and southern Nigeria and make each one of us more useful and productive to our society.

Where can we find the good leaders for tomorrow? Where can we find the medical doctors to care for us tomorrow? Where can we find the civil engineers to repair our roads?

Education is a life-long process and Nigerians must continue their education at the public libraries. Most Nigerian students can only afford to buy books required to pass their examinations. Nigerians who do not read widely will not be politically aware nor concerned about reducing the moral decay, corruption and injustices in the country and in the world. They will not understand that it is a crime for a police officer to request bribes and a crime to offer bribes to a police officer.

Our 21st century vision should plan for every community to have a well-stocked public library so that our children can expand their mental and geographical horizons. Every library should be equipped with computers and have access to the Internet.

Our 21st century vision should recognize that technology is the engine that drives a nation’s economic growth and that science should be compulsory in Nigerian schools.

Although we live in the Information Age, most of our high school graduates do not understand how dinosaurs lived, how atoms are split, how microchips are built, the importance of DNA, and the pros and cons of exploring outer space. How can we compete in a Information Age when our students cannot differentiate between a television and a computer monitor?

Our 21st century vision should call for the increased funding of science education at the post-graduate level. Nigeria should spearhead the formation of a pan-African Institute of Technology comparable to the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, Thailand. This new institute should (1) be operated on a cost-sharing basis by African nations, (2) have campuses in various African countries, and (3) conduct research relevant to Africa and have research hospitals that make it unnecessary to travel to Europe for medical treatment.

Sponsoring students at the pan-African Institute of Technology would conserve foreign exchange, such as the $40 million a year that was paid by the Nigerian government to American universities in the 1970s. If each African nation were to contribute $40 million a year, we would have $2 billion a year to operate a pan-African Institute of Technology that would be as good as the best universities in the United States, Britain and Canada.

Thousands of Nigerian scholarship recipients, who could not find employment in Nigeria, are making contributions to the United States economy. In 1979, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development estimated that each African professional between ages of 25 and 35 contributes $184,000 each year to the United States economy. Based on United Nations’ estimate, 50,000 Nigerian-American professionals are contributing $9 billion a year to the United States’ economy.

At the same time, 100,000 foreign technical experts are working in Africa. These foreign experts are paid higher salaries than their African counterparts. The foreign coach of the Nigerian Super Eagles was paid $100,000 a year while well trained professionals are paid $600 a year. In other words, “monkey dey work, baboon dey chop.” This low salary is one reason many Nigerian engineers and doctors have fled to countries such as Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe. No nation in the world has been developed by foreigners.


Nigerians are homesick and would like to return home and use our talents, experience, and expertise to develop Nigeria. However, they would like to be offered a salary that reflects their contributions to the nation. Many Nigerians would even relinquish their permanent residency or U.S. citizenship to return home. In Hakeem Olajuwon’s words: "There's no place like home. I will always be from Nigeria."
is morally and politically unacceptable that half of Nigeria’s population will be excluded in the affairs of the nation. Nigeria cannot become as developed as other countries if we continue denying educational and career opportunities to our women. Since Nigeria’s leaders are disproportionately men, it will be difficult for them to build a society that can nurture and utilize the talents of our daughters and sisters.

The contributions of Buchi Emecheta, Onyeka Onwenu and Chioma Ajunwa has proved that when we invest in our daughters’ education we grow as a nation.

Our 21st century vision should plan for Nigeria to compete in the high-tech fields. China launched satellites into space. India is the second leading exporter of computer software in the world. Yet, the average Indian is no more educated than the average Nigerian. Nigeria must get rid of its complex and realize that we can accomplish as much as China or India, if we set our focus in the right direction.

When and how did India get ahead of Nigeria in technology?

During the past 50 years, India invested heavily in technical education, introduced lots of computer courses and produced 250,000 scientists and engineers a year. The large pool of skilled computer programmers attracted many foreign companies, which would rather pay a $15,000-a-year salary to an Indian than pay a $60,000-a-year to an American. Today, India has its own Silicon Valley.

There are still opportunities in contract programming. Over 50,000 computer-related jobs with average salary of over $50,000 a year were created in Manhattan, a borough of the city of New York. That is over $2 billion a year pumped into the economy of Manhattan alone. Similarly, billions of dollars will be pumped into the economies of many cities.

We can pump $2 billion a year into the economy of Nigeria when we start selling our computer expertise the way we now export our soccer players to Europe. The reason is simple. Unlike natural resources, the high-technology industry is man-made and can be located in those countries that had the foresight to produce the best scientists and engineers. Information and knowledge are more valuable than money, automobiles, or petroleum. Brain-power, not natural resources, will be the basis for the economy of the 21st century.

Computers and the Internet will increase the productivity of African workers and therefore create wealth for the society. Why travel to Taiwan to purchase goods that can also be purchased over the Internet? Better still, why import from Taiwan what we can manufacture in Nigeria?



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.






African cities that will be fully connected to the Internet when the Africa ONE project is completed in 1999.





Why should Nigeria invest in the software industry? Because that is where the development, empowerment and money is. Computer industry is a trillion-dollar (yes, that is a “T”) market. Today, the richest companies in the world are in the computer industry.

Half of the ten richest men in the United States made their money from computer related-industries. Bill Gates, a 42-year-old computer entrepreneur, is worth $40 billion. In fact, Mr. Gates has enough money to cover 1996 Nigeria’s national budget twenty times over!

The United States has hundreds of unknown computer programmers who are wealthier than Moshood Abiola. Sanjiv Sidhu, a 39-year-old Indian immigrant computer entrepreneur, is worth $716 million and employs many Indian computer programmers earning a $65,000-a-year salary.

How can Nigerians at home and abroad make a living in the computer field? We must make 20-, 50-, and even 100-year-plans. It is impossible to get rich overnight in this field.

First, since we do not have the money to properly educate our children to compete in a modern high-technology world, we must implement a disciplined family planning that advocates and encourages each family to have only one child. An only child will receive far better education than a child with five brothers and sisters.





Second, we must overhaul our universities and polytechnics to enable them to produce 200,000 well-trained scientists and engineers each year. These engineers should be hired by NEPA to bring us constant electricity, NITEL to bring us reliable telephone services, and NNPC to discover and recover more oil.

Third, the computer industry rewards creativity and penalizes conformity. We must encourage creativity and produce an entrepreneurial work force. Nigerian culture encourages conformity, deference and respect for elders, teachers, and leaders. Outspoken journalists have been imprisoned for expressing their political beliefs. As a result, Nigerian editors are afraid to write the truth for the people. Nigerian politicians lack the courage and conviction of Nelson Mandela and are afraid to probe military officers for corruption. Fela Anikulapo-Kuti sang: “Awa people dey fear too much. We dey fear for dey thin we no see.”


Fourth, we must have a technological Cyber Corridor, an approximately 300-square-mile region allocated for information industry workers such as computer programmers, video-games designers, and Web-site developers. Nigeria should collaborate with OAU and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in developing the proposed Cyber Corridor.

We should entice the big multinational infotech companies such as Microsoft, Netscape, IBM, Sun Microsystems, British Telecom, Motorola and Sony to Cyber Corridor by developing the infrastructure such as fiber-optic cables, good roads, safe water, constant electricity, reliable telephones, good schools, modern hospitals, quality housing, leisure and entertainment facilities. In addition, we should permit foreign information technology companies to operate tax-free, bring in highly trained foreign workers, liberalize our laws to allow foreign investors to repatriate some of their profits with less protocol, assure the personal safety of both indigenes and foreigners, rectify our image as the most corrupt nation on earth, ensure political stability by eliminating coups d’etat, and train the workforce for the new Information Age.

The Cyber Corridor could become the Hollywood of Africa, where information technology is used to produce educational and entertainment shows. Today, most movies, television game shows, documentaries and dramas shown in Africa are produced in Hollywood or Beverly Hills. They do not reflect Afrcan tastes, values and culture. Information technology will enable African producers to enrich our lives by weaving our glorious history, legend and folklore into movies.

The African Cyber Corridor could be the technological capital of the continent, the regional headquarters of major infotech companies, and a source of cheap labor that could draw jobs away from California’s Silicon Valley. Other nations want to want to build their technological city. India has built its Information Technology Park. Egypt is building its Pyramid Technology Park. Israel, Taiwan and many other nations are planning to build their technology cities.

We must connect major cities to the Internet with at least a 10-gigabyte digital optical fiber backbone which would simultaneously allow us to place more reliable telephone calls and avoid Nigeria’s unreliable telephone system. Ten gigabytes would allow us to e-mail a copy of the Nigerian national anthem to every African by the time you say “Arise, O compatriots.”

The list of things to do is actually longer. I have discussed a few that Vision 2010 did not address adequately. These should be included in the proposed Vision 2020.

Again, we Africans were the first to enter the Agricultural Age. The first to build in stones. The first to pioneer in technology. The Greeks learned our technology and taught it to the western world. Two thousand years later, the West is leaving us behind as it prepares to enter the Information Age and the third millenium. We must hurry to enter the Information Age.

Let us not be the last country to live in the Agricultural Age and poverty. We must soar with the wind of good fortune, like the eagle, to where the real wealth of nations is. We must adopt a quantum-leap strategy to catch up with Europe.

Vision 2010 should be more than an economic blueprint. The lesson we learned from the 1970s and the 1980s is that a massive inflow of petrodollars will not bring an economic prosperity that will spread and permeate to all levels of our society. Vision 2020 should include those intangible but precious elements that will enable a Nigerian to live a satisfying life. Thus, we must grow along several dimensions.

One, we must grow politically by eliminating the army and coups d’etat while empowering the people to choose their leaders.

Two, we must grow democratically by creating a society in which the emphasis will not be on individuals or leaders but on building and developing our communities.

Three, we must grow psychologically by restoring the faith and confidence of the Nigerian people in our leaders.

Four, we must grow spiritually by having a society in which African traditionalists, Christians and Moslems can practise their religions with mutual respect for each other’s.

Five, we must grow socially by reducing crime and corruption, creating a new Nigeria in which government officials do not demand bribes from citizens.

Six, we must grow morally by encouraging honesty and not singing praises to embezzlers.

Seven, we must grow artistically by leaving a legacy comparable to the carvings from the Benin Empire, the terra cotta sculptures of the Nok culture, and the bronze vessels of the Igbo-Ukwu civilization.

Eight, we must grow culturally by creating a less repressive society in which women are encouraged and empowered in all areas of education and society.

Ladies and gentlemen, we must ensure that Nigerian children are properly educated. When we invest in our children, we will find that our standard of living grows, too. We should invest in education and technology not because it is easy, but because our children will be the beneficiaries tomorrow of the decisions, we adults, make today. Investing in education and technology will be our legacy to our children; because it will bring the best out of them as well as all Nigerians and enable us to reach our potential as individuals, as communities, as a nation.

Thank you very much.