Daily Independent (Lagos)
23 October 2008
interview
In 1993, Sunny Ofili was among the 12 Nigerian journalists selected by The Centre For Foreign Journalists on the bill of American government to train on how to function as a journalist in a democracy. While there, late General Sani Abacha and his troops of soldiers struck and one thing led to another and he decided to stay back in the U.S. from where he now publishes 'The Times of Nigeria' in addition to his IT business. In this interview with Deputy Editor (Saturday), Charles Okogene, he reminiscences on his days of struggle in America against Abacha's despotic regime and why he is partnering with Delta State government on IT. Excerpts:
What brought you to Nigeria this time?
I pretty much shuttle between Nigeria and my base in the U.S. This is because I work for the Delta State government as an adviser to the governor on information technology. We are trying to see how we can reposition the state from the point of view of technology by making sure that our schools are well equipped, give our students a head start in technology, and get the processes in our state ministries automated. We are working on all of these and I am glad the governor gave me the opportunity to help implement some of these changes; that is why I am here.
Some years ago, you opened an IT skill acquisition centre, Nigercom, in Lagos, what has happened to that investment?
I ran the place for over five years and because I wasn't stationed, and I had managers who ran the place. Unfortunately, no one can run your business the way you want it especially when you are not there, when it is technology-related and skill-based. The way I would run it is not the way a manager would because it is very technical and, of course, a manager does not have the same experience that I have in the business. But because I have my family in the states and I have to shuttle between the states and Nigeria, I had to suspend it, return to the states and worked for the U.S. government, some top companies. But after doing all that, and like they say, no matter where you are, home is the best, I decided to take up the challenge to assist my state and at the same time impact on people's life. And I am very glad that I have a governor who was kind enough to listen to my proposal on how to move the state forward and gave me the opportunity to come to the state and implement one of some of the things I have learnt overseas. But Nigercom is pretty still much in existence in the states. However, my focus now is primarily on Delta State. We want to make Delta State become the number one in ICT infrastructure in the country and not just that, we want to begin to introduce it to our students; begin to introduce computers to them at least right from secondary school. I give the credit to the governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, for automating the payroll of the state. That is a huge potential for the state to eliminate a lot of waste, a lot of ghost workers and this is the way it is done almost everywhere else in the world. No one receives paper pay slips anymore, everything is automated.
How will this IT project work in schools and in a country where power supply is almost at ground zero?
The power issue is very relevant, because without power, you can't operate your computers but what we have decided to do is that we want to build...you probably might have heard of one laptop per child programme by an MIT professor, Ponte.
The best way to get them introduced to the world of IT before they get into the workforce is to start from very early stage and the stage we have chosen to start this off, is the secondary school level. But instead of doing the one laptop a child that is being promoted the worldwide, we don't have the money because even in the U.S. every child does not have a laptop, what we have decided to do is to build computer labs, the same way they build library of about 30 computers, in selected secondary schools spread across the three senatorial districts and the students will be able to alternate it and use it so that everyone will have access to computer. Instead of having one laptop per child, what we want to do with the computer lab is to make sure every child would have access to a computer; and of course, this doesn't come cheap. With my international contact, we have been able to get some NGOs involved in what we are trying to do. For instance, we have gotten a British NGO, Computer Aid International, to donate some computers and we have about 500 computers waiting for us to distribute to the schools. We were able to sell the idea of what we are trying to do to this British NGO and they plugged into it and gave these computers to Delta State government. We want to pick about five schools from each senatorial zones and use them as demonstration centres after which we can now begin to approach other stakeholders like companies that are domiciled in Delta State, that make money in Delta State to see how they can assist us in doing this. I mean we need generators in these schools to power these computers, we need to have the labs connected to the Internet because what is the value of computer when you don't have access to the very important tool we call Internet where you can do all sorts of research. We are going to work on that, discuss with oil companies in the state, tap into the PTDF fund, discuss with DESOPADEC (Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission), NDDC (Niger Delta Development Commission) to see how they can come to our help. This is not just the state government burden, it is that of all stakeholders. We have gotten a head start with the computer that was donated by the British NGO. With that we will show all what we intend to do and when they see it, there is no doubt that they will fall in love with the initiative.
What about the challenge of personnel?
I will be honest with you, I don't see a challenge of personnel, because what we intend to do with that and it is a well known strategy is that we are going to train the trainers; in the selected schools. We are going to train the existing teachers. We don't need to employ anyone who is a computer expert, no. We will train the teachers on how to use these computers and how they can instruct their students. These teachers will also in turn train other teachers. This is what I specialise on. I am a professional trainer when it comes to computers. And, again, when these computers go bad, perhaps that is where the issue of personnel comes in, in Delta State, we do have the ministry of science and technology that has experts who can assemble and fix computers. So when we have technical issues like changing of memory, process or stuff like that, we can do internally without out-sourcing it to a contractor.
How can you assure us that this project will continue, even after Uduaghan's tenure?
I feel that the students and their parents will make sure that the programme continues no matter who is the governor of the state because, number one, the students who will be the beneficiaries of the project will take the impact of the programme to their parents who in turn will make sure that it does not die. Also you have to remember that those we are training are the same people who will at a later date become the leaders of the state, who will become the senators from the state, House of Assembly members, commissioners, governor. It will be their job to make sure that the project is not discontinued.
How much do you think this project is costing the government?
I tell you right now, it is not costing the government a dime, not a dime. We got the computers for free. Of course, there are some logistics of shipping the computers, which we have to handle but those cannot be associated with the programme. We are hoping that when we get started, stakeholders will come in. PTDF was established primarily to help in such project. It is a technology fund that is supposed to help initiatives like this but unfortunately, PTDF was used for something else. This is what it was established to do; to aid acquisition of technology for schools. What we need mostly is government support and we have the support of the government, the commissioner for science and technology supports it, hundred percent. I would say it is an initiative of Governor Uduaghan himself and if he didn't want it, he won't get to this level. So, I have no fear about the future of this programme.
Despite your assurances, apart from the NGO that has already partnered with the project, which other NGO are you in touch with?
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