31 October 2008
editorial
Lagos — The recent decision of the Enugu State government to contract an indigenous computer firm to install base stations to enable its residents within the four-kilometre radius of the capital to have a 24/7 wireless access to the Internet is an admission of its desire to open up the state to the world.
The people will soon partake of the abundant benefits derivable from the information communication technology superhighway which developed societies have been enjoying for years.
The wireless Internet scheme is therefore indicative that the state officials are in tune with the current trend of growing a knowledge-based economy, which drives today's civilisation.
There is no gainsaying the fact that ICT has unified the world and brought it face-to-face with boundless opportunities in many spheres of life, be it entertainment or serious business.
The internet has provided improved knowledge of peoples, things and cultures of other climes that were hitherto unknown at all or not well known. This singular advantage has largely affected in much civilised ways everyday conversations and serious discourse across the globe.
Without moving an inch this day and age, a researcher in any part of the world can access virtually any informational resource by the click of a button on the computer console.
Also the worldwide web has provided numerous opportunities for investment, learning and employment, which were not imagined a few years back.
It is this global village in which useful information is at the beck and call that Enugu people are keying into through public wireless internet.
Indeed we recommend this scheme to all urbanised nooks and crannies of Nigeria and Africa as a springboard for further transformation of the way we do things and stay at par with our counterparts of the advanced nations.
However, as we had warned in our previous editorial praising the Imo e-village initiative, patterned to tap into the ICT superhighway as the Enugu scheme, we hope the latter is not aimed, as it were, at just measuring up with the Joneses. That will be very unfortunate.
This is because, as was pointed out in the Imo case, there is an infrastructural base that ought to have been put in place. Without it the touted benefits of such worthwhile schemes will hardly manifest in full for the generality to appreciate their essence and then tap the potentials therefrom.
For instance, there is an awful decline in school enrolment nationwide and elsewhere on the continent, especially in the educationally disadvantaged areas of Nigeria to which Enugu State still belongs.
We find it indeed disappointing that years of successive civilian regimes with billions of Naira sunk into the education sector year in, year out have done little to change this rather unenviable toga of under-development.
To worsen matters, public schools are slowly but steadily disappearing due to both government and community neglect, and where they exist are nearly always poorly funded or sparsely equipped.
Adult literacy programmes, which used to complement regular schools, are virtually extinct, in addition to the fact that part-time academic pursuits, which are only available at the tertiary level, have not become widespread enough.
Another critical element, not necessarily in order of importance, is the issue of electricity supply without which computers cannot run. We believe Enugu State is best positioned as the capital is virtually sitting on two natural energy sources - coal and hydro power - to spearhead a regional independent power plant (IPP) initiative of a unique kind, using coal and or hydroelectric power station with Oji River.
Towards this end, the very first step should therefore be to reactivate, on mutually agreeable terms with the Federal government, the dormant HEP station in the state.
In all, it remains a truism that access to affordable PCs is essential in this age. Hence, in view of this landmark project by the Enugu State government, the need to facilitate access to PCs cannot be overemphasized.
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