Nigeria: Nigcomsat1 - An Expensive Dream Aborted?

editorial

The flagship communications satellite (NigComSat1) of the Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited (NigComSat) was launched with fanfare amid an outburst of national pride on Sunday, May 13, 2007 (5:01pm local time). The craft was built by the Great Wall Industry of the People's Republic of China and was sent into orbit from the Xichiang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan Province to showcase the burgeoning trade and economic cooperation between China and Africa. Touted to be the first of its kind in all of Africa, the project was expected to provide broadband Internet and communications services to the public and private sectors and give fillip to the nation's growing profile as the technological hub of Africa and an emerging serious player in the global Information Technology (IT) league.

There is no gainsaying the fact that right from the very beginning the project was highly controversial in nature. There were many people who saw it in a positive light. This group contended that its launch served as a much needed reprieve particularly at a period when the nation was the butt of domestic and foreign angst arising from the flawed April 2007 general elections. Proponents of NigComSat1 also averred that the launch also represented a major milestone in the nation's quest for deploying science and technology to promote sustainable national development and pointed to its numerous likely benefits: provision of reliable, effective and cheaper satellite communication services to subscribers in Nigeria and the rest of Africa; and realizable huge savings in the areas of telephone trunking and data transport services and phone call charges.

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