Can Nigeria Leapfrog into
the Information Age?

by PHILIP EMEAGWALI

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.




The Abuja Technology Village was personally conceived by Philip Emeagwali in August 1997 in this 40-page speech. Ten years later, the Nigerian government approved its funding. [Photo: CABLE STAYED BRIDGE FROM AIRPORT EXPRESSWAY of Abuja Technology Village]

 

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.




Philip Emeagwali, biography, A Father of the Internet, supercomputer pioneer, Nigerian scientist, inventor










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