Jaajef M.Sedi,

Maybe the answer to Mr Akhigbe's complaints
about low internet usage in Africa is not unrelated
to the posting by M.K.Saidy about: "70% Nigerians
live below poverty line". Whilst we can see the
advantages of the internet, maybe for most people
access to running water, school and education is
more of a priority.

Yeendu ak jaama

Tony

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>> "M. Sedi" <[log in to unmask]>
12/May/1999 09:45pm >>>

Wednesday, May 12, 1999

Akhigbe decries Africa's low internet patronage

>From Sunny Aragba-Akpore, Abuja

AFRICAN countries would continue to be
marginalised by the
rest of the world unless they quickly embrace the
uses of
internet and join the global village, Vice Admiral
Okhai Mike
Akhigbe said yesterday in Abuja.

Speaking at the opening of the first African Internet
Summit
holding at the ECOWAS Secretariat in the Federal
Capital city,
he said the world is moving at a very fast pace and
unless
African countries imbibe the internet as a way of
life, they
will suffer stunted economic development as a
result of their
inability to accept and apply those new
technologies.

Except for the local academic communities,
individual
enterpreneurs and international organisations that
have
embraced the uses of the internet, there is a
general low
level of usage in the continent.

"Some observers have expressed the fear that it
will only
accelerate the marginalisation of Africa, as the
pace of
growth accelerates even more and the resultant
gap between
developed and under-developed would become
more profound",
Admiral Akhigbe added.

Experts have observed that African countries
occupy the lowest
rung of internet users as the continent accounts for
only
800,000 or 0.54 per cent of the global internet user
population estimated at 150 million. The United
States (USA)
has about 79 million users, Europe (34 million) and
Asia/Pacific about 24 million.

"These statistics about Internet in Africa are not
only
revealing but also disturbing", he lamented.

The CGS, however, blamed this low usage on a
number of
factors. As he put it: "While most developing
countries are
experiencing fairly rapid extension and
modernisation of their
telecommunications networks, Sub-Saharan Africa
has a stagnant
teledensity over the last 10 years."

This teledensity remains at less than 200 persons
to a
telephone line. This is contrary to the International
Telecommunications Union (ITU) prescription of a
maximum of
100 persons to a line.

According to Admiral Akhigbe: "Most of the
telecoms network is
analogue and many sections are highly unreliable
especially
during the rainy season and since the utility of the
Internet
depends to a great extent on the quality of
underlying
telecoms infrastructure, the poor quality of the
network
remains a basic impediment to rapid development
in this area."

He said, African nations should coordinate a
project that
would link all of them together thereby bridging the
gap for
information flow.

The chief executive of the Nigerian
Communications Commission
(NCC), Chief Ogbonna Iromantu, whose
organisation hosted the
summit, dwelt largely on the uses of the Internet.

According to him, the convergence of computing
and
telecommunications has unleashed the technology
of the
Internet "which is bound, in the long run, to change
the way
we conduct our everyday life and business, ranging
from
education, the practice of medicine to the conduct
of business
and trade".

Iromantu called for the restructuring "of our laws
and conduct
of politics and governance in order to influence our
use of
the Internet".

He said the NCC has been motivated by the fact
that Internet
business will exceed over $1 trillion by the turn of
the
century and will change both the global economy
and the
political arena.

According to him: "All experts are firmly agreed on
this and
Africa is relevant", adding that the question is
"how" Africa
can be connected and not when because "the time
is now".

Science and Technology Minister Maj.-Gen. Sam
Momah,
Communications Minister, Air Vice Marshal Canice
Umenwaliri,
his Ghanaian counterpart and former classmate to
the CGS,
Commander PMG Griffith, were among dignitaries
at the
occasion. There were also Permanent Secretary,
Communications
Ministry, Dr. Jantiku Mamza and the Chief
Executive of the
Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL),
Prof. Buba Bajoga
and his Nigerian Mobile Telecommunications
Limited (M. Tel)
counterpart, Alhaji Ismaila Mohammed. Others
include former
Communications Secretary, Chief Oluwole
Adeosun, pioneer
Chairman of NCC, Chief Teju Oyeleye and former
Petroleum
Resources Minister, Chief Don Etiebet.


                        -- THE GUARDIAN --