By Alban Ofili-Okonkw
I have at a very personal level struggled to cultivate an intimacy with ICT. As far back as 1987, I had formed a joint venture company with Chams Ltd (now Plc) called Backup Systems Nigeria Limited to assemble Uninterruptible Power Supply Systems(UPS) in Nigeria as an outsourced service to a US manufacturer.

In 2007, I initiated the supply of Qvoice technology to the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) for the measurement and bench-marking voice quality of mobile networks in Nigeria.

I have only recently been toying with the idea of establishing a social cum political networking platform on the back of mobile telephone lines rather than the Internet.

My rudimentary efforts are reflected in the later part of this presentation and call for the support and collaboration of your fellowship.

At an off-the-record discussion in Abuja during a summer visit to Nigeria last year, a former aide to former US President Bill Clinton noted that Nigeria’s elite were intoxicated from smell of oil and gas and were drunk with political power. He went further to posit that the misuse of political power is  largely responsible for Nigeria’s underdeveloped status in the comity of nations. To the American official, poor political habits such as low awareness and abysmal poor engagement in the political process, clandestinely engineered by otherwise distinguished Nigerians, have conspired to rob the nation of the much needed peace and progress. He reasoned that greater public awareness and inspired political consciousness will inevitably lead to meaningful political engagement in the nation’s political process. He then concluded that for the much desired prosperous Nigerian nation to become a reality, sustainable participatory democracy is imperative.

This way, the nation will be assured of a new power elite that is progressive, modern and Information Technology savvy.

Nigeria, given its strategic importance, is a thermometer with which to gauge the pulse of Africa while the continent has remained a barometer of the whole of humankind and a bye word for backwardness. Vilified as it may, the undisputed fact is that Africa through Egypt is the cradle of civilization.

Historically, Africa finished building the pyramids in 2500 BC. It was 1,700 years before Homer, the Greek writer, began writing “The Iliad”, the European classic. Homer is said to have spent seven years in Africa, and studied law, philosophy, religion, astronomy, and politics. Many of the great European philosophers studied in Africa because it was the educational capital of the ancient world.

Pythagoras is known to have spent over 20 years in Africa. When Socrates wrote of his studies in the book “Bucyrus”, he admitted categorically: “I studied philosophy and medicine in Egypt.” He did not study these subjects in Greece, but in Africa.

Recently, Dr Jackie Campbell, a member of a British research team from the KNH Centre for Biological Egyptology at the University of Manchester, who examined medical papyri dating back to the 1500BC era- a whole 1000 years before the birth of Hippocrates- affirmed that: “Classical scholars have always considered the Ancient Greeks, particularly Hippocrates, as being the fathers of medicine, but our findings suggest that the Ancient Egyptians were practicing a credible form of pharmacy and medicine much earlier.”

Almost every Greek philosopher worth his salt, from the Ionian School consisting of Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus and Democritus to the Athemian School spent time in Africa or their tutors were taught by African philosophers.

In the arena of city planning, Africans/Kemites invented the concept of a province or district which they called “ NOME ”, THE Greeks would later call these “city states”. More importantly, the mathematical system that is the spinal cord of the computer today (i.e. the Binary Mathematical System) was invented by the Kamites (Egypt a.k.a land of blacks) in the BC era.

There is therefore a proven record of Africa’s leadership role in the advancement of humanity and this role needs to be reclaimed. To achieve this, Nigeria must play a leadership role in the modern quest for a relevant, respected, reliable and valuable Africa.

This she must do by ensuring a stable and progressive polity as well as an Information Technology driven socioeconomic environment.

Admittedly, awareness in the political process among the mass of the people is abysmal. With low level mass awareness, it is little wonder that engagement in the political process is half-hearted at best and non-existent at worst. This poor level of awareness and engagement by the generality of the people is symbolic of a failed state.

Indeed, in many discussions, Nigeria is regarded as a museum piece or even a “failed economic state”. High national debt, low returns on capital, high vulnerability to energy and agriculture shocks, and a growing class of the permanently poor all are symptomatic of underdevelopment.

Political power with which the country should be turned –around economically, socially, politically and technologically remains privatized by a tiny cabal and potentates who vest state power in surrogates tied to their apron strings.

Such misuse of power as is common in present day Nigeria negates the principles of collective will and even development on which power pivots. In Latin, the word for power is “imperium” which is largely evocative of the state. Power tends to be viewed in one of two ways, both extreme.

The first is totemic and tactical (how to get ahead at the office, to win friends and influence people). The other is epic and amorphous (the fate of markets, of vast global events and sundry forces). Power is both these things, and more. At heart, it is best understood in terms of command and control. It is either the capacity to make others do as you wish (the command function) or to re-order the environment around you (the control function).

Assuredly, political power in Nigeria has moved from being the monopoly of the landed elite from pre-colonial era through the colonial era when the suffrage was non-existent through the immediate post colonial era, when it was broadened to all beyond the traditional gentry. Now, in the 21st century, the nation is turning over yet again.

The political energy in the country is being harnessed by younger and more diverse groups more than it has been in ages past. Though not yet Uhuru, the indications are that the face of power is changing.

Perhaps, Wright Mills was predicting this change when in 1956 he wrote in his “The Power Elite”:

“The powers of ordinary men are circumscribed by the everyday worlds in which they live, yet even in these rounds of job, family, and neighborhood they often   seem driven by forces they can neither understand nor govern …

But not all men are in this sense ordinary. As the means of information and power are centralized, some men come to occupy positions in society from which they can look down upon, so to speak, and by their decisions mightily affect the everyday worlds of ordinary men and women”. Nigerian politicians and power brokers would probably agree with Mills, at least on the looking-down part.

Today, power in Nigeria and in most part of sub-Saharan Africa is undergoing directional changes that complicate Mills assertion.

Although there are still cultural arbiters with legislators and executives exerting enormous influence, it is a fact that information technology has given the world, nay Nigeria, a more democratic culture than the world has seen since the founding of Athenian democracy. In ways that we are still only beginning to appreciate, information technology, especially the Internet, is changing how power is acquired and exercised.

The recent advances in information technology are becoming central to the process of socioeconomic and political development. Information technology offers new ways of exchanging information and politicking.