ICT Wonders

Dear Mom

Before you left us I was unable to get a telephone. I wonder what you and all our "Elders Gone" would say or do today when you see and use and hear and behold what we now enjoy! It is called Information and Computing or Communications Technology, ICT. By the way, this revolution happened upon us with inputs - believe it or not - from several geniuses, including our very own Phillip Emeagwali. He is your son too o!, because he and I are age-mates: for, while you had me in Warri, his mother soon did in Onitsha side - down the road, from River Niger!! This very great Nigerian has been described as one of the "Fathers of the Internet" - that network of powerful super-computers which makes it easy and breezy, secure and obscure, tricky and prickly, snazzy and sleazy for the whole wide world to interact, trade, invent, fight and commune in a web!!!

Before I forget, ma, I got my first telephone line sometime in 1980/1 - not too long after your 1979 departure. That happened by a combination of time & place: I was transfered to Falomo in Ikoyi as a lending officer, in what was then our "elite" branch at the United Bank for Africa. That was where several top expatriates, powerful Nigerians, diplomats & their missions, as well as the new wave politicians, especially the federal legislators, banked. Not to put too fine a point on it, I must affirm that I made some of my best and life-changing contacts and friendships, including some career-threatening envy and "bad-belle", from that strategic posting. Because of the good values you planted in us, painfully and dutifully from after Papa's translation in 1963, and my good fortune in being identified early for special grooming by my bosses (both whites & blacks!), Falomo was where to be!

Customers and colleagues saw through my innocence and innovativeness. They trusted and taunted me. They loved me. This was the era of forex deals, crowded banking halls, TV stars and the first political transition...from Obasanjo to Shagari, etc. Bankers were powerful, and some got particularly "prosperous"! But, Mama, I stayed with my pay, with staff official loans, with my faith, and what some of you called my "charm" - I say, my humanity! No magomago, no wuruwuru!!! And it forever paid off. It still does....

To cut the long story short, I got my Post Office Box 51389 and eventually my first telephone 524936. These two "blessings" - as they were, then - came to be because of my being in Ikoyi. First, by location, and by motivation, and by my status/contacts. Things were pretty tough those days, and these "post & telecommunications" assets became real ASSETS to me and my siblings: Like when Ibukun (Arthur Onoviran) was involved in the oil workers and civil rights battles against the brutal Abacha dictatorship, and the June 12 struggles, or Funmi (Phoebe Onoviran, now Molokwu) as a student traded in "essential/scare commodities! The telephone was a hot line for local and international media at the height of the workers revolt - the Days of the Trenches! Mama, you should be proud of the courage and commitment of your son, Arthur in those annals. He was with the Kokoris, Tinubus, Adeniji-Adeles, Gani Fawehinmis, Falanas, Agbakobas, the Ojos, the Utomis, the toughest Nigerian journalists, et al. He also ended up in exile! That story is for another day.

Today however, the story be different. In just six years of doing the right thing (okay, of almost doing the right things), almost anyone can now own or have access to a phone. Yes, mostly cell or mobile...but that will change: The next wave will be land-lines, on optic fibre and satellite networks. How times change!

But the most exciting part of the ICT Wonders is how we now communicate, educate and even entertain "globally & instantly" - warts and all. We gain and pain at once! For example, there is so much good stuff on the internet you want to stay online forever! And, pray, there is so much OTHER stuff there too you want to shut it down (hahaha!), or at least police da super-highway: CyberCop!!! Recently I was forced to outline my thoughts on the growing content and contempt of the so-called "Adult" sites. They are heavy audacious, Mama, I dare not tell you what be on! I am still struggling to continue/conclude my piece on it. Tough. We must praise ALL the cops and crusaders that try to sensitize the world to the huge and heinous dangers that bad guys/bad stuff pose to our kids and the vulnerable...on da world wide web! Kudos.

I like to say, however, that the good overwhelms the bad. Besides, the internet is HERE! Let's make it swell.

Love
Dayo