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Posted by rana on September 07, 2002 at 23:28:35:
In Reply to: Re: Why I Want to Be An Engineer, A Lame Giant Waiting To Soar. posted by Vincent Edward on May 29, 2002 at 14:28:32:
appriciate your love for your mtherland, wish my country men, had a similar vision,
engineer by education,
indian by birth,
rana
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: : Why I Want To Be An Engineer
: : I sometimes wonder, could it be magic that for instance, with a little toy in your hand you could speak to someone thousands of kilometers away, or just at the click of a button send a message to thousands of people? Think of sitting in front of a screen and watching people millions of kilometers away doing their thing. I’m not only interested in understanding and knowing, I’m fascinated and would like to be a player.
: : I know that technology is a wealth builder. It’s not just an index of development; it’s a catalyst of development and the engine of economic growth; and the new economy is about knowledge, capital and technology. The internet for instance is a goldmine worth far more than the oil fields of the Nigerian Niger Delta. It’s a trillion dollar resource, yes trillion. Malaysia for example, a country that forty years ago was like Sudan of today, has her average citizen earning forty times what an average Nigerian earns yearly; not from her natural resources but from information technology. All around me is abysmal poverty and despair. Africa generally is a virgin land utilizing less than four per cent of the internet, the world’s grandest public utility. Again, it took the United Kingdom the first industrialized nation 58 years (1780 – 1838) to double their per capita income but with vast technology China doubled theirs in 10 years (1977 – 1987) thereby achieving international prestige and prosperity.
: : All our bountiful endowments are meaningless without the skills to harness them for our benefit. My people must embrace technology, and it must be by people who know. My training will expose me to the means of utilizing and optimizing the use of technology for our peculiar needs. As an electronics engineer, a magician if you like, I will have skills to design systems that will make the greatest number of people informed, conquer their ignorance which has kept them bound, poor and miserable for so long and expose them to the use of this information. .
: : Apart from being a professional electronics engineer, I wish to spend the later part of my life being a career social engineer, helping people help themselves. I’d cherish having the privilege statesmen have to impact immensely in teaching, helping, aiding, facilitating a system that supports the greatest number of people discover themselves, and the immense inestimable resources in them and utilize them to the fullest; for it is in this that we find fulfillment. Only fulfilled people are happy and have pleasure living, for so it ought to be; then the world will be a better place to live in, for us and our children yet unborn.
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: : SESUGH AKUME
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: : A Lame Giant Waiting To Soar
: : Nigeria is a great country there is no doubt about that; empirical and non empirical data abound to prove that she is blessed with all it takes to achieve greatness, most of all the quality of humans or human resources. Nigerians are immensely talented people, a most resourceful people. All over the world, in all areas of human endeavour Nigerians excel beyond par. Phillip Emeagwali Father of the Information Age who coined the term “information superhighway” referring to the internet designed a computer program that makes over a billion additions in just one second! The fastest in the world. He is so good he has to be Nigerian. The Father of Robotics and one among the top three industrial engineers in the whole wide world, who was last year given a very special and distinguished award in the U.S. in his field Bart Nnaji is Nigerian. He developed a most unique modeler system for the design of aircraft surfaces and computer chassis. Chinua Achebe the literary genius has more than thirty honourary doctorate degrees from universities all over the world in appreciation of his worth.
: : Some may think these and many more are excelling elsewhere, but world records large being set here in Nigeria. The Holy Ghost Convention of the Redeemed Christian Church of God in December 1998 recorded a total number of eight million people in attendance from the world over, the largest gathering of mankind after the Tower of Babel. Living Faith Church (Nigeria) is recognised to be the body with the highest record of giving, even higher than Rotary International, their Faith Tabernacle is a stadium as it were a fifty thousand seater without a single pillar! The eight wonder of the world built in Nigeria by Nigerians and of course, Bishop David O. Oyedepo is recognised by the International Biographical Centre as a most intelligent man in earth. Seven years ago banks crashed, most were liquidated, today those that crashed and are recovered are doubling their turnover with newer ones springing up daily. Chike Obi a septuagenarian last year dissolved the three hundred and sixty year old Fermat’s mathematical puzzle. Just like Oviemo Ovadje an army colonel stunned the world with his Emergency Autologous Transfusion Set EAT-SET used in recovering blood from patients during operations and reinfusing after. A team of WHO consultants acclaims it after testing at the University of Geneva Hospital as being five times more efficient than the known version.
: : According to Transparency International Nigeria was the second most corrupt nation in the world in 1999; the most corrupt in 2000 and the second most corrupt in 2001. A similar report posits that over two hundred billion US dollars have been embezzled from the national coffers since 1960. A World Bank report of 1996 says Nigeria presents a paradox; the country is rich her citizens are poor. Also a report of October 2000, Human Development Index HDI shows Nigeria is not only one of the poorest countries but one of the worst places to live on earth and one of the most inefficient states in modern history. It predicts that if corruption is zero and our economy grows by six percent annually in the next eighteen years Nigeria could be in the category of well off African countries, but the Federal Government’s proposed budget speech of 2002 shows inflation increased from 6.9% at the end of 2000 to 16.6% by June 2001. Another report shows that our best minds are developing other countries and the brain drain is not only massive it is increasing daily. For instance, the U.S. Census Bureau said in 2000 that Nigerians are the most educated ethnic group in the U.S. In 1979, the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development estimated that each African professional between ages 25 and 35 contributed $184,000 to the U.S. economy yearly. Of the estimated two hundred and fifty thousand Nigerians in the U.S., up to a hundred thousand people fall in this category that’s totalling about $18.4 billion. Adjusting for inflation over twenty years and including Nigerians in Canada, Europe and Asia, we’re talking of a heart-rending $100 billion lost in brain drain yearly!!
: : Most definitely we are our worst season. This is what excites CNN, BBC and co to cover about us, however, one thing I know, a season of change is coming. Any wise man that falls first looks back and then forward Nigeria is not the worst case in history. A time was, forty years ago when South Koreans could not get barks of trees to eat for food! Today, their per capita income is ninety times Nigeria’s. If it took the Occident and US two hundred and thirty years to industrialise and be technologically great, and the “Asian Tigers” thirty years, it will not take Nigeria and African thirty years once the ball gets rolling. An African Renaissance is coming, the Third World will shine. Singapore, the most corrupt free and efficient state will come to learn from Nigeria, Switzerland will send her best bankers to come and learn banking here. I already see the storm gathering.
: : Now may be the worst tempest, but this I know, and please mark my words, due season will soon come.
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: : SESUGH AKUME