Information trackway and information traffic - steps towards connectivity in rural Nigeria

Author : Pamela McLean
Date added : 2002-04-15

Brief Project Background

This project is mini-project within a larger project. To understand the mini
project you have to know the history of the larger project, how it started,
how it was nearly destroyed and then how this project emerged to try and take
things forward once again. You also need to know something about the late
Peter Adetunji Oyawale, the founder of CAWD (the Committee for African
welfare and Development). It was his vision and determination that started
the project and his untimely violent death while working on the project that
nearly fragmented the vision beyond recall.

The vision is about sustainable development enabled through the appropriate
use of ICTs.

In October 2000 Peter left the UK for a prolonged visit to his homeland of
Nigeria. He took with him a van, loaded with £18,000 of equipment, paid for
by loans and hard earned family income. It contained computers, photocopiers
and other equipment familiar to him in his everyday life in the UK where he
had been earning a living installing computer systems. He was taking it back
home to Oyo State. He intended to set up a system to start serving the needs
of people back home. It was something he had planned for years, hammering out
details with his network of contacts in rural and urban Nigeria, in the UK
and in the world wide African Diaspora.

When Peter set out he left behind supporters in the UK, especially his wife
Agnita, and a family friend, Pam McLean (the narrator of the story). Agnita
and Pam were both teachers by profession, and formal members of CAWD. Before
Peter left Pam helped him to start a web site for the project, including
photos and CVs of the Nigerians back home who had pledged their support.

Peter emailed Agnita and Pam on the progress of the project while he was
away. All was going well although communication was difficult. He could only
make contact when he was in an urban area. Even then the telephone lines were
unreliable and frequent power cuts made things even more difficult. He sent
tantalising scraps of information. He had got some things on video. He had
had successful meetings with farmers, teachers, university staff, local
business people and administrators. He was establishing an office and
training centre. People were getting organised The local press was supportive
Things were taking off.

Then came the shocking email just before Christmas. Peter Adetunji Oyawale
was dead. Please would Pam tell Agnita. There had been an armed robbery. He
had been shot. Gradually it emerged that the murder took place after the
final formal meeting that Peter had scheduled before returning home. Details
remain unclear. Police took the van and his personal effects. The murderer
has not been found. The equipment he took out has never been recovered. But
his ideas have not died. The network he was creating was fragmented but not
destroyed.

Two months later, people whose lives had been touched by Peter gathered, for
his burial service, in his birthplace of Ago-Are, in the rural area of
Oke-Ogun. Testimonies were given, hopes and fears were expressed. People met
who would otherwise never have met each other. There were many declarations
that Peter's work should not die with him.

Those declarations were the starting point for the mini project described in
the story. Peter had lived an unusual life and left a remarkable legacy.
There was a vision for livelihood opportunities, education, health, and much
more, enabled by the appropriate use of ICTs. .He wanted to develop a
universal free radio college, broadcasting in local languages. This was to be
integrated with Community Digital Information Centres. The information
content would be guided by local needs.

There were no resources but there was a cross cultural group of people with
fragments of his vision and varying commitments to make it happen. Over the
next year we could explore if the foundations were firm enough and the vision
clear enough to make progress. This is the mini-project of my story.

Although we look forward to building a proper digital bridge into Oke-Ogun we have to start from where we are. The mini-project of re-establishing the project and seeing if it can he moved forward used the ICTs currently available, building on what Peter started and with a long term vision for something far more ambitious. Without Peter we found ourselves in a situation faced by many development projects - a digital gap that was also a huge cultural gap. We had to find out if we could bridge it and work together.

The locations and communication technologies involved vary. They range from a house in South East London with an internet connection, where much of the web research and such like is done, to a dusty street corner in rural Nigeria where a town crier called local farmers to one of Peter's meetings, beating an agogo (a kind of bell with no clanger) to attract their attention.

There are other information and communication technologies used by the project too. Video recordings of meetings are a valuable way to record what goes on where, and to share that information more widely. Independent video-cameramen are easy to find and hire in Nigeria. Our website can reach a certain audience on the connected side of the digital divide. Telephones enable contact between the UK and urban Nigeria but do not include the rural areas. The same is true of email. Web searches provide us with information, but only on the connected side of the digital divide. For people working on the project in Nigeria email access is hard enough, web access is virtually impossible. For them the only real access to WebPages is through printouts produced in the UK and physically delivered, in batches, to Nigeria. Informal and formal interpersonal networks are a vital communication channel in rural Nigeria - regular social gatherings at markets and places of worship, local government and business networks, motor cycle courier services and so on. Photos sometimes prove useful. There is even a place for letter writing - usually done on a page torn from an exercise book, and sometimes delivered by hand from one continent to another (cheaper and more reliable than the postal service). Letters are sometimes written by a second party, in English for a Yoruba speaking person who has never mastered English and has never been taught to read or write in their mother tongue.

A prototype solar powered wireless email bureau may soon help to provide a solution to some of our communication problems in the rural area.

Radio broadcasts are set to play an increasing role. It was key to Peter's vision that everyone should be included, not just the advantaged literate English speakers. His heart was always with the disadvantaged grass-roots people. He saw a future where his beloved 'ignorant peasants' would be listening to the CAWD universal free radio college while they were toiling in the fields. He had found little radio receivers that fit in the ear and would not interfere with hard physical labour. The radio college was to be part of an integrated information system, including Community Digital Information Centres. We have laid more foundations to get that started.

The story of the mini-project is a personal story I apologise for that, but I know no other way to tell it. I came away from Peter's funeral convinced that I must do what I could. If people in Nigeria still wanted to move the project forward and cross the digital divide then I would give all the support possible, just as I would have done for Peter. In my mind I gave it about a year to see if it seemed to have a future. We have done the year and made progress.

First I needed to find out who really meant it about continuing his work. This involved chasing up old contacts that Agnita and I knew to be involved and new ones that Peter had mentioned during his trip .to Nigeria. Letters and emails were written, some were a complete waste of time, some provided useful additional information but ultimately led no-where. Some were productive. Three people whose details I had put on the website as offering support for the project emerged as the key people to work with. They are Mr, now Chief, Adetola, Chief Gbade Adejumo and Chief Mojoyinola.

Chief Adetola is from Ago-Are but has a long established business in Ibadan. Peter often phoned him there, speaking in Yoruba. He seemed to know everyone and could arrange things over long distances in Oke-Ogun, despite the complete lack of telephones there. Peter once introduced us over the phone, and we met subsequently at the funeral Now Dare Adenuga, one of Peter's Yoruba speaking friends in London, phones Chief Adetola on CAWD's behalf. Nigerian phone calls are difficult and expensive, but every now and again that person to person contact is essential to pick up on little details and concerns.

Mr Adetola introduced me to Chief Gbaade Adejumo. He was gracious and patient when I confessed I had not caught his name. He took out a web printout of the photos and CVs I had done for Peter, and reintroduced himself from there. We exchanged email addresses then. The ability to exchange detailed emails with him has been an essential element in the continuation of the project.

Chief Gbade Adejumo. has always encouraged me in the work that I do for the project, and built up my confidence in gradually taking on Peter's role as director. He responds in detail to the web printouts and guides me in what information I should be sending. The information he has had from the web has increased his understanding of the potential benefits of connectivity and developed a sense of urgency in getting Oke-Ogun online and across the digital divide,

Chief Mojoyinola is not in regular contact with the UK but is active on the project in Nigeria.

Once I discovered the key people I then needed to tell them the reality of what I could and could not do to support them. No money tree. No big organisation. Not much more than me and my computer offering some kind of contact across the digital divide, plus detailed information about what Peter had wanted to do. I explained that I had been helping Peter in his role of 'local champion' I sent web printouts and DFID booklets to explain what that meant. Without a replacement 'local champion' there would be nothing..

Chief Adetola, Chief Gbade Adejumo and Chief Mojoyinola accepted the new role of local champion. They formed a committee taking its name from Peter's plans for local development - Oke-Ogun Community Development Agenda 2000 Plus.

They also invited Timothy Oyawale to join them.. He is Peter's uncle, and was at the meeting for farmers called by the town crier. It was a meeting where Peter explained his ideas for practical ways that the farmers could improve their circumstances.

Their work, and their initial courage in continuing, is bringing others back to the project. It should he recognised that the circumstances surrounding Peter's death were closer to a planned killing than to a random death during a robbery. The motives may have been personal, but equally they could have been an attack on his work. There was considerable personal risk in being the first people in Oke-Ogun to try to progress his vision.

The results of our work, during the past year, are given in following sections of the story.

Results

We have been working for one year. We now have a strong cross-cultural team, with a shared commitment to rural community development enabled by appropriate use of ICTs. We intend to continue. We have clear long term goals and manageable short-term objectives. We have taken initial steps towards realising them. We have initiated two more mini-projects to come on stream later this year, which are described in more details below. We have more mini-projects 'waiting in the wings' depending on the interest and resources we manage to attract.

The team members are learning from each other, and from experience, the practicalities of establishing an effective information system for our purposes. We think of this in terms of the infrastructure and equipment (the information highway) and the useful information that will flow through (our information traffic) During the first year it has been a mutual learning and teaching experience with the emphasis on building trust and a shared vision. This has been particularly important because of the untimely death of the founder of our project. This year has been the decisive year. Our mini-project was to discover if his project foundations were strong enough and the vision clear enough to go ahead without him to lead us. The mini project has gained strength and moved forward. It is now ready to seek funding to start achieving his wider vision of bridging the digital divide and providing opportunities relating to livelihoods, education, health, and administrative transparency..

Creating the team in its present state is one result of the mini project. At one extreme of our extended team are people who know about ICT - but know nothing about Africa.. A the other extreme are people who live in rural Africa, in Oke-Ogun (especially Ago-Are) and know all about rural life styles and needs - but nothing about ICTs.. In the middle are the key workers on the project. These are people from both sides of the digital divide, with their own areas of expertise, who have been learning from each other about possibilities both for information traffic and the information highway.

Between them they can reach out to the extremes of ICT 'techies' and illiterate farmers and get their input into the project.

The people in the middle are the recently formed OOCD ie the Oke-Ogun Community Development Agenda 2000 Plus committee (with the main input from Chiefs Adetola, Adejumo and Mojoyinola) and CAWD in the UK (with the main input from Pam McLean, Agnita Oyawale and Dare Adenuga.)

We have two major project developments to look forward to as the first year draws to a close. One relates to the information highway, one to information traffic. All being well both will be in action in Ago-Are in the second half of this year.

With regard to information traffic we have been allocated a VSO field worker
He is a Kenyan; computer literate, with experience of setting up community projects , currently involved in honey production. His main objective is to clarify local requirements with regard to information traffic. He will playing g a role in the community that will later be played on a much larger scale by a community radio station and Community Digital Information Centres (CDICs) He will be taking over where Peter left off. It is a follow up to a community meeting where Peter explained ideas for self help to local farmers. He will be exploring appropriate areas for agro-processing and other possible initiative. He will be sharing his own first hand knowledge and additional ideas culled from the Internet. More important than the information he brings with him is the information he will gather about local knowledge and needs. He will be gathering evidence of the information traffic that would flow if we had the highway.

He will be working under the guidance of the OOCD Committee and CAWD

It is possible he may have to communicate back using our existing difficult and slow low tech information trackway - but we hope for better.

The second project is the start of our information highway. By teh end of teh yeasr we may have an email bureau and web-page mini-library in Ago-Are. In May Paul Richardson of ExpLAN is scheduled to meet the OOCD committee to finalise plans for a prototype solar powered wireless email bureau in Ago-Are.

If all goes well our VSO field worker, David, will be able to send emails directly to CAWD, and all our contacts. I will be able to continue to do web searches for him as I have done for the OOCD and send him whatever information he requests. Or maybe we can find another volunteer to take over that task. Other members of the community in and around Ago-Are will be able to send emails too. The email facility will have implications for effective communication and also for incidental learning about ICT. We plan particularly to encourage teachers to use it, for it is said locally that if you teach the teachers you teach the community. The OOCD will decide with Paul how best to encourage people to start using the email bureau.

The Solo computer that will be used for sending emails will have spare capacity. We intend to load it with WebPages so that David will have the start of a web library to demonstrate to local people and get their reaction.

Other results are on their way. I will mention jut one. We hope to do our first radio broadcast about the project around the time of Paul's trip. It won't be on our own community radio station initially - that is planned for later - but it will be by a professional radio broadcaster on a local station serving much of our area. This is a an experienced professional with an interest in community radio, a local man who is ready to guide us in setting up our community radio station when resources allow. Peter always emphasised that we must have community radio to speak in their own language to people who could not read and write.

The first mini-project has succeeded. We have established a strong key team and useful wider team. Working with no external resources we have results to show. If we attract resources we will bring to reality more of Peter's vision.

Lessons

Many ICT and development projects face the challenge of reaching out directly to the poor people who live in rural areas. When Peter was alive CAWD did not have that problem. He knew the poor people. They were his parents, his old friends from primary school, his community. The reality of ICTs and the realities of rural poverty had contributed equally in making Peter who he was.

When Peter was killed CAWD faced a. severe challenge. In many ways CAWD was Peter, and he was dead. But his dream of crossing the digital divide into rural Africa was still alive.

We could never replace Peter. However I have gradually come to realise that he played many roles. If I can recognise and analyse those roles, and find people to fill them, then perhaps I can continue to support his vision and convert it into reality. Recognising these roles may also be helpful to other people who are involved in similar projects.

So what roles did he play? He was a visionary. But he has shared his vision thoroughly., so Agnita and I can pass it on.

He was a communication channel from the connected side of the digital divide right into rural Africa. Recreating that was much more of a challenge.

First Chief Gbade Adejumo and I started to exchange emails. Gbade spans the North South cultural divide because he completed his higher education in the USA.

Then Dare Adenuga joined CAWD actively, so I could also link through him to Chief Adetola by telephone. Now instead of only having the written work in English we had the spoken word in Yoruba. But we had still only gone as far as the urban areas, the edge of the telephone network.

Next the OOCD invited Timothy Oyawale to join them. That was good. I feel I know him well although we only saw each other briefly at Peter's funeral. Peter used to live with Uncle Timothy When Peter went back to visit he took along a video cameraman. It was partly to show Agnita and me around the place and partly to interview Uncle Timothy about the hopes and plans of the farming co-operative he leads. Video may not be as technically glamorous as web-conferencing and the like, but it is a powerful tool.

Timothy Oyawale's involvement demonstrates further the problems of getting into rural areas.at the grass roots. He is not often able to attend meetings in Ibadan, for he is a poor farmer with a bicycle, not a businessman with a car. It is worth noting that when the OOCD wanted him to join Gbade used email to ask me about it, and got a quick reply. . However when Uncle Timothy got the invitation he wrote a letter to me. The letter came by hand, and after a journey taking a couple of months, finally reached me via Agnita.

It is a real challenge to include Uncle Timothy fully at this stage. When we get the email bureau in Ago-Are his input can be much greater.

Recognising the role of Peter as local champion and recreating that though the OOCD has already been discussed.

Peter was an entrepreneur and social innovator. His efforts in this direction were to have been important in ensuring the sustainability of the overall vision. Now we have a few things that I feel sure Peter would have been promoting. The OOCD have therefore started talking to local entrepreneurs. Our VSO fieldworker will also play a role in social innovation and encouraging new enterprises.

We also had Peter the ICT man, who was going to install equipment and train people. I have 'friendly techies' who tell me what I need to know for now, but is an area that needs to be developed..

Peter was also an expert on rural Nigeria - and his Nigerian friends in the UK help to fill that role

I feel there are other roles too that I have not fully considered yet, but these are the ones that I have found most important to date. There are also other aspects of the project that have proved rich learning experiences. However, sorting out the roles I needed to fill proved helpful to me It has clarified my thinking and helped other people to know what is expected of them. It has also been useful in helping us to see our way and to recognise stages of progress.

Development Impacts

The development potential involves growing the project from its present small grassroots beginnings into the full vision that Peter had in mind- initially for Oke-Ogun. - It can also be adapted for other African rural locations, for Peter saw the Oke-Ogun project as a pilot project, replicable elsewhere.

Although at present we are a small grass roots project we realise that we need to find our place in the larger scheme of things. We are beginning to have sufficient confidence to approach people. One of the high spots of Peter's life was when he was introduced to the president in London. He also received a personal invitation to meet the Oyo State governor in Nigeria, an invitation he was most disappointed not able to accept at that time. We are beginning to renew or establish links with people in authority so that we can be sure our ideas complement what they are planning, before we move from research and planning to implementation.

The email bureau at Ago-Are is the first step towards creating the first of Peter's Community Digital Information Centres. Think of the CDICs as places that will mature into a mixture of email bureau, public telephone service, internet cafe, web library, business centre and open learning centre. Very importantly they are also to be locations for giving feedback to the radio station and collecting supporting materials to follow up broadcasts. Peter planned to open ten CDICs simultaneously, one in each of the ten local government areas of Oke-Ogun. He wanted one each to avoid jealously between the areas and possible sabotage. He was going to contribute his own labour to install the equipment and provide training.

Peter was confident that the CDICs would become self-funding. One of the CDICs roles is as a gateway to educational opportunity. Local people value education highly. The Parent Teacher Associations build their own classrooms, so that the government will then send teachers to work in them. Individuals are funded by their families and communities so they can go away to study and make a good future and help the people back home. It makes much more sense to study closer to home, especially if the studies relate to a local livelihood opportunity, or some other aspect of improved life style.

In preparation to open additional CDICs, David, our VSO field worker could research how ready the local government chairmen are to host them. The chairmen have already had initial discussions with Chief Adetola. The office and living accommodation that David will be using in Ago-Are has been provided through the local government chairman there.

The email bureau at Ago Are should grow into the co-ordinating centre -for the other CDICs and the radio station.

Our occasional broadcasts on local radio should grow into a full local community radio station.

Peter's original plan was to raise public awareness of the project by starting a football league between the local wards of the local governments. His slogan was 'Bringing to Oke-Ogun good things that the developed world enjoys.' Tragically his murder served instead to raise the profile of his work, before the football league had started. The trophies that he had prepared remain in their 'ceremonial trunk' where he left them at my home. The football league management committee has stopped meeting for the time being. This is not an ICT part of the project - but was part of Peter's vision to make the project well known at grassroots level, and give people an early opportunity to get involved. It would be a fitting tribute to him if it did go ahead.

CAWD is currently providing various Internet services to the Oke-Ogun Community Development committee. The OOCD have very limited email access. CAWD can use the web to their benefit. The OOCD have learnt the value of web access through emails with summaries of web content and through printouts of WebPages sent physically from the UK to Nigeria. As a result of this long distance batched access to WebPages the OOCD are keen to get online and have come up with a plan for a dual-purpose centre in Ibadan, the state capital, where they hold their main monthly meetings.

The proposed OOCD Ibadan centre would serve both as a permanent office base for the project, and as a telecentre., enabling it to be self funding in the long run. The demand for internet services in Ibadan outstrips supply. The OOCD committee suggests getting premises close to the university , as this would guarantee a steady stream of customers. It would also enable links to be built with students who are studying computer science and who could do a bit of good both to their CVs and to the project by getting more closely involved. Starting an OOCD Ibadan centre would provide excellent experience for the OOCD committee ready for starting the rural Community Digital Information Centres (CDICs)

If the Ibadan Centre is properly funded then it can fulfil additional functions. One is to prepare a digital library collection for the CDICs. There is no need to wait for online connection before we get CDICs with WebPages. The OOCD have benefited from Web Page printouts. Access to WepPage CDs would be a great step forward for the rural community of Oke-Ogun.

The examples given above emphasise the information highway, rather than its traffic. In addition to developing the highway itself we are beginning to contact individuals and groups who may contribute to the information traffic flowing along it - either because they have information to share or want to glean some from our people in Oke-Ogun. This work needs extending.

We have a small and simple web presence. It needs further development. Later we expect to build more of the web site from Ago-Are and other key sites in the project.

We are aware that we are new to the world of development, and keen to learn from people who know more. To this end we are exploring links with academic institutions.
We want to get the right balance between our practical projects and useful theoretical knowledge. We want to help disseminate good practice and give feed back about what does and what does not work in our situation. There is also a need to be 'formally studied' if we are to genuinely function as a pilot project, and not simply offer anecdotal evidence at a later date.

These are just some of the ways we see the project developing. There are others, and everything ties in with the Nigerian national policy as laid out in the document USE IT

At present we have no external funding, we are just a small group of volunteers covering our own expenses. We know how we want to develop. We have laid firm foundations. We need more experienced people to advise us on how to obtain the resources and support to develop what has begun during the past year.

Project Information

Organisation : CAWD (Committee for African Welfare and Development)
URL : http://www.cawd.info
Total budget in US$ : $7000 (for the mini project of the last year)
Country of activity: Nigeria [NI]

Are there any partners involved : yes
What is partners role?: VSO will be providing field worker, ExpLAN plan to instal demonstration solar powered wireless email bureau

Contact Information

Pamela McLean
pam@cawd.info

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