It’s true: Nigeria has its own space agency. This is the same country with 140 million people (the most in Africa), a life expectancy of 47 years, and huge levels of debt. Nonetheless, Nigeria has gained a foothold in space.
Given the relatively poor nature of Nigeria, it seems surprising that launching satellites would be on the list of priorities. After all, critics would say, it would be better to devote more resources to problems on Earth to ensure better lives for Nigerians. This is essentially the same argument used by critics of even the best-developed space programs, but it seems even more convincing in a third world nation. Is the Nigerian space program irresponsible or visionary?
I’m going to tentatively come down on the “visionary” side of the argument, with a couple of disclaimers. Certainly, projects such as food production and disease control should take precedence, and spending on the space program should be modest and well-focused. But the space program brings important benefits, or at least the promise of benefits, to a nation struggling to establish its place in the world. First of all, most of the scientific projects of the program are fully devoted to solving Nigerian problems; the use of satellites is less an ego-driven demonstration of national might and more a high-tech tool to help solve environmental issues. For example, Nigerian authorities didn’t even know where people lived until satellite photos showed every single settlement in the country. In addition, as the agency argues itself, “it is important to realize that unless Nigeria seeks to develop on all levels simultaneously, after successfully resolving the immediate problems, the country will still find itself technologically behind and underdeveloped.” Nigeria is, in essence, preparing itself as a technological leader in the future; now the country just needs to make sure they get to that future.
Lake Chad in a photo taken by Nigeria Satellite-1.
The Nigerian space agency highlights an interesting trend in third world use of science: these nations are skipping the development phase and going straight to the implementation phase. That is, Africa has few capabilities in the design and development of cell phones, yet they are becoming increasingly pervasive as communication devices and mobile banking tools for microfinance. This certainly seems like a good idea at the time – why not use the tools available? – but it could just be a quick fix. Without the intellectual and physical infrastructure of scientific know-how and innovation, will these countries be better off in the long run?
I think Nigeria has the right idea. For a large country with relatively little infrastructure on the ground, it makes sense to use off-the-shelf satellite technology (expensively developed by others) for remote sensing. In Nigeria and its neighbours, the Sahel (to the north) is getting more arid, and remote sensing is the only way to address tis probvlem accurately and in a timely manner.
Isn’t there a UN or other programme that ensures that countries like Nigeria are covered by existing satellites for remote sensing, for the important reasons you both outline? If not, surely there should be — why can’t these poorer countries benefit from the technology that is there and in use by the richer world, by having an allocated share of it?
Here’s a story on SciDevNet about the Nigerian initiative.
While I see your point on the long term effects of using existing technology as opposed to developing/perfecting technologies of their own, I have to fall on the non-visionary side of the argument, just this once. As you mentioned, Nigeria has bigger problems than the absence of novel cell phone designs. Seems to me that’s a bridge that will be crossed once the nation reaches it. Right now, the existing technology is poised to improve the quality of life in the country. I think that in turn, may help people get to the point where they are supporting and developing their own technologies.
It is my understanding that the largest problems in Nigeria and in much of the underdeveloped world is not so much a lack of access to technology, but rather poor governance that makes that access extremely expensive due to political interference. There was a recent editorial about internet access.
It seems to me that a lack of access to the internet due to high access fees is more of a problem to underdeveloped nations than are high priced medications due to pharmaceutical patents.
It is my understanding that wireless phone system is much cheaper than a ground-based wired system at the right scale, but that often prices to final consumers don’t reflect actual costs but rather are due to monopoly pricing.