Nigeria has ambitions that are literally sky-high. It has just announced that it plans to join the space race. It intends to become the first African country with its own space program. It has set up it own version of NASA with funding of $92 million, and intends to build and send up satellites for commercial, surveying as well as military purposes.
Many may detect political machismo behind the announcement. Nigeria is undoubtedly a west African superpower; it would like to be one for the whole continent. A space program would certainly give it kudos. But superpower status relies first and foremost on conventional military strength as well as political determination. The former it has; the latter much less so.
More to the point, many will say that Nigeria has enough terrestrial problems requiring urgent attention before it joins in such an expensive undertaking. Of course, Nigeria does have oil; but it also has a great deal of poverty that its oil wealth has done little to reduce, in part because of endemic corruption and crime but also because the scale of Nigeria’s poverty is simply enormous. Add to this the country’s deepening social and communal divisions. Cynics can be forgiven for thinking that the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo would be better employed in concentrating on more down-to-earth policies — ones that will achieve a better standard of living for its people and make Nigeria a more just society.
After all, it was also announced this week that 400 Nigerians were murdered by robbers in the first half of the year, that violent crime is again on the increase in Lagos, and that the country’s banks last year lost millions of dollars in largely internal fraud. These, and the need to resolve the tensions between the Islamic north and the largely Christian south, are the issues that ought to top the federal government’s agenda and, until it has resolved them, the luxury of a space program ought to remain no more than a dream.
This may, however, be a deliberate attempt to divert attention from Obasanjo’s failure to live up to the expectations which Nigerians had of him when they elected him two years ago. He has not been able to end the corruption nor impose a firm central hand over the increasingly restive state governments. A space program is prestigious. It conveys the idea that Nigeria is successful and prosperous, and that all is well within its borders. A deception is being practiced, although possibly a self-deception, but one that is patently obvious, especially when the Nigerian authorities speak of building “indigenous competence in developing, designing and building appropriate hardware and software in space technology”.
One day, perhaps; but this is not like India’s entry into the space race. It had the scientific skills — in abundance — long before going into the satellite business. It is sure bet that if Nigeria follows its dream, it is going to have to do it by check: buying the technology and skills from the Russians, Indians, Chinese or anyone prepared to sell it at the bargain basement prices Nigeria will insist on paying.
Indeed, for that very reason, there have to be severe doubts as to whether this dream will come to anything. As for the prediction that after three years the program will be self funding, that is self-deception on the grandest of scales.
