Nigeria was the first country to order one million laptop computers.

then see what serious countries are thinking:

At the UN conference in Tunisia, several African officials, most notably Marthe Dansokho of Cameroon and Muhammad Diop of Mali were suspicious of the motives of the project, and claimed that the project was using an overly American mindset that presented solutions not applicable to specifically African problems. Dansokho said the project demonstrated misplaced priorities, stating that clean water and schools were more important for African women, who, he stated, would not have time to use the computers to research new crops to grow, and Diop specifically attacked the project as an attempt to exploit the governments of poor nations by making them pay for hundreds of millions of machines.Additionally, the price of $175/unit does not include the cost of setup, maintenance, training of teachers, and Internet access.

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One criticism has been that the money of purchasing the laptops could be more favorably spent on libraries and schools. John Wood, founder of Room to Read, has emphasized what is affordable and can scale over high-tech solutions. While in favor of the One Laptop per Child initiative for providing education to children in the developing world at a cheaper rate, he has pointed out that a $2000 library can serve 400 children, costing just $5 a child to bring access to a wide range of books in the local languages (such as Khmer or Nepali) and English; also a $10,000 school can serve 400–500 children ($20–$25 a child). According to Wood, these are more appropriate solutions for education in the dense forests of Vietnam or rural Cambodia.

is Nigerian Govt ever capable of good-judemental-thinking before embarking on anything thrown at it?

I Believe in the world laptop per child initiative. The project is not just about buying laptops, it is about connecting the nigerian child to a bigger and better library. If the project is properly cordinated, it will go a long way in ensuring better educational system.
Please, let us try to look at the bigger picture.children will not have to go far to search for educational information, For someone like me who hates sitting in a library, providing an alternative system of information helped me when i was in school.
The truth is that children and young people do not have a reading culture because it is not fun, but the onelaptop per child initiative will present a better alternative for faster and more efficeint initiative

The one laptop per child is a scam that used the finances of poor African countries to fund research and development in developed countries.

Why wasn't Zinox or Omatek made a partner on this project.
The whole idea is wicked and an amount of money that would have been loaned from a bank and paid with interest over the years has now been foolishly paid out by Obasanjo on the insistence of the UN. Now Nigeria is financing a foreign company to better enable it compete our local producers out of the market.

This is advanced fee fraud that was certified by the United Nations itself.

@Denex,
Thank you for enlighteening me. However, i feel we should have somnething like that for improved quality of Education. A Nigerian could initaite a project like that, so that Nigerian Child could have good Quality Education, So we don not have to spend hard currency getting quality ang innovative education

www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-18907.0.html
www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-2059.0.html

(The kids were recently reported to be downloading porn with their PCs. Yay!)

Wow! Cool.

I wonder when government will realise that it has no direct function in all these things.

This company has used our millions of dollars to develop a new technology that it will use in developing laptops of the future and Nigeria has no patent rights, no profits and not even a single kobo of interest from the funding of the project. Way to go.

Which way Nigeria?

The matter tire me sef.

How many more 'screw-up' do we expect to uncover from this OBJ??



Nigeria should cancel this deal; get its money refunded and build libaries and stuff it with really books.

see what India has to say:

The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry of India has rejected Nicholas Negroponte's offer of $100 laptops for schoolchildren. The Ministry is planning to make laptops at $10 for schoolchildren. The two designs submitted to the ministry from a final year engineering student of Vellore Institute of Technology and a researcher from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; have come to an estimated production cost of $47 per laptop, but they expect the price to become lower when volumes rise.No technical specifications have been released.

How did they chose which school to donate the computers to? I bet they chose a school with 'connections'.

We or Nigerian Govt lacks the mentality to get their priority right. Until we can be able to differentiate btw NEED and WANT and be self confidence we will for ever remain stagnant. I dont pray for such anyway.

We or Nigerian Govt lacks the mentality to get their priority right

It is OBJ!

was any senate invited to discuss this?

was research conducted to see pros + cons?

OBJ screwed up! and pointed by Seun; what is distribution mechanism?

even if we must go for it; why cant factory be established here? why cant OBJ negotiate something ever favourable to Nigerian??

How about feeding the children, providing them with health care, security, shelter and electricity. Abi na how dem go power the computers self?

Obasanjo was under scrutiny of the United Nations and UNESCO. They were just waiting for him to say no so that they can start chanting "Nigeria Rejects Child Education Development".

This issue put the President between the devil and the deep blue sea.

angel101:

How about feeding the children, providing them with health care, security, shelter and electricity. Abi na how them go power the computers self?

Abi oo? when our schools lack all basic teaching facilities (e.g chairs), they are buying laptop for pupil.What a misplaced priority.Infact how is the laptop going to be powered? when power is been held by PHCN in the country.

Misplaced priorities.

Children who have no benches to sit on, use trees for classrooms and have never seen the 4 walls of a library are expected to be beneficiaries of the one laptop per child scam?

With what power will they use to operate the laptop? Candles or A4 batteries?

Another avenue to chop money

I'm glad to see that our people are smart enough to understand what it is.