Reflections on sunday: Space Station for Rwanda’s Vision 2020!

Any Pan-Africanist worth their skin pigment should grieve at the news recently aired on the BBC radio airwaves that a Nigerian satellite had failed in space. Initial reports had been that the 340-million-dollar satellite had gone missing, but later it emerged that it had been “parked, like a car.” Reports confirmed that had it not been parked, it would have lost all its power and become like a “loose canon”, rolling about and hitting other satellites in the orbit. Who else would be so considerate, except a Nigerian? Here is a monster of a spacecraft that was ordered at a whooping US $ 340m complete with its launching service, and then when it’s kicked into motion, it’s deader than dodo! Any one else would’ve gone for the neck of the Chinese manufacturer of the machine, but not the African-hearted Nigerian. A Nigerian will resignedly adopt the Kiganda adage “atafirwa tafuna” (to gain, you must lose some) and continue as if nothing ever happened, with the dismissive “Ogah! That’s life-oh!” And, of course, trust Nigerians not to miss the chance to poke fun at themselves, with one crisply remarking: “Nigeria has exported its electricity generation problems to space!” Few can afford laughter, knowing that their economy has so far gobbled up upward of US $ 3 trillion in oil revenues, with nary a dime to show for it! Add to that the periodically long queues at petrol stations, in spite of the country being one of the world’s biggest exporter of oil! As one self-mocking Nigerian dryly commented again, maybe that satellite was “parked” because it had “no foowell-oh”! However, such a statement is unfair, considering that before Nigcomsat-1 (the satellite now out of action), the country has had Nigeriasat-1, a disaster monitoring constellation that has been riding the skies since 2003. So, you may dismiss these Nigerians as dumb lambs at your own peril! I remember one American millionaire who bought himself an exquisite chateau online from a Nigerian. The magnificent castle, shown in pictures, was set on an imposing hill with rolling gardens, lapped by gentle waters of the Indian Ocean. After wiring the payments in billions of dollars, our American millionaire took his jet and went to India to view his prized resort. At a distance from the gates, he was held back by armed guards and gently shoved off and asked to vamoose, because that was the residence of the Indian prime minister! However, that’s no reason for us here in Rwanda to be discouraged. The prospect alone of getting broadcasting, phone and broadband internet services from one small object that’s sailing the free skies, without having to dig up every available soil of our squeezed land, is too tempting to ignore. Now that our methane gas is not a pipe dream, we should seriously think of coughing up a few trillions of dollars to construct ourselves an international space station. Then we can sit cosy, knowing that two people up in our ‘sentry post’ can collect data, connect regions/objects and perform scientific research. Contact: ingina2@yahoo.co.uk