For Ben and Jerry, simply tech will go on

Where does one begin to write about losses that cannot be captured by any adjective? How will one ever be able to create the right picture that within a week Simply Tech lost two big followers, two souls of great intellection whose engaging arguments have enriched this column over the years?

Ben Nkonye Irabor and Jerry Ugwu died within seven days of each other, two great sons of this nation embarking on the final journey without the opportunity of a decent goodbye to loved ones, let down by the system they invested their lives in. There is a point at which every mortal must sign off, a final chapter for the living to cherish as a lasting memory. But don’t we have to assist the traveller to delay the trip, at least, to show that we care, even if pretentiously?

March 15, 2024, I had good news for Pastor Ben; yes, Pastor because over 15 years ago, he had returned from the United States to work in the Lord’s vineyard in Nigeria, and was doing pretty well. March 16, Ben’s phone rang early in the morning. His wife handed him the phone. As he answered, he went to the bathroom to perform the natural morning rites. There was some unusual sound and the nightmare began for Dolly, his amiable wife. He had collapsed.

First hospital, the young doctor, the only one in such a big hospital, was too scared to attend to Ben. But he still had life. Dolly drove furiously and nearly blindly to another hospital, few kilometres away and she said, the time it took for the doctors to wear their hand gloves was enough for somebody to die. And Ben died.

He would never again hear that good news from me. When I looked at that casket over the weekend somewhere in Lagos, my mind ran through the several conversations we should have been having within this period that death did us bad.

Ben would have been anxious to find out why the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) would allow a 231 per cent tariff increase for a product that is not available in the market. I don’t know how his friend, Dr Sam Amadi, who was once the boss of that agency, would have reacted. Since the pronouncement on April 4, the part of Abuja where we both live that should be computed under Band A, has not had electricity supply for 20 hours cumulatively. Fortunately for Ben, he has left the worries for us to fix.

Ben was an intense conversationalist. He would ask, why don’t we have good mobile coverage in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT)? In fact, why can’t the operators provide us with triple play service just the way it is in the part of the world where he had lived?

Then the long conversation would start, usually over green tea. He particularly liked the Jasmine flavour; in truth we experimented with as many as possible just making it pleasurable to our fancy.

Ah, Abuja, the authorities said the city was designed without provisions for mobile base stations, so it has been a tussle between the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the mobile operators on one hand, and the FCT authorities on the other, who had proven too anachronistic to yield to the good times of mobile technology by refusing to give the necessary permits. So approval for base stations was nearly as difficult as drilling for oil in the FCT while right of way (RoW) cost for fibre optics rollout could scare even the most obdurate investor.

To compound the puzzle a little more, the city like most other parts of the country, has a preponderance of 2G and 3G base stations and less of 4G while 5G is making a slow entry. For most subscribers on the move, it is a nightmare when there is a handover process from 2G to 3G or even 4G. A drop emerges and the subscribers are left wondering why we can’t get it right after two decades. The cause of bad telecoms experience in Abuja is more with the authorities than the operators. And the lawmakers at the National Assembly would never understand that it is their responsibility to supervene and resolve such industry deadlocks for the sake of the people they have sworn to represent.

As for triple play, more Jasmine tea, please. With one subscription, a subscriber to AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and T-Mobile is able to do voice, data and video in the U.S. When will that be possible in Nigeria? No straight answer to the question but here is what happened in Nigeria. The backbone of every telecommunications network is fibre optics. When NITEL, a former monopoly, had the opportunity to lay fibre all over the nation, the Nigerian government was using it as a contract agency to do favour to friends of the government and even family members. So, NITEL stagnated at about 500,000 lines at its prime and couldn’t even do voice properly. Some mobile operators are trying to offer something I can call an adulterated triple play variant now but it comes at a price beyond our economy.

March 23, 2024, Jerry Ugwu, a respectable lawyer and former strategist at the NCC was feeling unwell and was taken to a hospital in Lagos. He was treated and discharged to return home the same day. But as he was climbing up the stairs, he collapsed, and that was the final call. The wife in Abuja would never know what happened until the following day. Let me not irritate you with what happened to him in one hospital in Abuja recently when he was seemingly fine.

Jerry was a perfect gentleman, cerebral, very detailed and was never really scared to ventilate his mind. Responding May 4, 2023, to a May 3 publication on this column, titled, Reprieve for NCC as NITDA Bill flounders, he wrote: “This piece and the revelation therein is mind numbing and epitomises the utter rot that characterises the administrative style of this PMB regime bereft of accountability and oversight. The rot is so deep that no tier of the leadership conundrum is left untouched, not even the Legislature which has direct oversight responsibility, otherwise a simple reading of the principal Act to be amended ought to have shown that the proposed amendments ought not to fly as the intervention by Ayoola Okeh clearly demonstrated, but alas other less altruistic considerations drive policy and law making in this clime.

“We pray and hope that the timely intervention characterised in your piece will stave off the coup de grace programmed for the NCC. Truth be told, the NCC in its present leadership, is incapable of helping itself in the manner suggested in the piece. Your interventions in your chosen sector are insightful and invaluable inputs which have stood as a counterforce against tyranny by public servants, so called,” Jerry wrote.

In yet another response to a material published on June 14, 2023, titled: Before a former Minister returns to the Ministry, Jerry sounded, “We hear you loud and clear. Keep the gong sounding, the intended recipient may yet hear and respond appropriately, these retrogressive abuses cannot go unpunished. Do not weary or be discouraged by seeming aloofness of the authority. Our collective well-being rests on intervention like yours.”

The writer can be very lonely sometimes, not even sure any more whether people are reading his column because of the very challenging times which encourage inverse reasoning. I will not hear interventions any more from Jerry nor will I be able to discuss technology over tea with Ben. The curtain is drawn, and I thank them for doing their best for our nation.

But I have one appeal to make. One of Pastor Ben’s children had said she would never forgive Nigeria for killing her father. Your indignation is understood, young lady, but that may not be what your father would want to hear at this moment. He had sent all of you abroad to acquire the best of education, so that at some point, you can all return home for us to collectively build this nation. From all indications, rebuilding Nigeria will be challenging task and we need all hands on deck to make this nation rule the world.

That is doing justice to the memory of those who departed at the peak of their best efforts.

Here is my promise to Ben and Jerry. This column, Simply Tech, will go on because I hear your encouragement loud and clear in my head like a burst of oxygen pumped into the gambling hall in the middle of the night to energise the senses.