Information Technology: Rwanda takes the lead!

By Martin Jumbam

I recently spent several hours at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi on my way home from a business trip to India. As I sat in the waiting lounge, I saw droves of neatly dressed men and women, bankers for the most part, capitalist to their finger tips, draped in dark, grey suits, come and go.

As they waited for their flights, I could pick up much of their conversation without really giving the impression that I was listening. I love to eavesdrop in airports, especially when I have many hours to kill and boredom is hitting me on the chin.

Nearly all those men and women, armed with dollar-fattened briefcases, seemed to have their eyes set on one destination. Yes, you guess right: Paul Kagame's Rwanda. They all seemed to be talking about Kigali, Kigali, and nothing but Kigali. In fact, one of them was on the phone for nearly an hour with a business partner, who must have been waiting for him in Kigali. As he waited to board his plane, he was busy ironing out a few IT-related issues.

For the most part, those briefcase-toting capitalists only talked the language of information technology (IT) and I could gather that Rwanda was being wired up for the smooth flow of modern information technology at an impressive rate. By the way, if you haven't already bought the April-June issue of the BBC magazine, Focus on Africa, maybe you should run out now and get one. When you do please read, underline and memorise the story on information technology in Rwanda.

The journalist, who wrote the story, asks Paul Kagame's IT guy if Kagame is "truly an e-president?" ('e' standing for 'electronic', I believe). The answer is a categorical 'yes'! "He is an e-president, an e-dreamer, e-pusher, e-everything," before adding that "All ministers have a laptop and are connected to the internet. All communication is done online. At cabinet meetings, the agenda is posted online and no one needs paper." Parliamentarians aren't left our either. "Mps too are wired up and eventually we want them to communicate with their constituents using ICT."

When I read things like this I can't help wondering what our Cameroonian computer-illiterate MPs and ministers would do if being wired up for internet exchange were to become a requirement in this country!! I remember reading something to the effect that Cameroon's P&T man, Bouba Bello Maigari, was heard boasting of his determination to put Cameroon on the IT map of the world in 2008!!! While Paul Kagame has already firmly put Rwanda on such a map, someone, who has perhaps never ever booted a computer in his life, is boasting of planning to put this triangular-oddity called Cameroon on the IT superhighway in 2008!!! Lordie! Lordie!

The difference between Cameroon and Rwanda in this domain became quite clear to me that day at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport when my time came to board the plane. Guess who my road companions were! Some irritatingly loud-mouthed and rowdy Nigerians, who were returning from Dubai or Singapore where they must have gone to peddle cocaine, or some such drugs. That seems to be their specialty. I would not be surprised if some of them on the plane with me that day had swallowed cocaine-stuffed condoms, which they would later defecate in hotel rooms in Douala under the watchful eyes of their Cameroonian police accomplices.

A story is told of a young Nigerian lady who reportedly filled her precious mine hole with cocaine-stuffed condoms. Something went amiss and one or more of the said condoms exploded, perhaps from the intense heat down there. She was rushed to a hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival. The doctor, who was assigned to carry out an autopsy on her, discovered the reason for her demise, and after stealthily fishing out the remaining cocaine-laden condoms, which he quickly slipped into his socks, he gave the cause of death as a failed abortion attempt!! As the poor girl was carted away for burial, our doctor friend whistled his way home, joyfully hoping and wishing that more of such patients would be brought to him for autopsy! Ah, when it is not corruption, for which we lead the planet, it is drug peddling. While dollar-stuffed briefcases head for Kigali, cocaine-peddlers head for Douala. Lord, have mercy!

Sometime last year, we tried to set up a V-sat for internet connection. No sooner had the satellite dish gone up than one potbellied, unshaven fellow was standing at our door asking for 'impôt libératoire', impôt sur la société, impôt sur la toilette', impôt sur la cuisine, etc, etc.' Good Lord. All you hear when you try to open a business in Cameroon is taxes, taxes, and still more taxes. They tax you right into your pants! It’s a miracle they haven’t come up with a scrotum tax yet!! – although that may not be too far away!

While the Biya administration is imposing taxes on everything, including information technology equipment in Cameroon, Rwanda abolishes such taxes altogether and takes a firm lead in IT technology in Africa. Bravo, Paul Kagame.

Comments

[Rosemary Ekosso]

Sheeyy,

Wetin you go findam for India?? One day, when I have time, I shall do so too.

The oblstacles to doing business in Cameroon are legion, but I hear our esteemed government went and spent $250K selling the country in the New York Times, no less.

Instead of trying to paint a rotting fish, as someone once put it, they should amend all those thieving laws and bring your "impot" and other similar bloodsucking maniacs to book. That will ease enterprise and investment - by cameroonians. And the proceeds and profits will stay in Cameroon - for Cameroonians.

[SouthernCameroonian]

Cameroun? It is not a country, but a device for enriching a few, impoverishing the rest, devastating the environment and serving neocolonial masters. Cameroun? A very bad idea.

[M Nje]

Paul Kagame has proven that he is a man who is willing to make major changes for his people. He annonce his decision to desociate his country from the everlasting colonial master, France. Then he expressed his intentions to join the Commonwealth. This is a man who came to power a few years ago after the genocide that almost wiped out his country.

I have heard many many executives of Fortune 500 companies talk good about him including the CEO of Starburst.

La Republique Du Cameroun is not only a bad idea, it is bad luck.

[M Nje]

Corrections:

CEO of "Statbucks" not "Starburst"

[M Nje]

Corrections:
CEO of "Starbucks" not "Starburst"

[Emmanuel]

Hang in there fellows, Cameroon will change someday for the better. As much as I dislike Mr. Kagame for all the plundering and chaos he sponsored in Congo,Kin, I am very impressed by his work for Rwandans! I wish My heavenly almighty monsieur Le President a vie could do same. well... he will not, so.., i have stopped hoping. Now I know, I will not be disappointed. Yay!!

[Ndim Bernard Ngouche]

I have always wept for the simple fact that i was born in Cameroon. A Country that have a gang of thieves who have robbed the the ordinary for so long a time to be remembered. I have always been perplexed, stupified and dumbfounded to understand the mechanism and dynamics of the country which is ours. Life has been made so difficult to the extend that poverty and misery is now a a pattern lived daily by its imrproverished citizens. It does not bother anybody so long as those up the ladder of power have enough to feed from while the rest feed on crumbs. God save us from this hell.

[Lionel]

Trouble with Cameroonians is that they spend too much time on their Knees (Praying for Devine Intervention to rid them of their Gov't), they have actually forgotten to walk upright. Degenerating into a nation of Chimps and Cowards.