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Nigeria’s technological advancements may be happening slowly, but they’re definitely happening. As part the of events marking its 57th Founder’s Day ceremony, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) has established a laptop assembly complex at its Nsukka campus.
The complex was commissioned on October 6, 2017, by the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammmad Sa’ad Abubakar III. CFR. Addressing journalists shortly after the commissioning, the Vice Chancellor, Professor Benjamin Ozumba, said the goal of the project, which is known as Lion Laptops (am I the only one who feels like there could’ve been a better name?), was to make laptops affordable for students, especially for training and research purposes.
The Vice Chancellor also said that apart from making the systems available for the students and the university community, engineering students in the university will, through the plant, develop and acquire further skills in laptop assembly. The Sultan of Sokoto said the idea of the university to establish a laptop assembly plant was not only innovative, but also in line with the dreams of the founding fathers of the university (I mean, we’ll take your word for it).
It’s a great initiative, honestly, but all of the above comments are grossly disproportionate to the establishment of a laptop assembly plant. Not to be the wet blanket, but, one, the pictures displayed of the complex do not show any plans for scalability or capacity; two, laptop assembly is not a skill; and three, laptop assembly is not and should not be a goal that we celebrate with an event, we should reserve that for laptop manufacturing plants at the very least.
The laptops we import are no longer assembled by human beings, and it honestly rankles that we would organize an event to celebrate the construction of a building for a job that has already been taken by machines and robots. The VC expressed hope that the idea will revolutionize the technology sector to depend less on imported goods – no it will do no such thing. The very idea of a laptop assembly plant required that the parts to be assembled come from somewhere. And guess what? Those parts will be imported.
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