Kasim Lekan Alli
Atlanta, GA USA.
Why are people trying to defend the indefensible. It is obvious that Obasanjo's comments on "useless disciplines" is not about computer literacy. If it was, then there would be no need to single out any field of study. It is a fact that many Nigerians/Africans from all fields are not computer literate. But that is not different from many older generation Americans (black/white/rich/poor) and especially poor folks (who cannot afford computers or are not interested in learning new stuff). Remember, this issue of "useless disciplines" is older than 10 years old, and ten years ago most Americans are not computer literate, as a matter of fact the penetration of Internet usage was very slow in the US, the same way the penetration of mobile phone usage is much slower in the US than most European and Asian countries. To talk about typing skills is to trivialize the issue. Many people (American/African/European) especially those with "BIGMAN" syndrome (which is an acute problem in Africa) will not type their own work (that is why they have their confidential/personal assistants/secretaries). As to the specific case of A.B. Assensohs relative, the guy might simply feel that his status (again the BIGMAN syndrome) as a university graduate is way above typing for somebody (I wonder why the BIGMAN Legislator did not type the stuff himself rather than wasting energy by first writing it in long hand). On a more positive note, I receive a lot of email messages, Internet postings from a lot of young and older folks from home these days. In my opinion it is simply a function access (read economic status).