I am a Nigerian reminiscing
as my countrythat turns 43 today (as a post-colonial
independent nation).
October the
1st is an emotional day for many Nigerians, especially those of us
in the Diaspora. Our country remains a paradox as the excerpts
below attest:
The more
popular view of Nigerians as a result of the proliferation of 419
scams (the mangled by-productof misdirected intellectual
prowess and the boundless depths of greed --which applies to
perpetrators and victims alike).
The Nigerian SCO Connection
"I
AM MR. DARL MCBRIDE CURRENTLY SERVING AS THE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF
EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF THE SCO GROUP ..." [via
Be Blogging
]
Funny! But
many a truth is told in jest (I think that's how the quote goes);
this one is pretty damned poignant.
Unbeknownst
to many, there are other views of Nigeria (unfortunately these
aren't the norm).
The call for optimism by our
president (he doesn't support or condone the 419
nonsense):
President
Olusegun Obasanjo urged Nigerians to change their
ways and be optimistic about the future as Nigeria marks its
43rd Independence anniversary. Read on
[via
Odili.net
� this site
desperately needs RSS!]
There is an increasing pool
of key high-tech players of Nigerian decent (and
nationality)making constructive impact on the high-tech
industry (making it
less
lonely for myself
and other Nigerians in the
high-tech arena):
Dare Obasanjo
is a member of
Microsoft's WebData team, which among other things develops the
components within the System.Xml and System.Data namespace of the
.NET Framework, Microsoft XML Core Services (MSXML), and Microsoft
Data Access Components (MDAC). More of Dare's writings on XML can
be found on his
Extreme XML column
on
MSDN.
Uche Ogbuji
is a consultant and
co-founder of Fourthought Inc., a consulting firm specializing in
XML solutions for enterprise knowledge management applications.
Fourthought develops 4Suite, the open source platform for XML
middleware. Mr. Ogbuji is a Computer Engineer and writer born in
Nigeria, living and working in Boulder, Colorado, USA.
Website:
http://www.fourthought.com/
Philip Emeagwali
, a computer
scientist, is one of the
fathers of the Internet
and a
trailblazer in petroleum
extraction
," as quoted by
CNN
.
Philip leavesall
Nigerianswiththis
important message on this special day (key excerpt
below):
"Our investments in
education and technology will be our legacy to our children. They
are investments that will bring the best out of the next generation
of Nigerians and enable us to reach our potential as individuals,
as communities, as a nation."
Happy Birthday dear
motherland!
AfricaNigeriaxml