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Life in Rural Africa —
One Portrait
In 2004, I visited the founders, staff and volunteers of a grassroots community information
centre started by the local Nigerian non-profit organization, Oke-Ogun Community Development Network
(OCDN). Such centres are frequently called telecentres. A telecentre may provide a variety of services,
such as computer training and access, Internet access, browsing of CD-ROMs about topics of interest
(usually these are published by development agencies), perhaps a pay phone service, fax service,
or printing and photocopying.
A telecentre differs from a cyber café or telephone service because
it has a mandate of serving the community, and offers more assistance and training to its clients.
It may charge fees for its services, which are often required to keep such centres financially sustainable.
In visiting this Nigerian telecentre, I experienced firsthand the frustrations, limitations,
and benefits of digital ICTs in rural Nigeria. OCDN operates an Information Centre, providing
access to the only computers that I am aware of in the town of Ago-Are, in Oyo State, Nigeria.
On my visit in 2005, four computers were working.
Home to ten thousand people in southwest Nigeria, Ago-Are is three hours’ drive north
of the major city of Ibadan. Red brick homes made from local clay are set closely together
within the town. In the surrounding fields virtually every family has a farm to grow cassava,
yam, maize, or other produce. There are four schools, and approximately thirty churches and
thirty mosques of varying sizes. The major language is Yoruba, and English, the national language
of Nigeria, is prevalent.
The town has three paved roads linking it to the larger surrounding towns, and dirt roads servicing
other areas. Restaurants and clapboard shops line the main road. Bread and a few staples are available
daily, but the major food and cattle markets occur every five days. Taxis congregate at the motor
park to take passengers to nearby towns and cities. Motorcycle taxis serve passengers needing rides
within town. My research has led me to believe that their situation is representative of many parts
of rural Nigeria, and other African countries as well.
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