Akwa Ibom Pencils - Drawing Nigeria's blueprint for success

folarin okunola

May 25, 2017 8:56 PM

Because pencils hold the many shades of success which we all need - very much - in this country.

Inauguration of Nigeria's first pencil manufacturing facility.

In the latest Nigerian-leaders-are-clueless gist, Akwa Ibom State governor Udom Emmanuel has just “inaugurated” Nigeria’s first pencil manufacturing facility. The factory was launched on May 22, 2017 and is located in Ekom Iman in Etinan Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State.

Pencils are the future, people. Who would have thought we would be getting something so important to our economy in 2017? So many jobs will be created, so many people will receive new skills and school children will have lots of cheap pencils to choose from.

There is no need for a revised school curriculum that encourages digital skills or digitising the learning process. Nobody needs an iPad in school — grown people stuff. Chromebooks are too advanced too. These children will probably spoil it.

The haters and denigrators must be fuming right now. They told us we would only be able to start making pencils in 2018 but look at God. We have done it one year before the time they said. Now, we can draw a plan for other African countries to follow.

Except countries like Rwanda, of course. Those ones are already using drones to deliver blood to hard-to-reach communities so no point trying to convince them. It is stubborn people that buy into this drone business anyways. Plus, why do we need to buy drones when we have Benin people?

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We can try Kenya but they already have one of the world’s most successful fintech solutions (M-Pesa) and their pride will just cause a clash of intellect. Moroccans seem friendly, but they already have one of the largest solar power plants in the world so they must be fine.

That would leave countries like Cameroon where the government doesn’t give a damn about its citizens right to freedom of speech. They definitely need our pencil blueprint. Egypt is on the same shut-down-social-media wave as a lot of other African countries so they definitely need our pencil expertise.

Who knows? This may be what will change our destiny as a nation. Just thinking about the generators powering that factory 24/7 brings an incredible feeling of accomplishment.

We don’t know how we are going to replace the trees we cut down to make these pencils but thank God this is Nigeria — we can figure it out when it becomes a problem. It’s not like anybody is going to ask what the environmental cost is anyway. Go Niger Delta.

At the end of the day, like the TechCabal newsletter says, “We are all pencils in the hands of Akwa Ibom.” Yay. ( ‘_’)

folarin okunola