End Phase 1

This ended the 1st part of our "adventure". I think the results are good. The Governor may be coming to Kuching. There seems to be a long term relationship developing although we need to see how the next step unfolds. The G toG relationship excites them as it would reduce scope on both sides to "misbehave". We would be counted on to deliver results on acceptable prices while they would be more confident on us to deliver.

This is a news article on our visit.

Much of the reservations of going to Africa seems unfounded. Although precautions were taken, it seems that the population generally is very friendly. Speaking English really helps.

I think that staying in a hotel which has a good international menu helps. A gym would be very useful too. Harp beer is great.
Probably bringing in some spices or your own favourite food such as Maggie mee, dried sausages, bottled sambal and a few tins of food would add a variety to your food.

I observe of course that Selena (see earlier posting) came alone and went to quite a few outdoor activities so it would seem our caution is rather over the top compared to her confidence.

It seems too that the Nigerians are now realising the possibilities of Asia. After a long and rather fractious relationship with the West, they now see Asia as a less judgmental alternative. The West has been very patronising and expect to transplant their values to Africa. I watched Obama in Ghana and while most of what he says is true, in that Africans cannot continue to blame the West, it is also true that that Africa was the playground of the superpowers and with the US arming some of the despots of Africa, some of the countries were badly messed up. While I recognise the military governments and dictatorship eras are over, I am not sure that the western democracy is entirely a good model either.

We heard that SCOMI has a contract to build a toll road while UEM is also angling for one. Considering the failure of the local agencies to maintain their few roads, I think that would be an effective move. I think SAINS too can really play a role in helping the Nigerians.

I enclose some links to articles on Asia and Africa

Malaysia and Africa

China and Africa

Another China and Africa

Up to date article

Back in Kuching

The last day was spent discussing an MOU. I took another visit to the Specialist Hospital for more details. Then it was a 5 hr ride in a cramped van (instead of the earlier planned bus) to Lagos. While the road was better on the way back, less road blocks (maybe because it started raining or they were concerned only for the delta bound traffic or its a weekday), the rain slowed us down. The pools of water hid the potholes and we had to be careful. The car in front of us with Orisoft guys nearly had an accident with a truck coming the wrong way and the car's driver trying to pass a parked trailer as well! If the oncoming truck didnt give way, they would have been plastered on that truck. The traffic was bad in Lagos particularly the last stretch to the airport. In fact after we arrived at the airport, apparently there was a small accident and that held up the Emirates crew for 1 hr. As a result we were 2 hrs late, again.

We were stiffed with a request for USD 200 for some guys "helping" us through Emirate check in. The final "fee" was paid by Raymond at the last security check after immigration for the mistake of putting his wallet through the scanner.

The connecting flight from Dubai to KL was also Emirates. That helped to ensure we would not miss the connection. The Lagos, Dubai flight was a B777 and the entertainment facilities are crap as selected movies start at the same time and hence you could not determine what movie and when to watch it unlike on the Airbus.

We stayed at the Concorde KLIA overnight and was back in Kuching on Sunday. There were some Desperados at midnight at Concorde eating greasy kuey tiaw and sub standard curry mee although the Grant's cantonese mee seems ok.

Nigerian Yam

Earlier I mentioned that the Nigerians like a dough like staple which they called Yam. They eat this like we eat rice. Actually the "Yam" tuber looks like a huge tapioca but it is not a tree but a creeper. This link in Wiki has more information. The tuber is scraped, sliced, boiled and pounded (I think) into a bun. Then the lump is presented wrapped either in cling wrap or leaves. You then then pinch off bits with your hands and dip it in a hot catfish or meat gravy. The taste is neutral and the colour very pleasing white. A pic shows the yam in clingwrap and with spicy catfish "dip". I am pretty sure there were some traces of the taste of tapioca but nobody else detected it. The pics show Mr Teo with the pounder while one of the staff holds a cut off yam. Another pic shows the stacks of yam in a market. This is an important food for the population as the tuber can last up to 6 months!

State Function for SAINS

Thursday night and our visit is ending tomorrow. We have been invited to a dinner hosted by the Governor at Government House, a gated complex where the Governor is staying including other facilities.

Each of has been given a Nigerian national dress (we were measured for it 2 days before) and we wore it to the dinner. Wait for the pics.

The function was simple and quick. National anthem, speeches by His Excellency and Mr Teo, more presents for us, I think its another set of the Nigerian wear, dinner, a group photograph, ending National anthem and by 9.30 pm it was all over.

By now we are familiar with the Nigerian menu. 2 different kinds of fried rice, the pale Chinese style and the hot style. I will talk about the yam later.

Generally most of their food are spicy. They dont use garlic. There is no custom of dessert or sweets. There is usually a carton of juice produced in Nigeria which is quite good. Last night's dinner even had a bottle of Australian Hardy wine and bubbly drink.

There was a cultural team welcoming us and dancing during dinner.

Meeting the Governor

We get to meet the Governor His Excellency Olusegun Mimiko today 9th July 2009. The papers tomorrow will be full of the event and so I have put in an order for a few hundred copies to take back :-) The TV crew was also there. The Governor seems very clear on why we were there on his invitation and reaffirmed his support. Speaks very well and very sharp. Mr Teo briefed him on what we have done in the last few days.

This is our last day. We will be presenting our situation analysis and recommendations soon.

State Specialist Hospital

I visited this hospital on Wednesday 8th July to survey the environment for a possible pilot of the HIS. The hospital is a sprawling complex of single storey buildings. It has 270 beds and a medical complement includes 6 Consultants, 30 Medical Officers, 30 House Officers, 14 Pharmacists etc etc including over 300 nurses! It also has a Dietician and Psychologist. It has 8 wards including medical, surgical, children, post natal, gynae, ante-natal, accident & Emergency and private.

Most processes are manual and information on hard copy. It looks like a good candidate for a pilot.

I have added a few more photos taken on Friday. It shows a consultation room, a waiting area for children's ward and a new ward.

More pics on Emperor Hotel

The first pic shows my room. The chilean wine on the left is a gift from David in Beulah Courts. Loon Tong had 1 too. Not too bad wine. But if you know what the room rate was in Beulah, you shouldnt be surprised. The other pics shows a discussion in a bar and Grant in the cafe.

Men, Boys and Guns

What is it about boys and mens' fascination about guns? Here are some eager men with our police escorts. The one on the right is apparently from a special unit.

Observations in Akure

The internet access here is so slow that I have given up for the time being on posting photos. I will continue to upload text and monitor the situation.

We already knew that North Nigeria is dominated by Muslims and the South by Christians. However I never anticipated the level of fervour of the Christians in the South. Everywhere we went, there were all kinds of churches literally on top of each other. Most of them seem to be Pentecostal style with their own individual church names but there are many others side by side. I counted 3 Kingdom Halls within 15 min for example.

The women hair styles here are fantastic with the variation of tight braiding. I took a pic of one employee at SITDEC and the State Specialist Hospital. I was told however that this design is more traditional! Apparently Dr Opabola's wife does such a braid in KL for RM 400! The idea of an album of the different styles is fascinating.

Ondo and Identity Cards

Apparently Nigeria has tried an identity card system but it seems to have been abandoned. Ondo State seems to be trying a system of their own. A team apparently is in the advanced stages of planning of specifications. The database platform has even been determined to be PostgreSQL . They are helped by Selena Deckelmann of Endpoint. The pic shows her with Cyril. They have stated that it would be a multipurpose card like the Malaysian model.

I hope to meet the team on Wednesday and talk to them to avoid the pitfalls of the Malaysian model. I don’t know if the many issues of such a model have been worked out. For example, the deployment and registration would face many challenges as some people do not even have a birth certificate. Forget about driving licenses. Looking at the shanty towns and very fluid movement of labour, addresses would also be difficult to verify.

The Malaysian multipurpose card never really took off. In the end most people did not want to depend on a single card for all their services as losing that car would cause many problems. As it is, the large number of replacement cards are indicative of the real problem of stolen or lost cards. In addition, from our experience in Cardiac Centre HIS, there are many cards that has damaged chips but as there are so few agencies using the readers, it was never found out until the CC project and even then there is no incentive for them to replace it as the visual elements of the card are sufficient for normal usage. In addition it appears now that many of the cards have wrong information. We already know that some religions have been wrongly recorded. A member of our team said his brother’s card showed he was female.

Official Visit to Ondo State Government – Day 1 Monday 6th July 2009

Day 1 started with a formal visit to the Chief of Staff, Personal Office of the Governor. On our way to the office, we passed a long row of photographs of past Governors. This reminded us of a long history of military government where the Governors of Ondo came from the Armed Forces. A comment was made about how they ruined the country. Speeches were made all round and it is interesting that an introduction by Cyril (of SITDEC) directly stated our lack of interest in their approaches initially. Actually the word “cold” was used.

This continued with a meeting at SITDEC, chaired by Cyril, where we met key officials from a few Ministries including Finance, Accountant General, Health, Local Govt, Attorney General, Land and some others I could not remember.

There was appreciation that SAINS came with a heavy duty team of all the top Manager. This was in contrast to the concern expressed in SAINS that the top mgmt is travelling in one plane.

There seems to be a patriotic fervour in the discussion that bodes well as to their commit- ment. There is an earnest approach as if to dispel the common image of corruption. They also expressed a desire to move ahead rather than being mired in their current state of development. This is in contrast to other countries (including West Malaysia) where there is bored disinterest, playing of political games, points scoring and without a desire to achieve something positive.

Discussions centred on plans for the next 2 days in interviewing key Ministries and determining priorities. They are very ambitious in setting a target of 12 months for some applications to go live. Our challenge is to meet that target and yet come up with proposals that are meaningful and have impact to the citizens.

Emperor Cars

This is for my sons who keep an inventory of “fast” cars. I kid you not, these are Emperor cars. Their licence plates read “Emperor”. The red car is a Toyota Solara and the black one is a Suzuki X50.

Akure Sunday 5th Jul 2009

We arrived at about 2pm at Akure. Observe the street vendors selling similar stuff like at Chow Kit. We were put up in Emperor Hotel. No, no website. We could not get reservations at the target hotel, Sunview Hotel. My link above should help provide an idea of facilities. Emperor hotel would be rated about 2 to 3 stars. The rooms are ok, decent sized but lighting is poor. The bathroom has a quaint large bucket with a scoop much like what traditional Chinese use to shower :-) The restaurant menu is limited although what is available is ok. Service is slow so some of us wander in early, order, go back to room and come back later for the food.

There is a high wall surrounding the hotel with barb wire. In the morning a whole gaggle of chameleons come out to bask on the wall. I couldnt get a pic. They started moving when I point the camera at them.

You will see Prof Opabola at the back of the picture of us in the lounge. The other 2 Malaysians shown in the lounge are from Orisoft, KL. The boss sitting down is Raymond.

On the road to Akure

I am about 2 days behind my posting now. Having problems uploading the images.

This posting is about the 5 hrs journey to Akure from Lagos. Its about 300 km only! The route was east and then north. Probably thats the problem as it meant heading towards the Delta area where the militants seem to enjoy blowing up oil platforms. As a result, there were police checkpoints almost every 2 km ! They were checking for smuggling of arms though some must wonder at how effective it was as we saw a car without a license plate waved through after some cash being shoved through the window. We did not have any problem as our police escort was a great "passport". Note in the pic are tree trunks used as barricades.

The other main cause of the delays were the poor quality of the trunk road, uneven and with potholes. Some of the pothole were so huge that they caused the destruction of a tanker. Not a good idea to drive at night. Some of the drivers took to driving on the other side to avoid the potholes. Apparently the primary cause of the potholes are endless heavy fuel tankers.

What is evident is the fertility of the Nigerian land. Its the same variety (visibly anyway) as the red earth much favoured by gardeners in Kuching. Here its everywhere!

Street vendors are plentiful and they all smile ! One didn't like her picture taken. I was told thats a reaction to some of these photos being used in posters or magazines !

The dense population in towns are quite evident in some of the pics. Note our transport van in one of the pics. This was one of our pit stops. And the toilet was quite clean! I am sure Malaysians should be ashamed at themselves.

Going North was easier as this branched off from the coastal road away from the main tanker traffic. In addition, the checkpoints completely dropped off.

When asked what the predominant bush meat is, the unanimous answer is the grasscutter. See this for a description. Apparently the quality of the meat is very high and an important source of protein as it adapts well to breeding.