• The energy failure comes just 18 months after the Chinese-manufactured satellite was launched.

The energy failure comes just 18 months after the Chinese-manufactured satellite was launched.

Reports claim that the satellite has already fallen out of its orbit and been destroyed in order to prevent it from harming others.

It has been alleged that the Chinese manufacturers of the satellite used poor-quality materials which has resulted in the loss of the satellite.

According to Akin Soyinka, chair of non-governmental organization Nigeria Internet Watch, ‘This damage has hindered the country’s efforts to bridge the digital divide with the developed world.

The federal government invested a lot of resources in building the satellite - to the detriment of education and health in the last four years - with the hope of bridging the digital divide and accelerating the country’s development, but now all that is gone down the drain.’

They were optimistic that the satellite project would aid development by linking up rural communities and progressing telemedicine and long-distance learning. There were also ambitious commercial goals. But these are now dashed.

The US$240 million satellite was supposed to work for 15 years, and was officially monitored by a ground control station in Abuja, Nigeria, with backup stations in China, Italy, northern Nigeria and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) satellite applications centre in Hartebeesthoek, South Africa.
source www.afrik.com

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My comments on this article.

I find it incredible how african government can devote such huge amounts of money to such wasteful ventures. What is the point of going into space when there are power cuts all the time and we cannot even manage our traffic light on the streets.

The dream is gone down the drain!!! Says Ade soyinka. Well i think it is far from the drain. Technically the debris will have disintegrated in orbital space before the the poor hard working nigerian would have even caught a climpse of it on planet earth. For get about down the drain. It is up in the air big time. It is all over the place.

Sometimes i ponder over these things and i feel stressed for no reason. Well the main reason i know, is because i cant do anything about such criminal waste of national financial resources.Who am i to open my mouth. I no bi nigerian i for shut up. Abi.

I love nigeria and respect nigerians for thier innate ability to take amazing risks and prove critics wrong. But as for this one, oga i dey beg. why you want satellite, when even lights and water supply be wahala.

It is the same problem in Ghana too, power cuts. Not just restricted to west africa, even the african economic giant south africa. I however, have heard that the power cuts in nigeria are very different. Hahaha. Well that is what a nigerian friend told me. Na power KUT for NIJA dey like, breakfast lunch and supper. Hmm i dont really know how true that is. But i think for the purposes of emphasis and exaggeration he made a relatively far away and intangigle (electricity power cut) materialise into something very vivid.

So the question is, if we all know that there are major power cuts why try build something which relies signigicantly on power supply ( ie if it has not been designed to utilise solar energy in space)

Anywas i am buffled. that money has gone to waste ooooh charley. 250 Million dollars could have paid for the education of errrrrr, rougly 1 million kids to have decent education plus nutritious eba, egushi and ewudu. yummy yummy but hey the kids missed it and there is till no satellite.

I guess more oil dey for nija so no wahala. make i mind my own busines. I know one friend will be reading this and be saying IDIOOOOOT, to the satellite. How can you blame the satellite or the chinese Nero (aka ground zero). It should be the those belly full ministers and federal state governors who dey benefit like hell. I dont mean all of them but you know what i am saying.

$250Million scatter scatter, satellite jagga jagga, children in africa dey suffer suffer, gun hots in the air ( congo). where do we go africa.

Bless