The brouhaha surrounding the proliferation of 5G technology needs elucidation and deconstruction beyond the purview of skepticism and prejudice. It is imperative we all understand that the world is moving at an incredibly fast pace. The ascendancy of emerging disruptive technologies and the recrudescence of a new technological arms race among world powers are clear pointers. 5G is the ‘silicon valley’ of US technological hegemony and for China, a grand scheme in its global ‘Belt and Road Initiative’.
For starters, 5G is the latest iteration of cellular technology engineered to greatly increase the speed and responsiveness of wireless networks due to advanced antenna technology and bandwidth. This ultrafast internet technology is not apocalyptic or a catalyst for the fecundity of Covid-19, rather it is a paradigm shift in the global art of war. A zero sum game in the international balance for power between the United States and China. 5G is the new way of war, it is the reconstitution of the new world order, a revivification of imperialism. A technological battle between near-peer competitors on who controls the world at the center stage.
When 3G was introduced in Nigeria in 2001 we celebrated its coming. It redefined our economic processes, upgraded our way of life, facilitated business autonomization and precipitated our digitization. We embraced it and never feared the intimidating aura of the masts set up nationwide or the optic fibers they laid underground in our streets. We accepted its modus operandi and acclimatized to it. The more people criticized the more 3G was stronger. We were swooned in the euphoria of 3G that we were oblivious when 4G came. The race to 5G started long ago. The portability of mobile phones, the emergence of nano-sized sim cards, and the internet of things were all to pave way for coming of 5G. You were powerless to stop 4G why do you think 5G would be any different?
The burgeoning question should thus be: How is Nigeria intending to leverage this technology? How are we diversifying our economy to be innovators in this emerging technological war? How many physicists, data and computer scientists are we sending to China and United States to understudy this new technology? Have the government released grants to researchers (not legislators) to model possible impacts? One thing is inevitable and immutable, 5G would come. It is not a matter of ‘If’ but ‘when’. Nigeria has a choice prepare for it or lose out completely.
There is already cause for alarm. As at 2020, we still don’t produce our pencils, papers, and we import toothpick. There are no indigenous cellphone manufacturing companies. Our network providers are still struggling to provide affordable internet. Already we are behind. To worsen our dilemma, the Nigerian government owes billions of dollars to the United States and China – the two main protagonists in the 5G race. Like the saying goes, ‘he who calls the piper dictates the tunes’.
And no, it is not the end of the world, it is just the consolidation of the new world order towards the commodification of the human genome. And no, it does not cause Covid-19, as there is a pathological disconnection between radiation and respiratory disease. It is however ominous that 5G would end the world of monocultural economies like Nigeria that solely depend on crude oil. It would deepen the peripheralization of our economy and incentivize a development malaise, if we do not move the ‘technology’ way.
Till Nigeria produces what it consumes and consumes what it produces, the race to 5G is simply above our pay grade.
