My visit to the National Mathematical Centre was unexpected in many ways: I was surprised to hear a visit had been scheduled, I was surprised that it existed at all (let alone in Abuja), I was surprised to find a high-caliber staff in place... and I was pleasantly surprised to find a first-class example of "commando networking" within its walls.

The Centre's mission is to work on all school levels to  improve math education in Nigeria.  During my visit I met with several teachers from around the country who were temporarily attached to the Centre to develop curriculum and improve their own skills.

The National Mathematical Centre collaborates with various international agencies to develop capacities in Nigerian schools and as such has a definite need for reliable communication systems.

While I met with a delegation of the Centre's management staff, the high-level administrators originally scheduled for the meeting were absent.  I met with some of the most skeptical resistance from this group: they wanted to know why I was taking their time and what I possibly had to offer.  However, my sense of this group's mood was that what I was experiencing was less of the standard skepticism of NUC and/or USIA and more of an informed sense of urgency and a desire not to be side-tracked by outside factors.

Indeed, the Centre already has a network installed and a redundant set of email links (with NUC and a Lagos ISP) as well as an occasional Internet dial-up browse capacity.  They are fiercely interested in developing a better link to the Internet and are pursuing this objective with their collaborators.

The key to the progress the Centre has seen apparently is Dr. O. A. Fakinlede, a mathematician who recently spent some time studying overseas and has a good idea of what is possible with digital technology.  

Dr. Fakinlede reported that the Centre had over 30 computers attached to the network and four servers.  While walking through the building I noted about a dozen machines which were actually in working condition (many of the computers were older 486 and 386 clones) while most were in one state or another of disrepair.  The Centre has an Ethernet network using older coaxial and thinnet cabling, which they hope to upgrade to twisted pair in the near future.  The servers also functioned as workstations and were running Linux and Windows NT.  The servers were in a single room with significant security.  I noted a wide variety of mathematical modeling and instructional software in use in the server room.  Outside the server room was a larger room with over a dozen computers for general use.  Many were in disrepair, but those still functioning were being used.

Dr. Fakinlede's cohort's recognized his unique contribution to the Centre's digital communication systems and voiced concerns several times that he might leave or desire to return to his own teaching and research.   Dr. Fakinlede is working informally with some students to teach them networking skills, but he seemed to shrug off the effort as not necessarily productive.

The Centre is particularly interested in mounting cached Web sites on their servers and Dr. Fakinlede was, refreshingly, the first Nigerian I spoke with who understood the concept without detailed explanations.

By the time I left, I felt that the discourse had been productive and the possibilities for collaboration with the Centre were rich.  Dr. Fakinlede thanked me for planting some new ideas and I suspect the Centre's innovative staff will probably implement some before I visit again.