LEO STAN EKEH: AFRICA’S DIGITAL ORPHAN AT 65
State for Information and Communication, Alhaji Dasuki Nakande, to the elation of the then Governor, Senator Mamman Bello Ali. Ekeh with the support of Total Plc (Elf Oil) pioneered the deployment of digital dispensing pumps after he was cheated at a petrol station at Ikeja.
Despite successfully pushing global brands like Apple, Microsoft, HP, among others deep into the Nigerian market, Ekeh remained listlessly discontented. He desired to create an African computer identity. And by 2001, he led his young and passionate team of outliers to birth the Zinox range of ICT products, the first indigenous computer to earn both Intel and Microsoft certification. It was the Holy Grail of his ceaseless questing, fuelled by his chance meeting in the United Kingdom in the mid-80s with the irrepressible Steve Jobs, the prodigious co-creator of the Apple range. Ekeh was part of a small audience of international students and potential entrepreneurs in the United Kingdom and there to address them was Steve Jobs. At that time, Jobs was already a household name after the roaring success of Apple computers which he co-founded with another whizkid, Steve Wozniak, a former electronic hacker.
Jobs had wowed the audience with his digital sagacity, plotting a roadmap on how he intended to create an all-digital future. His encounter with Jobs birthed a dream in him. And he was good to his dream.
He soon returned to Nigeria after his first degree in India and post-graduate studies in the UK to give life to his dream. It was no coincidence that he was the man who first brought Apple to Nigeria and got the media industry buzzing with computers. Like most outliers, capricious yet focused, Ekeh’s rebellious zeal to change the status quo resulted in the creation of the most integrated ICT conglomerate in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The birth of Zinox (launched on Tuesday, October 9, 2001) marked a tipping point for the serial disruptor. In no time, many multinationals, Nigerian corporates, tertiary institutions, ministries, departments and agencies standardised their operations on Zinox. It also fulfilled Ekeh’s dream to make Zinox a Nigerian, nay African, computer identity.
At various times, Zinox was deployed as the ICT backbone for the hosting of some major international events in and outside Nigeria. A few cases would suffice. Between October 5 and 17, 2003, Nigeria hosted the 8th All Africa Games codenamed COJA 2003. Zinox computers were among the global brands that powered the event.
It also powered the 18th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) held in Abuja between December 5 and 8, 2003. Other international events powered by Zinox include the All-Africa University Games, a continental multi-sport event organised for Africa’s university athletes by the African University Sports Federation (FASU) in Bauchi (April 17 to 22, 2004); and the 7th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the Africa Union (AU) from July 2 to 5, 2006 in Banjul, The Gambia.
Perhaps, Ekeh’s defining moments were the patriotic interventions of Zinox during Nigeria’s 2007 and 2011 general elections. It salvaged Nigeria’s voter registration exercise by delivering 11,500 DDC (Direct Data Capture) machines in 14 days. That was beyond a feat; it was an act of patriotism and it heralded the introduction of technology into the nation’s electoral process.
Zinox would repeat the same feat in 2011, this time delivering 80,000 fully integrated units of DDC machines within 35 days ahead of two foreign companies in time enough for the conduct of the general elections of that year and also assisted the two foreign competitors to deliver to INEC offices nationwide, to the relief of then INEC chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega.
Ekeh’s desire is not to be the wealthiest Nigerian, but to be the silent enabler of a tech-driven nation. For his exertions, he has earned Presidential endorsements, international and national honours including the prestigious National Productivity Order of Merit (NPOM) award conferred on him by President Muhammadu Buhari, Order of the Federal Republic (OFR), Microsoft Global Adviser, among dozens of other garlands including honorary doctorate degrees from Nigerian universities. He is blessed with a brilliant wife and kids who are in commanding entrepreneurial heights in the nation’s digital community.
A detailed biography of this highly detribalized Nigerian - bridge-builder, patriot and creator of jobs and wealth - would be launched next year but for now, let’s wish him the very best that life can give as he marks his 65th birthday.
Happy birthday to the one we simply call Leo Stan.