Chidimma Adetshina ohbee nm,
i suppose that regarding this post i should stay outside of
the ambit of rumours
the ambit of hear-say
and
stay squarely within
the ambit of that
which i myself have personally witnessed with my own eyes
and/or
otherwise know to be empirically demonstrable fact
i.e
information that can be shown to be true, factual, accurate, right and correct in any geographical location on the earth
by this i mean
for example
that i have heard it said that
in Onitsha
then in Eastern Nigeria
i.e
then in the Eastern Region of Nigeria
[ .. that nomenclature is actually more descriptively correct as
the Southern and Eastern Region of Nigeria
Southern Nigeria ( Eastern Region ) .. ]
circa 1945 A.D ?
or thereabouts
folks with some amount of general societal prominence
e.g
a folk holding the position then of
Bishop on the Niger
i.e
Bishop of the Niger Diocese of the Anglican Church of Nigeria
at
Onitsha
had telephones in their homes
if you realise that today 2024 with all the forward progress that GSM Technology has triggered in Nigeria with regards to the owning of personal telephones / telephone lines by the general majority of Nigeria Residents and Operators within the Nigeria Economy
there are still a fair number of adult folks who do not own a phone .. because they can not financially afford one .. then you can imagine that it must have been quite a notable circumstance to have a telephone in your house back then
this information however is hear-say so i guess i would rather not go about describing the type of phone handset it was as i did not see it with my own eyes .. even though i guess Google Search can provide images that can help us ascertain what telephones in that era looked like
by this
i also mean
for example
that i have heard it said that
in Onitsha
then in Eastern Nigeria
i.e
then in the Eastern Region of Nigeria
[ .. that nomenclature is actually more descriptively correct as
the Southern and Eastern Region of Nigeria
Southern Nigeria ( Eastern Region ) .. ]
circa 1955 A.D ?
or thereabouts
folks with some amount of general societal prominence
e.g
a folk holding the position then of
District Officer
or
Assistant District Officer
in
the British Colonial Service ( Eastern Region of Nigeria )
had telephones in their homes
as has been noted earlier previously
above
if you realise that
today 2024
with all the forward progress that GSM Technology has triggered in Nigeria with regards to the owning of personal telephones / telephone lines by the general
majority of Nigeria Residents and Operators within the Nigeria Economy
there are still a fair number of adult folks who do not own a phone .. because they can not financially afford one .. then you can imagine that it must have been quite a notable circumstance to have a telephone in your house back then
circa 1955 A.D ?
this information however
also
is
also
hear-say
so i guess i would rather not go about describing the type of phone handset it was as i did not see it with my own eyes .. even though i guess Google Search can provide images that can help us ascertain what telephones in that era looked like ( circa 1955 A.D )
i guess i would rather describe the phones that i saw with my own eyes within the period of my own consciousness of myself as an individual i.e within the period of my own consciousness of myself being a humanoid with the faculty of memory / recall by memory
and i think that for the early part of this period of identifiable consciousness the phones that readily come to mind are
the telephones then located in virtually every residence in a housing estate in a location that for the purposes of this post i shall simply refer to as Oke-Ira, Ebute-Metta.
the phones were virtually an intercom / intercomm system that enabled virtually all the residences ( and offices ) in that estate to have telephony communication.
the estate was/is located in Lagos State, Yoruba-land, Nigeria and the phones used in that estate did not have a direct connection with the phones used in the rest of Lagos State outside of that estate.
to place a call from within the estate to someone outside that estate e.g in Surulere or Ikoyi or Ilupeju you had to go through the Operator i.e the Telephone Operator i.e the folk at the Switch-Board who would then connect you to the telephone network outside the estate and then put your call through.
simillarly,
to place a call from outside the estate
e.g
from Surulere or Ikoyi or Ilupeju
to someone inside that estate you had to first call the Operator i.e the Telephone Operator i.e the folk at the Switch-Board who would then connect you to the telephone network inside the estate and then put your call through.
back in the day then
folks in the estate used to refer to their telephone lines as INTERNAL LINES and to the phones used outside the estate as EXTERNAL LINES.
the phone numbers were different
e.g
the number of a phone in the estate could be
737 or 739 or 719 or 717
or any other 3 digit number
while the phones outside the estate could be
960202
or any other 6 digit number.
it was also possible in some instances for residences in that estate to have both the INTERNAL LINE and the EXTERNAL LINE so the phone numbers of a residence could for example be
737 ( INTERNAL LINE )
44597 ( EXTERNAL LINE )
the observant reader may notice that the EXTERNAL LINE immediately above is a 5 digit number while the EXTERNAL LINE used as example early in a 6 digit number.
the difference in number of digits is probably a function of the time period in Telecommunications History of Nigeria / Lagos State at which those numbers were given since for example over time that 44597 number became 844597 ( and was it also later 834597 ? )
in any case
as my memory serves
.. and if it serves correctly ..
the intercomm telephone system in that estate was called
a PABX System
i am not at all sure now but that PABX may have meant PRIVATE AUTOMATIC BRANCH EXCHANGE or something along that lines.
you know something ?
NITEL is kaput.
NITEL is essentially no longer in operational existence today 2024 A.D
can you believe it ?
can you believe that ?
the giant NITEL
born out of
the separation of
the gigantic
P&T
( Federal Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications )
is no longer in functional operational existence ?
if you were not seeing it with your own eyes that there is no more NITEL telephone operation in Nigeria would you believe it .. knowing NITEL in the 1970s? and 1980s? and knowing P&T in the 1960s? and 1970s?
can you believe that the only telephone operations in Nigeria in the public space are
AIRTEL
i.e
AIRTEL GSM
MTN
i.e
MTN GSM
GLO
i.e
GLO GSM
9MOBILE
i.e
9MOBILE GSM
???
can you believe that NITEL GSM is essentially kaput even with the support measures put in in it’s favour by the Nigeria Administration at the starting periods of the Nigeria GSM journey ?
in any case
.. to continue with the central theme of this post ..
those 834597 lines
those EXTERNAL lines
those NITEL lines
those LANDLINES
in
Enugu
Onitsha
Port Harcourt
Calabar
Benin
Lagos
Ibadan
Jos
Kano
Kaduna
Kafanchan
Zaria
etc
etc
are all dead and kaput
and no longer functional
as / since
NITEL is essentially kaput
can you believe it ?
[ TO BE CONTINUED ]
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