NIGERIA: Low cost laptop giveaway stalled by suit
GIN) — Plans to give one million low-cost laptops to Nigerian schoolchildren have been derailed over claims by a Nigerian keyboard developer that the U.S.-made computer broke their patent on multilingual keyboards.

The developer LANCOR has obtained an injunction on the laptop distribution and is seeking $20 million in damages.

The laptop known as “XO” is designed to withstand harsh conditions such as rain and dust. It has a screen that can be read under intense sunlight. Its battery lasts for 12 hours and can be recharged with the use of a solar panel or a pull cord.

The laptop went on sale for around $100, under a marketing strategy of selling large numbers “directly to ministries of education, which can distribute them like textbooks,” according to a statement by One Laptop Per Child.

Nigeria’s new education minister, Igwe Aja-Nawachuku, told the BBC recently that he found the project questionable given the absence of basic equipment in many Nigerian schools. “What is the sense of introducing one laptop per child when they don’t have seats to sit down and learn, when they don’t have uniforms to go to school in, when they don’t have facilities?”

But at one public school just outside the capital Abuja, students told the IRIN news wire they were thrilled with the machines.

“I love my laptop,” said Grace Ogwo, a 12-year-old, told IRIN. “I think the laptop is very good. It helps us to find some words, like our uncle [teacher] will teach us... The things we didn’t know, we go check on the laptop.”

Said Tomi Davies, Nigerian-born XO project manager: “Screen-based interaction is going to be a prerequisite for literacy in the future and if we don’t start now there’ll be a digital gulf.”