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Before the internet became part of everyday Ghanaian life, it was something many people barely understood and for Professor Nii Narku Quaynor, that confusion sometimes turned into suspicion.
Before the internet became part of everyday Ghanaian life, it was something many people barely understood and for Professor Nii Narku Quaynor, that confusion sometimes turned into suspicion.
The man now widely recognized as a pioneer of Ghana’s internet revolution was once viewed by some people with distrust because of the technology he was working with.
“They thought you were a spy,” Kafui Dey reminded Quaynor during an interview.
“Yeah,” Quaynor replied.
It was one of the more unexpected memories from his journey of introducing Ghanaians to the internet in the early 1990s.
At the time, the internet was still a strange and unfamiliar concept to many people. Quaynor said there were widespread misconceptions about what he could actually do with the technology.
“They thought I could break into people’s things and so on and so forth,” he recalled.
The suspicion was not limited to what the internet could do.
People were also suspicious of Quaynor himself.
“People were suspicious of the internet. Yeah. And also of me,” he said.
For someone working closely with government at the time, the suspicion was perhaps understandable in the context of how little the public knew about the emerging technology.
Quaynor explained that his work brought him into contact with the PNDC and quasi-government organizations, some of which dealt with sensitive matters.
When asked whether security personnel had followed or monitored him because of those suspicions, he responded with a characteristically playful line.
“You see at the time it would be like I’m following myself.”
The joke carried a serious explanation.
“Because I was working closely with government,” he said.
Quaynor eventually realized that changing those perceptions would not happen overnight.
His response was not confrontation but education.
“Well, time and then also a lot of awareness building and so on and so forth,” he said when asked how he dealt with the misconceptions.
That awareness-building became an important part of the broader effort to introduce Ghana to the possibilities of the internet.
At the time, the technology was still in its infancy. Ghana’s first internet traffic began around 1993, with the initial connection relying on just 10 telephone lines.
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