WASTED CHANCE: “Missed opportunity” — Quaynor Laments Seeing His Former Internet Hub Turned into a Cement-Making Site

For Professor Nii Narku Quaynor, driving past the former home of his pioneering technology company is more than a trip down memory lane.

It is a reminder of what he believes Ghana lost.

The computer scientist, widely associated with the development of Ghana’s early internet infrastructure, told Kafui Dey that he feels a deep sense of disappointment whenever he sees what has become of the premises that once housed the National Communications Services (NCS).

His answer was strikingly brief when asked what goes through his mind when he passes the place.

“Missed opportunity,” he said.

Then he added one word: “Wasted.”

At its peak, NCS was far removed from the modest operation many might imagine when thinking about Ghana’s early internet years.

Professor Quaynor said the organisation had about 87 employees and was involved in several areas of technology and communications.

It even had a media operation.

“We’re broadcasting on the internet long before even CNN and all these people started,” he recalled.

That history makes the current state of the premises particularly painful for him.

According to Quaynor, the site is no longer being used for the kind of technological work that once took place there.

“They making cement there of all the things you could do,” he said.

For a man who spent years trying to establish internet infrastructure in Ghana and later across Africa, the contrast is difficult to ignore.

One moment, the location represented a piece of the country’s emerging digital future.

Today, he sees something very different.

“From building the internet to this tells me that it was done out of malice,” Quaynor said.

His comments also reveal how deeply he still feels about the collapse of NCS.

Earlier in the interview, he narrated how the premises were taken from him after someone in government expressed interest in the land.

Quaynor said a government official wanted the property and that the decision eventually led to the loss of the place that had housed his pioneering internet operations.

For him, the matter was not simply about losing office space.

It was about losing a strategic technology hub that had been built at a time when Ghana was only beginning to connect to the internet.

He suggested that the premises could have continued serving as a centre for innovation, communications and digital development instead of being converted into a cement-making site.

The loss was made more painful by what NCS represented.

Earlier in the interview, Quaynor recalled the shock of seeing the pioneering company shut down after he had returned to Ghana from a successful career in the United States.

He had been a senior engineering manager in America, with more than 60 people working under him and a substantial budget.

Yet he chose to return home and build from the ground up.

NCS eventually came to an end.

Quaynor said what made the experience even more difficult was seeing people celebrate its shutdown.

“There were people clapping,” he recalled. “They clapped for the shutdown.”

He believes some of those celebrating simply did not understand what was being lost.

Decades later, however, Quaynor does not sound like a man who has allowed the experience to stop him.

Asked about the former premises, the government’s decision to take the land and what happened to the organisation, he offered a remarkably defiant response.

“Everybody has what they want. They’ve done it. They’re gone. I’m still doing mine.”

Then came the final line.

“And I have not stopped.”