Before now, I have had need to use pictures from google maps to give my wife direction while visiting me in locations where I worked as an iterant auditor. Little did l know that information available on the map were from voluntary contributors otherwise called Local Guides. These realities dawned on me at Abakaliki five years ago before l became a Local guide. One of the days I was bored having just left the bubbling city of Abuja the nation’s capital to a sleepy town of Abakaliki some 400 kilometers from the nation’s capital. I longed for an Efik delicacy called ikpan and only restaurant classified as Calabar kitchen in Nigerian context can offer this type of menu. I was glad when from the google map a location near Enugu- Abakaliki express way was marked Calabar Kitchen. I took off to the location like a tornado but was disappointed because nothing of such existed within that vicinity. But l was “too sure” Google can’t make this type of “mistake” never knew Google was not responsible for all the information we see on google map. I kept asking people within the environment for the calabar kitchen l saw on map, it was only the fourth person that convinced me that the point of interest l was looking for is located at Pastoral centre on Old Enugu road. I took his description and was able to locate the Calabar Kitchen. Eventually when I became a local guide a year later, I decided to nest on a niche that will make people using the map to get accurate information hence my tag line Giving Understanding In Detailed Explanation (GUIDE). I listened to the training sessions from @JanVanHaver who thus far has over 26,700 edits to his credit our own @hellosamsonR and you cannot talk of edit champions without mentioning @Modnomad with 247,807 successful edits his type is classified ‘ancestor’ in out Nigerian Local Guide parlance. Motivators that made me an ‘Edict Addict’ @JanVanHaver @HelloSamsonR @ModNomad
picture of a calabar kitchen @ Abakaliki cropped from Google map