When I visit newspaper stands to see
for myself what the stories making the
lead are, I am baffled by the avalanche
of knowledge that are in the privy of
those we often call the “free readers
association.” They are a group of middle to senior class citizens who
meet at the vendor’s stand to read for
free and share knowledge. They seem
to know so much, have travelled
round the hypothetical world and
seen the future from yesterday.

In one of my recent visits to this
communion of minds, I stumbled into
an ensuing argument. The arguments
were around the reasons why our
nation had failed to live up to her
expected billings. My very learned fellow free readers provided reasons
and enormous reasons at that for the
perceived failure of our great nation.
They made statements like “in the US”,
“in the UK” or “in advanced countries”
to support their claim that our own great nation was far from being great.
Being a patriot, or so I think, I desired
to know what it is that has to change
and what their expectations were, so I
listened attentively as they each
buttressed each other’s point for or against the motion.

I’ve observed the relative un-
satisfaction that characterizes the
expectations of the average Nigerian
citizen. We do not have to travel
overseas to develop a mirage of
glowing pictures from outside our shores depicting the tranquil and
orderliness of such lands. The pictures
have being imported to us by our
avalanche of satellite TVs and local
analog television stations. This has
helped us create a positive mental picture of those lands we want our
own dear land to copy.

Even the unlearned of us would love
to live in a country like the lands
beyond our shores where we hear the
roads are tiled with gold and sparkle
like diamond. We have developed
wonderful names for those lands; obodo oyibo, yankee etc. The average
Nigerian will seize every opportunity
to leave the shores of this great
country if the opportunity presents
itself while living in such countries
have become a measure of one’s financial standing even if it’s not the
case.

My interaction with these free readers
gave me a picture of Nigeria, one I
never had seen and still hope to see.
They painted for us a Nigeria we wish
we had but we’ve not had. I was
engrossed with listening to them, men with grey hairs who had seen enough
of life to know so much that I came
out thinking why we should not work
towards their picture.

While these men regretted at the
seeming distance their aspirations and
desire for our dear country is with the
present, I felt bad that people with
such inspiring aspirations could not
find their way to government while those who claim to know so much but
don’t run around our seats of power.
Who wouldn’t love a land that’s the
cynosure of all eyes, whose streets are
adorned masterly and her
architecture, distinctively attractive, an adventure for even the most creative
minds and an attention for the best of
the world, a land whose milk and
honey flows freely to all and sundry
without distinctive class divisions.

Why won’t our youths, our future, stay
away from lands beyond when we
have a plethora of opportunities to
support intellectual advancement and
work opportunities to keep them
busy, when labor is well encouraged and capacity is considered well ahead
of connections.

Who would dare take the risk over the
Sahara when our lush vegetation
provides more than enough food to
serve our ever increasing population,
a land where food is a right and not a
privilege, where we don’t just eat to survive but survive to eat, where
agriculture is a wealth opportunity for
the poor.
Won’t you love the opportunity to
travel across our cities on well paved
roads with cars made of Nigerian made engines, underground train
networks with fast speed magnetic
rails, and safe brand new airlines
designed by our distinguished
engineers?

Imagine our cities with hundreds of
super high risings sprawling our skies,
sparkling lights characterizing our
night life, gigantic edifices and
magnificent structures scattered
beautifully over our landscape, beautiful estates that’s home to all and
a housing policy that works.
How about a well trained police force
well kitted for the task, an army of
soldiers too prolific not to be noticed
as a global force, seasoned men of the air-force with state of the art fighting
jets, and a Navy that ranks as the
topmost in world sea warfare?

Think of our home made goods
proudly standing side by side
international competitors in world
fairs, competing for global market
share and becoming leaders at
manufacturing best brands. Think of Nigerian businesses becoming
household conglomerates in nations
beyond our land, creating
opportunities not only for our
countrymen but for the world.

How about the dignity of having
qualified graduates of our universities
stand head to head to challenge their
peers from the best institutions across
the world, considered as first choice in
opportunities outside our nation’s shores and inventions linked to our
own creative minds? How about our
professors gaining global renown,
displaying academic brilliance that’s
second to none any part of the world?
How about our universities becoming global training centers where students
from diverse national backgrounds
find learning in our academic
environment interesting?How about the dignity of having
qualified graduates of our universities
stand head to head to challenge their
peers from the best institutions across
the world, considered as first choice in
opportunities outside our nation’s shores and inventions linked to our
own creative minds? How about our
professors gaining global renown,
displaying academic brilliance that’s
second to none any part of the world?
How about our universities becoming global training centers where students
from diverse national backgrounds
find learning in our academic
environment interesting?

What will happen if our nationals are
given pride of place in lands beyond
our shores, dignified and
distinguished because we are called
by the name Nigeria? It would be a
joyful sight beholding our nationals travel round the world without having
to go through rigorous screening by
immigration officers of other nations.

Ponder over the unity in spite of our
diversity that can be built when we
have all working well for us, a nation
where political leadership isn’t as
profitable as running a farm, where it
would be pride of place to serve the nation with the entire might one can
garner, where self comes next after
others.

Wonder over the possibilities that can
happen when creativity is given
special place, where our future
engineers and scientist have the
opportunity at developing their ideas,
with our own version of Silicon Valley built for the manifestation of these
ideas.

How about our nation supplying aids
to more than half the world and being
the sponsors of major humanitarian
movements around the world, our
young men and women taking up
volunteering roles as teachers, doctors, engineers etc., in various
parts of the world?

Who will love the long distance travel
to America, Europe and India for
medical operations when our health
centers could possibly ease off the
health challenge and would be the
centers of medical tourism from across the world? Our doctors would be first-
class and renowned developing home
grown skills in curing almost
impossible sicknesses such as Ebola,
HIV/AIDS, etc.

Imagine an economy not dependent
on crude oil as a means for revenue
generation, where our manufacturing
and agricultural productivity supplies
90% of our gross domestic product
(GDP) and the economy stands tall amongst top three economies in the
world. Think of the implications of
having such an economy on the
quality of life of the average Nigerian.

How about having twenty four hours
electric power supply powered by
renewable energy in the form of solar
panels, wind turbines as well as other
renewable energy means, each home
supplying to the national grid in their own little way?

Think about a clean environment
empowered by adequate waste
control mechanisms, with zero
tolerance for waste, systems able to
convert waste to wealth and energy,
and dump sites inexistent. Think of our own airspace agency
sending Nigerians to space, our
Nigerian flag having a place in the
moon, probes sent across the eternal
length of space, building a Nigerian
space ship, discovering new life in mars and other distant planets.

Imagine our homegrown languages
becoming official lingua franca in
business and government premises
across the length and breadth of our
land and our languages accepted as
international languages. Imagine a Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa textbook on
mathematics, science, chemistry,
physics, law etc. It would be easy
training our young minds with our
mother tongue rather than having to
go through the learning process of a new foreign language.Imagine our homegrown languages
becoming official lingua franca in
business and government premises
across the length and breadth of our
land and our languages accepted as
international languages. Imagine a Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa textbook on
mathematics, science, chemistry,
physics, law etc. It would be easy
training our young minds with our
mother tongue rather than having to
go through the learning process of a new foreign language.,

A beautiful piece I must say. We share these dreams too, too bad that posts like this don't make it to the FP easily.