As the world’s largest black nation, Nigeria should come up with the unthinkable and realise one of Albert Einstein’s dreams

Ayo Akinfe

[1] Many humans do not know that Albert Einstein successfully proved that humans could live for longer in space than on planet earth

[2] Basically, what Einstein make clear was that if an astronaut travelled to space for a year, they would have increased their lifespan as they would age at a lesser rate

[3] Unfortunately, humanity has not built on Einstein’s work. If we did, by now, we would be sending humans to the moon to increase their lifespans

[4] Can anyone explain to me why Nigeria does not build a colony on say the moon and fly there once a month, taking people there from all over the world

[5] We could build a thriving healthcare industry which allows people to add maybe 50 years to their lives and prevent ailments associated with old age if we got this initiative going

[6] However, the first step in this direction is to begin to manufacture spacecrafts that will enable us to travel into space. This race started during World War Two when Nazi Germany build the V2 rocket. America then gave the German scientists US citizenship and recruited them into Nasa, sparking off space travel. It is time for Nigeria to join this space race

[7] No doubt there will be naysayers who think this is wishful thinking but Napoleon Bonaparte had an answer for such people - Impossible is the word found only in a fool's dictionary. Wise people create opportunities for themselves and make everything possible.

[8] French philosopher Le Roi Voltaire, also said: “No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.”

[9] Just to put everything into perspective, do you know that the first ever football match in Nigeria took place in 1904 between the students of Hope Waddell Institute Calabar and sailors from the British ship HMS Whistle. Our Efik brothers won the match 3-2. Imagine how intimidating it must have been in 1904 to play your colonisers. To have the confidence to beat them must have been unprecedented. We need more of that spirit going forward

[10] As a first step, I would like to see us plant Nigeria’s flag on the moon within the next 10 years. Nigerians may not know it but in 1975, Murtala Mohammed actually initiated a Nigerian nuclear programme. His argument was that Caucasian nations should not have a nuclear monopoly. Nigerians appear to have lost that can-do spirit

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