Infrastructural development is not something you can leave to the government

(1) I regularly watch the documentary Impossible Engineering that reveals how agrarian societies became industrialised sometimes just due to the ingenuity, courage, foresight, determination and single-minded stubbornness of one individual. Men like Frank Sprague are what it takes to make the world a better place

(2) It is easy to see why Africa is lagging behind the rest of the human race when you read the history of men like Mr Sprague. We simply do not do things from the heart even if it means dying in penury. For us, there must be an immediate material benefit for everything we do. When we are ready to do things and be damned, we will bridge the gap with the industrialised world

(3) Now, if we were really interested in catching up with the rest of humanity, we could easily do it within the next 50 years but alas, my people simply do not have the stomach for such a fight. We keep hiding behind the lame excuse that we suffer from bad governance as if that is anything unique to us. Europe’s feudal rulers were more incompetent and corrupt than African presidents today but that never held the people back. Only intellectually lazy people use poor leadership as an excuse

(4) We have governorship elections next weekend and nobody is talking about the challenges of mass transit, housing, sewage, air quality, etc in our big cities like Lagos, Abuja, Ibadan, Port Harcourt, Kano, Kaduna, Enugu, Benin, etc. Do we not realise that the likes of London, New York, Chicago, Detroit, Berlin, Seoul, Tokyo, etc all faced these challenges once but alas they overcame them thanks to the sheer tenacity of their people

(5) Known as the Father of Electric Traction, it was Mr Sprague who came up with the idea of the underground train. Now back in the 19th century, trains ran on steam, so were not suitable to underground networks in large cities as they would choke everyone on the network. So, Mr Prague decided to tear up the rule book and introduce the electric train in Chicago. Everyone thought he was mad but alas he ploughed ahead despite being in a minority of one

(6) When Mr Frank came up with idea of each rail carriage having its own power source and not being dragged along by a locomotive engine, everyone said he should check into the lunatic asylum. Simply because it had never been done before, people thought it was impossible but alas, today, we take such technology for granted. Were it not for this man, this would not have been possible

(7) Why I will always love Frank Sprague is because when he came up with the idea, the authorities in Chicago refused to buy it despite him showing it could work. The city authorities refused to pay him one cent until he had 90 carriages up and running to prove that the technology worked. At his own expense he did it, defying the whole world and proving a point. How many Nigerians are prepared to address our power problems with innovative solutions like this?

(8) Thanks to this genius, the effects of Mr Sprague's developments in electric traction permitted the expansion in the size of cities worldwide.Mr Sprague's inventions over 100 years ago made possible modern light rail and rapid transit systems, which still function on the same principles today

(9) He was also the man who came up with the idea of the modern electric elevator. Mr Sprague saw that increasing the capacity of elevator shafts would not only save time but would also increase the earnings of tall buildings whose height was limited by the total floor space taken up in the shaftways by slow hydraulic-powered elevators

(10) All through his life and up to his last day, Frank Sprague had a prodigious capacity for work. Once having made up his mind on a new invention or a new line of work, he was tireless and always striving for improvement. He was impatient of any half-way compromises and his interest in his work never ceased. Do you know that only a few hours before his death, he asked to have a newly designed model of his latest invention brought to his bedside. We simply do not produce people like this. For us everything is about money. The only Nigerian I know who can be categorised along such men is Obafemi Awolowo.

I tire for my people! We are the architects of our own misfortunes. Lagos with 12m people has no underground network. Is there not one Nigerian who can come up with a plan for one?

Phew!