Like Dr Martin Luther King, we have to dream of a future that appears unthinkable at the moment if we are serious about getting the world’s largest black nation respected by the rest of the human race

Ayo Akinfe

Here are 10 things I dream of as I think about the kind of Nigeria we want to bequeath to our grand children and great grand children:

(1) Nigeria will develop supersonic aircraft that can fly at the speed of light and travel to other galaxies and solar systems

(2) Nigeria’s president will become the first world leader to sign a bilateral deal with the leader of an alien race. We will agree to share technology and sign up to annual exchange visits

(3) Nigeria will host an unprecedented peace summit between Jehovah and Lucifer where they will sign a peace deal agreeing to end their spat and bury the hatchet

(4) After merging with Niger Republic, which is 70% desert, Nigeria (or Songhai as it will then be known) will turn the Sahara Desert into lush farmland. In fact we will have a zero desertification policy

(5) Nigeria will have mankind’s most humane wildlife policy ever. We will ban the killing of all wild animals given that man has the ability to rear all the livestock he needs for feeding. Wild animals have just as much a right to the planet as we do

(6) Nigeria will have the world’s most ambitious ocean reclamation policy ever. There is an area off the coast of West Africa where the equator and the Greenwich Meridian meet. It is the centre of the earth. We will build an artificial island there. Ideally, the United Nations headquarters should be located there

(7) Nigeria will build the world’s first underwater inter-continental railway linking Lagos and São Paulo. It will travel at the speed of sound

(8) I dream of a Nigeria that can grow food on ocean-going vessels so sailors never run out of food when they are at sea

(9) Mankind is yet to come up with mobile factories that can churn out goods either on aircraft or on ships. Just imagine how we would transform the world economy if we could manufacture goods on the move

(10) I dream of a world in which we start to think about making other planets habitable. If we can export oxygen, carbon dioxide and gravity to Mars for instance, can it sustain human life?

“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit.”