By Ayo Akinfe
With elections looming, I find myself asking whether any of Nigeria’s political parties truly have think tanks groups of men and women mandated to think the unthinkable, to imagine possibilities far beyond the ordinary. For me, politics should not be about managing decline or doing the bare minimum. It should be about daring to leapfrog the industrialised nations and pushing human know-how to breaking point.In 1931, Joseph Stalin told Soviet workers: “We are 50 or 100 years behind the advanced countries.
We must make up this gap in 10 years. Either we do it or they will crush us.” He might as well have been speaking to Nigerian workers in 2026. The urgency of his words applies to us today. Yet, nearly a century later, we remain content with mediocrity.Frederick Lugard, in 1926, described Africans as lacking foresight, organisation, and discipline.
Painful as it is to admit, his words still ring true. Nigeria’s GDP stands at $375 billion, but by 2050, with a population of 400 million, we will need an economy of at least $2 trillion. Alarm bells should be ringing, but instead, we are distracted by music, Nollywood, Aso ebi, church, and mosque. We dance while sitting on a ticking time bomb.I believe dramatic examples are essential to inspire change. Were I in President Tinubu’s shoes, I would commission dinosaur experts to revive DNA and build a Jurassic island off Nigeria’s coast — a tourist attraction that could draw 20% of the world’s population.
I would merge Nigeria with Benin, Cameroon, and Niger to form a superstate called Songhai, with its central mission being to banish the Sahara Desert by converting it into lush farmland and wind farms.Our engineers should be tasked with impossible goals: a trans-ocean railway linking West Africa to South America, trains traveling at 1,000 km per hour beneath the sea floor, and spacecraft capable of reaching other solar systems at the speed of light. Why not plant Nigeria’s flag on the moon by 2030, build artificial moons to light our state capitals, or establish the world’s largest shipyard in the Niger Delta?Nigerians are capable of extraordinary feats when motivated. We defy odds to build mega churches, produce Nollywood blockbusters, and undertake pilgrimages in our millions.
If we can do all this, then we can also defy the odds to advance humanity. The problem is not capacity but interest. When we want something badly enough, bad government never gets in the way. The same determination must now be applied to innovation, science, and nation-building.The question remains: will our political parties ever empower think tanks to dream beyond the ordinary? Until they do, Nigeria risks remaining trapped in the cycle of small ambitions.
ayoakinfe@gmail.com .
