I have a dream, that one day Nigeria will be a truly great country.
I have a dream, that one day in Nigeria in the not too distant future, I will wake up and have assurance that all day there will be power; that I will not spend the day breathing air polluted by fumes and deafened by the din of a thousand generating sets; that I will wake up at night knowing there will be light at the switch of a button and I can get to work on my computer as I please without the nagging fear that the joy of having power would soon be taken away from me and I will be thrown into darkness, scrambling for candle, and match, and torch, and gen-set, with an end to my tranquility.
I have a dream, that one day in Nigeria, queues in petrol filling stations will be a thing of the past; that the country will have public and private refineries functioning as they should, providing refined petroleum products in abundance to meet all local needs and more for export in painless flow. I have a dream that Nigeria will be a country that will maximally utilize her natural gas, no longer flaring it, but harnessing and processing it, through massive infrastructural provision, to meet exponential domestic and industrial demands.
I have a dream, that Nigeria one day shall promulgate a law prohibiting public servants from going abroad for medical treatment on public funds under any circumstance, thereby forcing our leaders to concentrate efforts in improving and developing our health services such that Nigeria will proudly have some of the best specialist and general hospitals in Africa.
I have a dream, that Nigeria will one day realize that education and manpower development is the bedrock of national development: scientific, technological and cultural. I have a dream that Nigeria will promulgate a law prohibiting children or wards of public servants from schooling abroad. And, as a result ensure all energies and ample resources are committed to education through compulsory primary and secondary school education for all children; strategic special encouragement for science subjects and disciplines in schools and universities; ample funding of existing universities to become true centers of learning and research for outstanding scholarship. I have a dream, that Nigeria will one day have universities ranking in the top five in Africa and top 100 in the world.
I have a dream, that one day, Nigeria will have the best road network in Africa, with six to eight-lane expressways traversing and crisscrossing the length and breadth of the country, accelerated through public-private- partnership arrangements, with tolls or without, opening the entire national landscape to vast possibilities of commerce, trade, and tourism.
I have a dream, that similarly Nigeria will, one day, have modern wide gauge rail line network crisscrossing the length and breadth of the country, with state-of-the-art rolling stock running safely yet at speeds faster than cars conveying passengers and cargo to various destinations, reducing to barest minimum the need and number of trailers and tankers on our roads. I have a dream, that Nigeria will witness a time when living in a town 150 miles away from a place-of-work-town is matter of an hour, commonplace, easy and safe.
I have a dream, that Nigeria will one day have its vast territory, its boundless grassland of the north, its undulating hills of the middle-belt, its immense forestland of the south, its amazing diversity of landscape, conquered by mechanized agriculture such that the country can not only feed herself but have surplus of food and cash crops to export to neighbouring countries and overseas, making her agriculture a major foreign exchange earner over and above oil.
I have a dream, that Nigeria will one day emerge as the greatest sporting country in Africa, nay, in the world; that her soccer team will one day be in the finals of the World Cup and, indeed, win; that she will produce two of the top ten tennis players in the world; that she will produce a number of the world’s best basketballers, making Nigeria one of the most formidable basketball countries in the world; that she will dominate the world athletics in some of the track and field events. I have a dream that this will come about through systematic, programmed, focused, and concerted efforts by all tiers of government, complemented by private sector involvement.
I have a dream, of a Nigeria where the security of the citizens and of the country’s territory are uppermost in the minds of her leaders; a country of zero tolerance for dastardly deeds such as kidnapping, armed robbery, religious intolerance and terrorism. I have a dream, of Nigeria where no walls of residential buildings shall be higher than three feet yet all will feel happy to live within and sleep with both eyes closed, secure in the trust of protection by the country’s police and law enforcement agents.
I have a dream, of a Nigeria that gives pride of place to her cultures in their diversity, teaching her history to her youth and inculcating in them a sense of pride in their local languages.
I have a dream, of a Nigeria where no public offices will be allowed to have places of worship – churches, mosques, shrines or tabernacles – within its premises; a country where religion will be strictly a private thing, and religious prayers or offerings of any kind will be forbidden at all public functions in deference to the sensitivity of all and true observance of the secularity of the nation as enshrined in the Constitution.
I have a dream, that one day Nigeria will have the common-sense to know that it cannot continue to do things the same way and expect different results. I have a dream, that the country will be blessed with leaders imbued with true sense of nationalism and with the wisdom and the will to restructure the country for greatness. I have a dream that at such a time the present whimsical, baseless, and scattered states will yield to a more purposeful and strategic regional arrangement that will cut down mindless waste and enhance positive growth competitiveness.
I have a dream, that Nigeria will rise to become a nation of regions competing to excel, and of citizens driven by a sense of patriotism and shared values of truthfulness, honesty, consideration for others, duty and self- reliance; shunning avarice, greed, corruption, and materialism.
I have a dream of a great Nigeria. It may not all come to pass in my lifetime, but may future generations experience the dream.
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