Nigeria has always prided itself as the giant of Africa. What gave birth to such arcane metamorphosis? This self arrogation had tended to obscure the blunt truth, in the recent past when Nigeria fooled itself around the West African sub-region keeping the peace with scarce resources, while hunger reigned at home. The fact is, the giancy of Nigeria in Africa begins and ends on population, a not-so-savoury index of giancy.

What has Nigeria as a country contributed to the technological advancement of the world? Japan, before the era of Emperor Hiro Hito, was just another developing country. Germany, a country without abundant oil and mineral resources, was industrialized by an amalgam of intellect and human attitude. We need not recast as far back as pre-industrial revolution Europe, which was as outback as any African Country, governed by omens and superstitions. But even at then, there were separate movements that sought revelations on various mysteries of the technological world. There were the Alchemists, whose distinct preoccupations were to turn everything into gold, the creation of "the elixir of life," a remedy that supposedly would demystify all diseases and prolong life indefinitely; and the discovery of a universal solvent. These prescience, magic-impregnated inquisitions were the precursors of modern day technology.

Today, there is nowhere in Africa where breakthrough in Science and Technology is canvassed, espoused or significantly encouraged, even if with magical undertones. This is despite superabundance of technological geniuses in Africa, who are tactically repressed in the hostile policies of their various countries, or, if lucky, spirited away by knowledgeable civilizations. The contribution of Nigerians in Diaspora to the conquest of the Technological world should instruct us on the negative effect of the current brain drain in the academia.

Sifting across Africa, it is quite easy to see that mere presence of well-funded research centres with heavy incentives for competent researchers will catalyze technological growth. One does not have to be a genius in the real sense to invent or discover. The inventors and discoverers of the past were mainly intellectual dissidents. Some may have passed as mere nitwits who questioned established truths of existence. Like Galileo Galilei, almost branded a heretic and personally handed, by Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino, an admonition warning him off teaching or even advocacy of Copernican astronomy. Like Albert Einstein, termed a dunce by his teachers but who grew to propound the theory of relativity that revolutionized the intellectual world. Like Leonardo Da Vinci, Henry Ford, Hans Christian Anderson and many others, who suffered one learning incapability or the other but conquered the world.

The greatest bane to growth of Science and Technology in Nigeria, nay Africa, is the prevalence of superstitious belief. We amplify coincidences to explain away observed phenomena. Would Newton have arrived at the various laws of gravity if he had explained away the falling of the apple to the ground instead of upwards? When the African mentality was not on the way, there obtained parents’ stereotyping of Children’s academic orientation. The parents already knew before the child was born, which courses they MUST do. Thus the natural flair of the child was negated, talent was wasted, frustration and disorientation follow and the upshot was the continued churning out of half-baked graduates and outright miscreants.

Monumental corruption is another disincentive. The acclimatization of corruption in Nigeria is a worst form of dis-ingenuity we ever evinced. The wrong role models are created. Any endeavour that did not translate into quick wealth was a nuisance. The rigours of academic discipline was unappealing, why will it when certificates are purchased over the counter, when a wave of global counterfeiting has submerged the sane world? The result is prevalence of immediate-effect initiatives, Frankenstein’s monsters and demonized society on the edge of paralysis.

Nigeria can still be salvaged and repositioned for leadership roles in Science and Technology in Africa and the world. There is a role begging to be played. There is, hard to believe, technological stagnation in our material world, a problem caused by the syndrome of regarding any new invention or discovery as a way out in advancement. A more objective appraisal would show that not even the so-called developed countries are developed in the real sense. By what indices of attainment are they? They are developed only in comparison to the less fortunate countries, derogatorily tagged the third world. Development is not a closed system. Our material world, if you have a technological eye-view, is replete with crude devices and resources that beg for refinement. If only we accept it that way, and Countries like the USA, Germany, and even – laugh it off – our dear Nigeria, recognize that they too are backward, we can attain in no distant time, an advancement that would otherwise materialize in subsequent centuries.

Thinking outside the box in solution to problems of electricity supply in Nigeria is imperative, in addition to the present nuclear options being canvassed.Whenever I see electric poles and high tension cables, I have the sense of being taken centuries behind. Electronic lights are long overdue. Can light impulses be transmitted through the ionosphere, over great distances,to be received at source as quanta of light with the use of remote sensors for use in our various homes? For instance, when sound enters our handsets, they are excited in one way or the other, some even beep with light. Is this excitation convertible to steady light by any obscure mechanism? A situation will then arise where light is quartered out to subscribers by means of intelligent devices mobile or installable. Tall dream, you may say. But it is a fact we find difficult to accept, that so many hitherto impossibilities can be conquered by even a so-called third world like Nigeria, only if we can dare. So many near-magical inventions were given birth to by mechanisms so disappointing in their very simplicity. Just like the switch that completes a circuit.

Can we dream of computerization, of industrialization as a way out of our technological logjam? Competently funded research centres can truly put Nigeria on the cutting edge of Technology. We have a lot to give the world. Like Computerized kitchens, in which you log on in your house in Nigeria and would be washing a dish for grandma resident in London! Like development of zero fatality softwares that make accidents impossible! Like industrialization of the entire country through establishment of cottage industries and commercial scale industries, sourcing from abundant local raw materials. To gain the attention and respect of the world we have to be unique. We have to, like the Chinese did, give the world African brand of Science and Technology; we must eschew the present recycle process.