Does Nigeria have what it takes to be a Leader Nation in the Global Future?

Before you get to answer that question, we’ll have to understand what a leading nation actually is.
Around 2050, there are aspersions that portend that the world will literately run out of space and one of the greatest concerns for humanity would be where to find a space for himself and his family.

Many people will have living spaces that can be converted into working space. Ofcourse, we see already that our century greatly encourages entrepreneurship and most of the successful entrepreneurs we have can work comfortably from home. In future, more people will work from home and much more of that population would work on their own.

Work on their own? What gives? Already, we have seen the growing rate of unemployment and as the years roll by, we have seen more statistics of people sacked than those employed. Also, already, machines are replacing many people from the jobs they used to do manually. In future, even more jobs will be replaced by machines, thereby leading to a sack of staff and an increase in entrepreneurship.

From the above, we can see that we will have more entrepreneurs in the future and people working as teams but with their individual contributions going into projects based on what they have developed for themselves.

What this portends is that we won’t need large office buildings to house people as an office complex while they work together. With the help of the Internet, people will be right in their homes and work together without having to meet physically but rather virtually. They won’t have to go out to a particular space meant for work. They will have the world right in their hands and will impact it right from their home space.

Already, devices have been developed that can make you shrink your world into the palms of your hand.

From the success of having a telephone that has wires and cables, man moved to having mobile phones that had better sound and no wires. From the crisper audio calls of mobile phones we have evolved to having video calls and while this is the phase many are trying to get into while cheaper internet charges are being explored, in future, video calls will be infused with virtual reality and this will rely heavily on 3D technology. The impact of this is that when you place a call, instead of talking to the person and hearing only audio or using video call to see and hear the person on your device screen, the person is actually going to come out of the device and sit with you in a 3D shape.

Did you get that? No? Have you seen how a genie comes out when a lamb is rubbed? That is what is going to happen when you call a friend. The person will come out of the device you called him or her through and you can talk with him/her. Ofcourse that is not the real person, that is just the person’s virtual profile. And yes, the person’s virtual profile is not the real person. The real person will be somewhere in his space and will remotely control his virtual profile or what we can call Avatar. If you have watched the movie called Avatar, you will understand how this works. A body stays in one place but through the use of some devices, the body can appear in some other place. This is the technology that will make Virtual 3D Profiles possible.

Now, what has that done? It has eliminated the hassles of traveling by road and making your car take up space on that road amongst others.

At this point, I would like to point out that man will live on earth but will do more activities in the air. Currently, we are acquiring land and when all those lands have been acquired or even before we get to that, is it not simple logic that the only space left will be the space we have in the air?

Yes, in the future, people will buy air space, not land space.

This being, we will have houses that are vertical and oblong. So, sky scrappers are the houses of the future. People that have lands will have to buy the air above them or if the air is bought by someone else, they will have to co-own the property with one partner owning land while the other owns the space above it.

What does this entail? It simply lets us know that there will be a lot of collaborations in the future. Businesses will be ran by entrepreneurs and will have to rely on other businesses to survive.

Families will need other families to survive. States will need other states to survive.Regions will need other regions to survive. Countries will need other countries to survive.

One thing though, the country that first acquires and creates relevant future solutions that the world will have to survive on will be the ones that will lead the other nations.

Thus, we shall have leader nations and follower nations. What distinguishes a leader nation from a follower nation?

One of such is the capacity, ability and proof of what they can create that will make the rest of the world come to them. If a nation cannot or have not created anything unique, it will have to be a follower nation to other nations that create the things it needs. But if two nations actually have things they have created that they each need from the other, then they can collaborate as leaders and still retain their leadership positions.

Thus, to be a leading nation in the near future, you have to be a ‘creating’ nation. You have to be a nation that creates solutions that the other nations cannot do without. The more of such ‘creations’ you have, the higher your leadership sagacity among other nations.

Obviously, not all nations are creating solutions right now. And even more sadly, many other nations will not get to know about this till when it starts happening. So, there sure will be leader nations and the follower nations. The leader nations will be the ones who know about this and who also have created or starts creating solutions the future cannot do without.

Why do you think there is a drive for going global? It is because whatever it is you create locally must have to be able to be accepted and consumed globally. Your packaging and the relevance of your product to the global audience is what makes it to be globally accepted.

The Americans find it easy to make their products or creations go global. The Europeans have that ease too. Now, the Asians are going everywhere and taking their home grown brands to different nations and thus getting global. Even South Africa is taking its retail store brands such as Shoprite and others to other countries and making hits with each outlet.

Sit back and ask yourself, what is Nigeria currently exporting to the world? What has Nigerians created that is being used globally or gradually spreading across atleast African nations?
Can you name atleast just one product or platform?

We need to wake up and start creating.

The US has good infrastructure and policies that favour creators. Our government has to make our infrastructure stand and be stable. We cannot continue to play politics with our basic development infrastructures. IS it not foolhardy to carry the money that should have been used to develop Nigeria or a place in Nigeria to banks abroad and thus make those countries have more and do more for their citizens who in turn create and grow their economy, thus putting their nation on the path of being a leading nation while citizens in Nigeria suffer hardship and die or watch their dreams die?

It is indeed sad. While corruption bites on one part, is it not sad that insecurity is killing away our citizens? Can we imagine how many geniuses that would have turned this nation around must have died in bomb blasts or ethnic religious clashes?

We need to stop playing politics with our lives and our chances of being a leading nation. Our government need to stop playing politricks and start intentionally putting the right infrastructures in place that will enable her citizens create products and platforms that will be exported to the world now and subsequently make us be a leading nation.

This country is her citizens. Nigeria will not come out as one big giant from the soil to make this country great. It is her citizens that are called Nigeria and it is her citizens that will create things that will make this nation great.

We need to put everything in place that will help these citizens become great.

Now, on the part of the citizens, we have a big part to play in our nation becoming a leading nation. We have to play that part too. What part do we have to play?

We have to become creators.

Yes.

We have to start creating solutions and package them into products or platforms that will make people come to us. Not just local people but people from all over the world. We need to start creating solutions that we can start exporting at least first to African nations and then to other continents.

We need to embrace entrepreneurship, we need to embrace partnerships and collaborations too.

Now, let’s unveil a grim reality of the future. Do you know that in the near future, the leading nations will swallow up the follower nations especially neighbour nations. Yes. Thats right.

We will see nations begging other nations to swallow them up. How? Those ‘following nations’ will denounce their own names and become referred to as the nation that swallowed them up. Why? Because those nations won’t have the means of sustenance and will rely on imports from leading nations to survive.

Now, imagine Nigeria going to Ghana to ask Ghana to swallow her up. So the name Nigeria won’t be there no more. Nigerians would then be known as Ghananians and would start using Cedis instead of Naira and it will be up to Ghana to impose Kente as the official dress code or not or abolish some of the norms of Nigeria and impose theirs.

The problem with such occurrence is that the follower nation’s identity will melt away and their history will become lost with time while they assume the identity of the leading nation that swallows it.

Would you like to see that happen to our dear Nigeria?

No?

Then let’s put our hands together and work to make this nation stand. Let’s task our government and work with them to eliminate threats that pose themselves against our progress as a nation. On the individual level, let me and you start creating solutions that will be products or platforms the future can’t do without. If you can’t create one, fund someone who can or encourage him/her in one way or the other.

At this point, I want to also point out that it is Techpreneurs that can deliver the future. Yes. The world is moving towards a tech state. Whatever it is you do or want to do, make sure it is adapted or revolves around or into the internet.

More people will lose their jobs. Bots and robots will replace them. The future looks promising, but only for the leader nations. Let’s work today with the knowledge of the fact that it is up to us to make this nation a leading nation.

Philip ‘Asuquotes’ Asuquo is a Strategy Consultant, Digital Disruptor and Social Media Influencer who believes that Africans hold the forte in transforming the continent. He is an Ambassador of the Relief Ark, a humanitarian service group and frequently writes and speaks to groups to impact nations with insight and positive content.