Welcome to Nigerian Futuristics
It is daring to dream in a place that forces one into survival mode.
I always thought Thomas Sankara said, “we must dream, to invent the future.” Turns out he actually said, “we must dare to invent the future.” Well, I found it to be daring, and inventive when Patience Ozokwor sang about a jolly nation, with a 4-day work week, and an egalitarian future of sharing the national moi-moi.
In the context of the Nigerian future, I’ve found that this kind of daring, and dreaming becomes harder and rarer to find, even in a satirical sense as our collective national imagination is continuously whittled with every four year election cycle.
It is understandable that underdevelopment, conflict, unfulfilled political promises and all round disappointment has forced many of us(Nigerians) to wallow in defeat and flatten our dreams/hopes/ideas for our communities, societies as we pursue the survival of the self. Yet, I believe that our future progress or at least some of it, lies in adapting these wild dreams and ideas and harnessing them to our reality.
Our mainstream socio-political discourse is saturated with this hopelessness and dearth of ideas and curiosity, where although we demand development- constant electricity, better roads, better housing, food for all, education; the HOWs? WHAT ELSE’s? WHAT MOREs? are subdued, the possibilities restrained, by the un-imaginations and marabout driven ambitions of old men.
Nigerian Futuristics intends to counter that, like a pirate radio station, it is a time-capsule of sorts, designed to document and introduce our wildest dreams, thoughts and ideas into the Nigerian socio-political discourse; as a reminder for ourselves and perhaps a blueprint for the future.
It is here to make us look inwards, dream, imagine, really push the boundaries, and bring forth what we want our future societies to look like.
From societies where we share the national cake, to those where private/public school dichotomies do not exist or even a Nigeria that doesn’t exist at all. This is the space for them.
-Aisha Aliyu-Bima,
Founder and Editor.
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Looking forward to following your thought process and being able to re-examine ourselves as Nigerians and daring ourself to aim further. 💪🏾