Nigeria's Solution to the Problem of Electric Cars By Pius Adesanmi.

Scandinavia, Britain, France, Netherlands, India, China, the US - everyone is in a scramble to announce the end of fuel-powered cars by 2040 and so on. Everyone is announcing that every car on their roads will be green by 2040. Only electric cars. No more petrol and diesel cars.

Many of my friends, who still are yet to come to terms with just how terrible the psychology of Nigeria's political elite is, have been agonizing. They are worried about what happens to an oil-dependent, monocultural economy like Nigeria when all the buyers of her oil go green and her oil pretty much becomes useless.

Well, I can tell you for sure that from Aso Rock to the National Assembly, to Governors, down the ladder to the most inconsequential member of the political class - you can add the socioeconomic elite too - they are already thinking and planning ahead for the advent of electric cars in 2040.

They are just not thinking the way you are thinking.

If you do a laundry list of the solutions they have found as a class to the challenges of modern living in the 21st century, you will gain an insight into how they are going to handle the transition to electric cars.

Problems of space in their built environments in Ikoyi, VI, and Maitama? They destroyed master plans, built on green areas and public parks, built commercial ventures in residential areas, commandeered communal rail track areas for parking lots of private schools, etc. Other elite in tight spaces in Hong Kong, Singapore, etc, will experiment with innovative mastery of space by applying engineering and architectural genius to achieve vertical derring-do in building design. The Nigerian elite will visit violence and aesthetic chaos on her own built space because she has too much money and too little culture.

Bad roads and death traps? They are buying more and more helicopters; their jeeps are getting bigger and sturdier. The other day, I saw Senator Ben Murray-Bruce and a group of other pregnant male Senators inspecting Federal roads in worse condition than the farm paths used by Askia the Great in the Songhai Empire in the 15th century.

The Senators say they are members of one of these useless Senate committees and they had come to do a firsthand assessment of the roads. This was some expressway linking Edo state to the deep south. As the Senators granted TV interviews, talking rubbish, you could see their jeeps in the background. I shook my head in anger. Useless people. They have now seen that the roads have gotten worse. They will return to Abuja to suggest bigger and sturdier jeeps capable of coping with the roads for all Senators in the 2018 appropriation.

Poor health facilities? Well, you have been witnesses to their nakedness and utter shamelessness on display in London this week as a political class. Foreign hospitals will remain their only answer to Nigeria's health issues.

So, how do you think an elite that has handled its own lived environment, roads, and health in this manner will handle the question of electric cars and the imminent end of the fuel economy?

Well, by now, I can bet that some of them are already making inquiries from the innovation sectors of Scandinavia, Britain, France, the US, China, and India. When can we start to place individual orders for these cars of the future? When can we start to queue up for customized versions of these cars? How many can you deliver to me in Lagos or Abuja on January 1, 2040?

How can they be attempting to place orders for cars in 2040 when they cannot guarantee that they will be alive even tomorrow? Never mind. Members of Nigeria's political elite are not intelligent enough to think like that. Their singular focus will be to be the first elite in the world to use cars they cannot manufacture.

And by the time the electric cars are being delivered over their dead bodies to their children in 2040, their own goal of being able to manufacture pencils in Nigeria sometime in this 21st century may still not have been realized.

If the owner of morning says it shall be well with the leaders of Nigeria, the owner of evening will disagree.

Pius Adesanmi

BOOK EXCERPT: The Farmhouse by Omoruyi Uwuigiaren

The Farmhouse by Omoruyi Uwuigiaren Chapter One The Family `Once upon a time in the old town of Gid, an old farmer called Erasmus had a horse and a son. The boy’s name was Jason, and the horse was Francis. They lived in a farmhouse, and Francis took them everywhere they went. The farmer had no wife. She died after Jason was born. Erasmus vowed never to remarry and had remained a widower ever since. Taking care of Jason and Francis alone was never easy, but the farmer promised his late wife on her deathbed that he was going to raise Jason into a fine man. One sad morning, the cockerel said it was dawn. The disturbance woke Jason. The boy stormed out of sleep. He removed the blanket and rolled out of bed. He went to the window and peered out. The weather was clear, and the boughs of trees bowed and danced to the sweet movement of the morning breeze. Jason liked the morning, and then he carried himself to the sitting room, where his father was on his knees saying his morning prayers....

From the novel entitled, "Beyond Imagination" by Oladele Dada.

Oladele Dada. It was dawn. The chilly dust-laden wind formed dense fog on the road. The rocky hills and the tall trees made Ajewole a beautiful town. The birds sang aloud, and clanging of stainless dishes in the neighbourhood suggested human activity was at its peak. Humans had begun to move to their various destinations. Adunni had trouble with child bearing and her husband was worried. Then she booked an appointment with her doctor. After several tests, the doctor suggested the couple be patient and that she will surely get pregnant. Not long after, Adunni was pregnant. After several months, Adunni was delivered of a boy. The women in her neighbourhood, alongside the children, sang and danced to her home to celebrate with her. Her husband, Fredrick Olagbade, thanked the Lord and named the boy Juwon. As Juwon grew, his mother had another child whose name was Olakitan. Juwon was intelligent and his parents were struggling to make ends meet. As poverty st...

NEW RELEASE: Those Ghostly Victorians by Annette Siketa

Those Ghostly Victorians by Annette Siketa ABOUT THE BOOK At its zenith, the belief in ghosts in the Victorian era bordered on the hysterical. From stately homes to deserted wells, no dwelling was complete without a resident ghost. Halls and mansions and even the odd palace or two, spawned a multitude of family legends, many of which still persist. Many people claimed to have direct contact with a ghost through an object such as a ouija board or a pen, the latter collectively known as 'spiritual writing'. For example, a secretary allegedly continued to take dictation from his employer long after the latter was dead. Whether it was through books, plays, or supposedly true stories, the influence of the supernatural was profound. And it is not difficult to understand why, especially in the 'lower class', the majority of whom were uneducated. With nothing but drabness and poverty on the horizon, events such as a windy night or a violent storm were likely to set the ima...

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