Conversation about “reimagining Nigeria” has become a familiar refrain in our national discourse, with an ambitious timeline of achieving developed nation status by 2050. Yet, for all the detailed policy papers, and comparative analyses with countries like South Korea, we continue to miss the fundamental point of what reimagination truly means. Our current approach to reimagining Nigeria is not just inadequate — it is counterproductive.
Walk into any policy forum or development conference today, and you will hear the same diagnosis: weak institutions, over-reliance on oil, poor fiscal discipline, currency devaluation, and stagflation. The prescriptive litany is equally predictable: we must achieve universal access to electricity, build world-class infrastructure, rapidly industrialise, boost manufacturing, and become a science-driven economy.
While these observations are factually correct, they represent a fundamental misunderstanding of what reimagination requires. We have confused symptoms with causes, tasks with vision, and technical solutions with transformational thinking. The approach is akin to a doctor prescribing medication for fever without understanding the underlying infection causing it.
The technocratic mindset that dominates our “reimagining” discussions treats Nigeria like a broken machine that simply needs new parts and better maintenance. Install better infrastructure, tweak fiscal policies, diversify the economy, and voilà — transformation achieved. This mechanistic thinking explains why, despite decades of similar prescriptions, we remain trapped in cycles of underperformance.
Perhaps the most damaging aspect of our current approach is our addiction to borrowed solutions. We have become intellectual scavengers, picking ideas from South Korea’s playbook, China’s development model, America’s innovation framework, and European governance structures. We collect these foreign blueprints like souvenirs, rarely bothering to adapt them to our unique context or, more importantly, questioning whether they align with who we are as a people.
The current approach reveals a deeper problem: we have never developed an original blueprint for Nigerian greatness. Unlike South Korea, which had a clear vision of its destiny and identity, Nigeria has remained a nation searching for its soul in other people’s mirrors. The result is a nation running multiple operating systems simultaneously, each fighting against the others, creating the institutional chaos that characterises modern Nigeria.
True reimagination begins with fundamental questions that our current discourse completely ignores: Who are we as Nigerians? What is our collective identity beyond being the most populous African nation with the largest economy? What unique value do we bring to the world? What is our destiny, and how do we define success as a people?
These are not abstract philosophical questions — they are the bedrock upon which sustainable transformation is built. South Korea’s “miraculous” transformation was not primarily about technical policies; it was anchored in a clear national identity, shared purpose, and collective commitment to a specific vision of their future. They knew who they were and where they wanted to go before they figured out how to get there.
Nigeria, by contrast, has spent six and half decades as an independent nation without achieving clarity on these fundamental questions. We borrowed our constitution, copied our government structure, adopted foreign languages as official languages, and even imported our educational curricula. Is it any wonder that we struggle with national cohesion and shared purpose?
Einstein’s observation that “imagination is better than knowledge” is particularly relevant here. Our technocrats are drowning us in knowledge statistics, comparative data, policy frameworks, and implementation strategies. But knowledge without imagination is sterile. It can diagnose problems but cannot envision solutions that do not already exist elsewhere.
True reimagination requires the courage to dream of a Nigeria that has never existed before — not a copy of Singapore or Dubai, but an authentically Nigerian expression of excellence that draws from our unique history, culture, values, and aspirations. Imagination deficit explains why our “re-imagining” discussions are uninspiring. They read like consultancy reports and appeal to our analytical minds but fail to stir our souls or capture our collective imagination.
Genuine reimagination of Nigeria must begin with a national conversation about identity, values, and purpose. We need to ask ourselves: What kind of society do we want to build? What values should guide our interactions with each other and with the world? How do we define progress and success? What is our understanding of wealth beyond GDP per capita?
We must also confront the uncomfortable reality that reimagination might require abandoning some of our borrowed identities and imported assumptions. It might mean developing indigenous models of governance, economics, and social organisation that reflect our unique context and aspirations. Its process cannot be delegated only to technocrats or policy experts. It requires the active participation of every Nigerian in defining who we are and who we want to become. Only when we achieve this foundational clarity can we meaningfully discuss the technical means of achieving our vision.
Nigeria’s transformation will not come from implementing another borrowed development plan or checking off items on a technocratic to-do list. It will come from the courage to reimagine ourselves from the ground up — to dream of a uniquely Nigerian future and then summon the collective will to build it.
Until we do this fundamental work, we will remain trapped in our current cycle of underperformance, regardless of how many infrastructure projects we complete or how many policies we implement. The time has come to stop asking “what should we do?” and start asking “who should we become?” The future depends on getting this question right.
