It is not by accident that Nigeria is the world's largest black nation and occupies the centre of the earth. I often wonder why we do not consider ourselves God's special chosen people

By Ayo Akinfe

[1] Africa is in the middle of the world and Nigeria is in the middle of Africa. If you actually look at a map of Africa, the continent is shaped like a gum and Nigeria is exactly where the trigger should be

[2] In terms of landmass, Nigeria is only number 14 in Africa. Yet we have the largest population and the biggest economy. Surely, this is not just a coincidence

[3] Has it ever occurred to anyone that Nigeria could be the historic site of one of the seven mythical places we have spoken about for centuries. I am talking of Atlantis, Avalon, Arcadia, El Dorado, Lemuria, Shangri-La and Thule

[4] As kids, we were all treated to stories of the mythical Garden of Eden King Solomon's Mines, Aladdin's Cave, Treasure Island, etc. We know such places do not exist and never did but alas, Nigeria actually matches the description of several of these places. It is our job to turn her into one such economic powerhouse

[5] Do you know that 175m years ago, most of the souythern hemisphere was one super-continent known as Pangea. Now, not surprisingly, our colonial masters never taught us anything about Pangea, which existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras, assembled from earlier continental units approximately 335m years ago

[6] Pangea began to break apart about 175m years ago. years ago. In contrast to Earth and its distribution of continental mass, much of Pangaea was in the southern hemisphere and was surrounded by a superocean called Panthalassa. For the approximately 160m years Pangea existed, many species did well, whereas others struggled.

[7] Later on, we had a reconfiguration of continents and oceans after the breakup of Pangea, which changed the world's climate. There is scientific evidence to show that this change was drastic. When the continents separated and reformed themselves, it changed the flow of the oceanic currents and winds. Basically, the only thing that is constant in life is change. Everything is evolutionary

[8] Do you know there is evidence to suggest that the deterioration of northern Pangaea contributed to the Permian Extinction, one of Earth's five major mass extinction events, which resulted in the loss of over 90% of marine and 70% of terrestrial species. As you can see, man is actually a very recent arrival on the scene. Other species have lived here long before us

[9] Given that present day Nigeria was almost in the centre of Pangea, who knows what we might find if we treated archeology seriously? I am perplexed as to why we have not uncovered at least one dinosaur skeleton yet. I am sure that if we check the banks of the Rivers Niger and Benue, we will find something. Lokoja in particular is not just a mere accident

[10] Who is to say Nigeria is not sitting on a multi billion dollar Jurassic treasure trove? Our problems are that we have been so brainwashed we are too intellectually lazy to explore fresh answers and we have become so bone idle, we believe that the only wealth beneath our feet are fossil fuels. If a European nation had our unique features, we would long have been taught that it was God's personal kingdom