Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

It is as downright wicked, mindless, uncharitable, insensitive, and satanically callous to reward an ugly, toothless, bald-headed, hunch-backed, and bow-legged Californian teenage girl convalescing from anthrax, with such silly gifts like a diamond-studded electronic toothbrush, a golden comb, a slim-fit see-through blouse, a skin-tight leotard, and a crown to match, as the winner of a "Miss Universe" beauty contest, as it is to spend valuable brandy-drinking time, or "pure water"-sipping time in Nigeria today, discussing such esoteric tripe like the exploration and exploitation of deep space. Nevertheless, that is precisely what we have set out to do here.

Apparently, the easing of mutually assured aggression, tension, and destruction of the Cold War era, between the United States of America, and the former Soviet Union, coupled with the accompanying sudden general disinterest in the Apollo space programme in the United States of America, killed the seemingly futuristic dreams of the 1960s, of space age cities, and zero-gravity industrial megalopolises.

However, in October 2002, while some Nigerian men were permanently fixated, either on the strange notion of the essentially diabolical nature of beauty queens, or on the moisture content of the contents of the bikinis of beauty pageant contestants, surprisingly, all of such holy thoughts, flashing through their brains in the extremely delicate "Holy Month" of Ramadan, worldwide, an American company, TransOrbital Incorporated, became the very first private business enterprise on Planet Earth to be granted a formal permit, by the government of US President George W. Bush, to explore, photograph, and land legally on the Moon. The company was started in 1998, during the Bill Clinton administration. The driving force for this moon rush is not just the mouth-watering profits, but by the fact that both science fiction, and science fantasy, are being transformed into concrete reality, in the here-and-now. Rather than belonging to everyone on earth, lunar soil now belongs to whoever first stakes a claim to it.

In this new "Holy Month", supposedly of goodwill, preceding the Christian "Sallah", of aggressive shopping, of exchanges of non-toxic patronage, of hamper reception, and of turkey, ram, and goat delivery services, it would not be a bad idea after all, if we inject a few low-intensity blasphemies into the already overheated and super-charged, Nigerian polity, in the interest of balance, and progress, and for the sake of a very merry Christmas. We believe that a safe point from which we may lunch our seemingly suicidal adventure is in space. Essentially, we wish to go boldly where even "fatwarised" Ms. Isioma Daniels would never, ever dare dream of going. Specifically, we wish to address the possibilities of constructing cost-effective human habitats, and space age industrial complexes in space, on the Moon, probably very near the Kingdom of God.

Our task is to render the concept of blasphemy so irrelevant or trivial to the ordinary Nigerian mind, through the sustained, and unbridled proliferation of reasonably blasphemous concepts, such that, either all blasphemy-allergic Nigerians, especially Christians, and Moslems, become so thoroughly fed up with our beloved Nigeria, our own dear blasphemous motherland, that they would either quietly retreat voluntarily into permanent exile, in any of their respective spiritual homelands in the Middle East for good, (i.e. like in Bethlehem, in the suicide bomber-endowed Hebron District of the West Bank, in Palestine, or in Medina, in the debt-laden Al-Qaeda-positive Royal feudal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), or they might as well finally come to terms with the sober self-evident truth that Nigeria is, indeed, a secular state, with absolutely no provisions, whatsoever, made in its Constitution for the internalisation or subliminal imposition of any manner of metaphysical, or scientific dogma, irrespective of truisms.

(I can actually hear a concerned Christian Professional or two, maybe, a Knight, or a baby-friendly Reverend Father, or a Mother Superior, or a Holy Ghost Fire Brigadier, or a prophet or two, or a prayerful "born-again" Executive Governor, sharpening their already razor-sharp machetes, or fingering the trigger of their AK-49s, while patiently consulting Jehovah, or Yahweh, the Lord God of ancient Judea, for accelerated divine guidance as to when, where, and how to declare an overdue good old Christian inquisition (alias "fatwa" in Arabic legalese) on this soulless Nigerian scoundrel)

The thinking at TransOrbital is that, it has become unavoidable, indeed, a priority for human beings to leave Planet Earth, if this planet is not to stagnate, and finally die under our custody, no matter how hard we may try to preserve it. They also claim that if the Moon is not turned into a commercially viable, and lucrative business space, then humanity is unwittingly restricting itself only to a passive observer status in the scheme of things in the known universe. That could be rather suicidal.

TransOrbital’s "Trailblazer" space mission replaces the old NASA goals of scientific research, and relative military competitive advantage, with a new goal of profit seeking, including living, and doing good business on the Moon, over the long term. Consequently, the Trailblazer will be launched in late 2003, from a cosmodrome in rural Kazakhstan. For just US$2,500, anybody can send a lock of his or her hair, or his or her business card, onboard the spaceship, to the Moon. (How very brilliant!) The launch vehicle has sufficient room for posting corporate logos on its sides for US$25,000 and above. TransOrbital would also transmit high-definition photographic footage of the Moon to the Earth. Wow!

The goal is to mobilise a sufficient number of people interested in a private sector-driven exploitation of the Moon, in the hope that some of the investors might spawn some very lucrative commercial ideas, creating spin-off business ventures that could promote, and finance their spaced-out dreams. Rather than lobbying for increased US Government funding of space programmes, TransOrbital wants to create a space-faring enterprise that would establish human communities on the Moon, and promote large-scale industrialisation, through human business entrepreneurs on the Moon. In other words, strictly speaking, TransOrbital is a non-profit non-governmental business organisation, built for the support of perfectly legitimate future profit-generating businesses in space.

Setting up a factory in the high heavens is therefore not the "pie-in-the-sky" idea that many hungry and impoverished Nigerians might think it is, at first. Moreover, it is definitely democratic, and fully compliant with normal American pie-eating values. Although the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 barred nations from owning property in space, it left companies, groups, and individuals, like TransOrbital, the latitude to do so. Later, in 1979, the United Nations Moon Treaty declared the Moon, as a part of the common heritage of humankind, exploitable only for the mutual benefit of all nations. However, and understandably, the United States of America, and the former Soviet Union never signed that pact.

The United States of America adamantly refused to sign the pact because of its usual macho territorial conquistador mind-set. More or less, the United States of America, by failing to ratify the treaty was telling the whole world that Planet Earth is up for grabs, and that a bunch of morons happens to populate the planet where the map of the United States of America ends. Since the citizens of the United States of America are the most gracious, advanced, and morally upright people on Planet Earth, it is their duty to their God, in whom they trust, their flag, and their country, which they love so much, to grab as much of the resources of the world as they can, including Nigerian petroleum resources, for themselves, and their great grandchildren yet unborn. (How patriotic, and very considerate!)

Of course, there are lots, and lots of dollars, pounds, yens, euros, and even naira to be made from the Moon. For example, the Moon allows for highly efficient solar power generation, because there are no clouds there. Radio astronomy could be enhanced drastically from the Moon. Vacuum environments for the manufacture of ultra-high-quality microprocessors and integrated-circuits, and of course, logo advertising on spacecrafts, not to mention billboards on the lunar surface itself, for a captive audience of several billion earth beings down below, are all viable commercial opportunities on the Moon, waiting to be grabbed.

Definitely, there is a lot of conquistador mentality among a clique of global superhero space gurus of the United States of America, who seem to have a fantasy for liberalising space, by kicking firstly NASA out of the way, and then, somehow, maybe magically, some super rich entrepreneurs would just materialise from nowhere, with the much needed investments, to start viable and lucrative industries in space. Subsequently, a handful of investors would get rich from developing space resources, and then everybody will all be happy thereafter, forever, and ever, and ever. Amen.

The argument is that the real choice is not between allowing a few super-rich earth beings to develop space resources on the one hand, and ignoring those same space resources, while the world degrades irreversibly from the wear and tear of post-industrial turbulence, into pre-industrial decay. Land-use planning, rather than letting the market on earth to carve the Moon into real estates, can take the edge off the consumption of Planet Earth’s finite resources. Furthermore, Moon bases could generate excess electricity very cheaply. Thanks to 24 hours-a-day, 7 days a week solar access on the Moon. Proximity to nickel- and iron-rich asteroids could allow for the complete shut down of all earth-bound mines, allowing our dying planet to relax back to its natural state, as if in a state of human-directed resource hibernation, and replenishment.

Unfortunately, outside of this tiny arcane community of space gurus, much of public opinion about the Trailblazer space mission has been rather very funny. Some argue that US President George W. Bush simply acted as if the Moon were his personal property to donate, as they typically do in Nigeria. They also argue that the TransOrbital venture could be disastrous for the whole world, given that no scientist today may yet be able to confidently predict how adding mass (or matter) to the Moon, through the build-up of lunar infrastructure, or removing mass (or matter), via massive mining, excavation, and construction works, could adversely affect the very delicate interplay of gravitational balance, between Planet Earth, and its only natural satellite, the Moon.

The extrapolation of today’s perception of globalisation into outer space does not need any doomsday pronouncements, or conspiracy theorising in order to be taken seriously. If we turn over all space resources to a handful of people who now have the financial and technological clout, we can guarantee a world in which a few wealthy nations could further aggravate the relative gap in both living standards, and resource consumption profiles, between the rich and the poor, which could lead to predictable acrimony, turbulence, insurgency, and ultimately to domestic, or/and cross-border terrorism, by those who do not have, against those who have. In other words, the "War Against Terrorism" might as well go on until Judgement Day. Déjà vu?

Look down from a plane over anywhere in Europe, and notice those big cities, and small towns, each surrounded by elegantly beautiful farms and countryside. Please, ask your French or German, or Italian, or Swiss friends why they do not buy up the lands around the edges of their towns and build massive shopping malls, flyovers, skyscrapers, and office complexes. They will tell you that it is enshrined in their Constitution that, while a farmer owns the land outside a town, the town also has rights about how that land may be bought, sold, or developed, unlike in the Federal Republic of Nigeria, where the central government owns all the land, and mineral (particularly petroleum) resources exclusively everywhere, even right into the Atlantic Ocean, and also sells, buys and develops the land (or sea).

In Switzerland, Japan, Britain, Holland, Norway, or Austria, Obasanjo Farms Nigeria plc, Otta, for example, would not have been allowed to vegetate, stagnate, or remain relatively unproductive for over 20 years, without attracting the concerned intervention of the Otta Local Government Council. Not even the Ogun State Government, or Aso Rock Villa, would have been involved in the whole matter.

In Sweden, Belgium, Ireland, Australia, or Portugal, the citizens of Otta, particularly the resident farmers there, would have been consulted a priori, for their endorsement (or otherwise) of establishing Obasanjo Farms Nigeria plc on their land. No kind of "orders from above" could have sidetracked the rights of the citizens of Otta from exercising their non-negotiable rights under the law. However, in Nigeria, it would be fatally blasphemous to ever contemplate questioning the "patriotic" desires of an incumbent predatory military autocrat.

For all we care, even ordinary Nigerian rural farmers could very easily go into some kind of joint venture arrangements of sorts, with organisations like TransOrbital, and launch very lucrative space missions to the Moon, as has been done quite successfully in various ordinary Third World-like places like Kazakhstan, in the terror-endowed fundamentalist hotbed of North-western Middle East, and Suriname in the Amazon jungle of South America, but for General Obasanjo’s "Land Use Decree".

Can we now see how much we preoccupy our thinking space in Nigeria, with such boringly gratuitous, and unproductive distractions like blasphemy, prostitution, adultery, fatwa, dividends of democracy, rotational presidency, "Operation Feed the Nation", "Operation Fire for Fire", "South-South", "power shift", "women empowerment", Southern Governors’ Forum, "onshore-offshore dichotomy", "territorial integrity", Ohaneze, "Executive-Legislature dichotomy", "Ethical Revolution", Bakassi Boys, AFC, OPC, "Green Revolution", "WAI", "WAI-C", "anti-corruption crusade", Afenifere, "the First Lady’s pet projects", and of course, the palpably idiotic idea of the President’s inordinate, and intransigent hot pursuit of foreign investors, from all over Planet Earth into Nigeria.

By the way, if such foreign investors are worth their salt, they should be very busy, like TransOrbital Inc., mapping out strategies for conserving whatever resources that may still remain in situ, wherever on Earth, including Nigeria, while aggressively striving to meet the demands of stiff business competition, in outer space, at least, in the interim, in near space, on the Moon. Nigerians can now see how low their country has sunk, when every failed busyness man from all over the world may converge, in the name of "foreign investment".

Of course, it would be irresponsible to expect the very author of the "Land Use Decree", General (Chief) Olusegun Aremu Mathew Obasanjo (GCFR) himself, to abrogate that active precursor of Nigeria’s near-complete economic ruination, and underdevelopment- Obasanjo’s "Land Use Decree- because he is neither a mad man, nor a fool. That is why Nigerians have to either fast and pray harder than hard, like we did in 1998, for summary divine intervention, or else, mercifully ensure that General Obasanjo takes the path of honour, chivalry, patriotism, and nationalism, by all means necessary, and cheerfully backs out of the 2003 presidential elections in the federal Republic of Nigeria, with the benefit of old age.

In simple English, the "Land Use Decree" is the genesis of Nigeria’s economic dysfunction. It is the problem with Nigeria. Abrogate it, and Nigeria would be re-engineered for the better, almost instantly. If you doubt it, then try it. OBJ knows.

 December 2002