Breaking News: Nigeria Revolutionizes the Discipline of Physics

A high powered delegation from the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPA) and representatives of the Nobel Prize committee for Physics have arrived in Abuja, Nigeria, on a fact finding mission. The two important delegations aim to verify and authenticate the scientific essence of certain developments in Nigeria that have literally caused a tsunami in the global scientific community. If the mission ends on a positive note and things are authenticated, experts have surmised that Nigeria could reap tremendous benefits by becoming the Mecca of the world's most famous physicists. Some have even rumoured that Stephen Hawkins, the world's number one physicist, is merely waiting for the outcome of this mission to apply for Nigerian citizenship.

The importance of this epochal mission is underscored by the fact that the entire machinery of the Federal Government was mobilised to welcome the two visiting teams at a colourful airport ceremony. President Yar'Adua, members of his cabinet, all senior staff of Aso Rock, members of the National Assembly, PDP chieftains, and all state governors were present. Also present at the airport reception were eminent national stakeholders and dignitaries such as former President Olusegun Obasanjo, General Ibrahim Babangida, Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu, Chief Olabode George, Chief Chris Uba, Chief Doctor Andy Uba, Chief Tony Anenih, Chief James Ibori, Chief Doctor Peter Odili, Chief Doctor Orji Uzor Kalu, Chief Lucky Igbinedion, and Almost-Ambassador Ahmadu Ali.

Can matter disappear? Can things just vaporize into a Black Hole that exists somewhere in space? Can objects just vanish from our universe into ether? If the answer to any or all of these questions is yes, what happens to the law that matter or energy cannot be destroyed? These are questions that have exercised the minds of the world's best scientists, especially physicists, from Galileo to Newton, from Einstein to Hawkins. Although a new generation physicist like Ulf Leonhardt has pushed science to new limits by creating black holes, levitating objects or making things look like they disappeared, no physicist has ever had the last word - with evidence - of things disappearing without some sort of trace. Even the entire black hole theory doers not come without claims of radiation and particles - trace! Something is always left. Atoms and molecules don't just vanish absolutely. Worst case scenario: they become something else if broken down beyond the limit of their endurance.

In essence, the closest thing to a disciplinary consensus is that matter does not just vanish absolutely without any trace atom or molecule existing somehow in some other form. This quasi-consensus was respected like a papal bull in the scientific community until 2004 when word filtered out that something was going on in Nigeria that could change the face of physics forever. An oil vessel, MT African Pride, was arrested for oil bunkering. The tanker was full of siphoned crude oil that was going to be shipped illegally out of Nigeria. It vanished in broad daylight into ether. A whole oil tanker and its entire cargo. No, it didn't sink. It didn't hit an iceberg. It just vanished in the hands of Nigerian officials. Into ether. No atoms or molecules left. No Hawkinsian radiation. No trace.

This curious development was sufficient to warrant a major inquiry by the IUPA and the Nobel committee for Physics but eminent scientists weighed in on the side of extreme circumspection. Professor James Watson was particularly vociferous in pouring cold water on any idea that such scientific developments could come out of Africa. You do not jettison centuries of scientific orthodoxy just because of one incident. If a revolution in science was going to take place, if some of the oldest laws of physics were going to change, you wanted to be able to announce to the world that the scientific breakthrough happened in Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge or the Sorbonne. How do you credit Africans with such a wonderful breakthrough?  How do you credit Africans with making matter vanish into ether? And Nigerians for that matter!

This initial excitement eventually petered out until the world woke up recently to another Nigerian scientific first. This time, a plane ferrying several kilos of American dollars vanished into the black hole. It was a private plane bought with stolen money by a former governor. Since he also stole hundreds of kilos of American dollars - raw cash - from his state, he needed to transport the money out of the country. What better way than to transform his plane into a cargo plane and arrange for it to disappear with cargo and crew? It took off all right. It never landed. It never crashed. It just vaporised into the black hole. So significant is this development that when Willie Walsh, the CEO of British Airways, heard that Nigerians had disappeared an entire plane with cargo and crew, he secretly thanked his stars that his racist organization had provoked Nigerians into a mass boycott of the airline. Good riddance to bad rubbish, he thought. He couldn't put it beyond Nigerians to disappear one of his jumbo jets if the conditions were right. He now had proof. "Thank God they are staying away", he concluded in a secret memo to his staff.

The global scientific community, however, could no longer pretend that what was happening in Nigeria was a fluke. They agreed it was time to investigate possibly the greatest scientific scoop since the laws of gravity were discovered. A ship and a plane vaporising into the black hole with neither trace nor radiation? Now, this was a big one. They were still scrambling to put a committee together when Nigeria offered another landmark. This time, it was the mother of all scientific achievements. A whole senator of the federal Republic vanished into ether. No atom or molecule left. Nothing. Stephen Hawkins released a statement. The Nobel organization was contacted. The IUPA sprang into action. Within twenty-four hours, the delegations arrived in Abuja.

In his speech at the airport reception, a proud President Yar'Adua attributed the spectacular scientific breakthroughs to his administration's determination to respect the rule of law in all things and at all times. In a gesture of respect for his predecessor, President Yar'Adua invited former President Obasanjo to address the visitors. An elated President Obasanjo noted that his administration played a key role in laying the foundation of these memorable developments. After all, the oil tanker vanished under his watch. What is more, he also donated his daughter, Senator Iyabo Obasanjo, as a guinea pig to the Integrated National Project for the Disappearance of Human and Material Evidence of Corruption, a new Federal agency created by the Yar'Adua administration. On hearing this, Babangida, Adedibu, Bode George, Chris Uba, Andy Uba, Tony Anenih, James Ibori, Peter Odili, Orji Uzor Kalu, and Lucky Igbinedion interrupted the former President with a thunderous applause. President Obasanjo concluded by expressing optimism that the complex housing the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) would also vanish into ether. "We have disappeared a ship, a plane, and a human being. These achievements will not be complete until we prove to our esteemed visitors and the whole world that we also have the science to disappear buildings, starting with the NNPC building. I suggest that we disappear the building quickly and save the monumental cost and distraction that a probe into the activities of the NNPC in the last eight years would represent", Obasanjo enthused.

In a related development, ignorant and unpatriotic Nigerians have already begun to spread rumours that the CIA has infiltrated the two teams. The rumour mongers claim that the Americans are running a top secret espionage operation to steal the secrets of Nigeria's unbelievable scientific breakthrough. Although the CIA has a healthy dirty record of disappearing people and things in parts of the third world that are hostile to the capitalist appetite of Empire, they have never disappeared anything without a trace. There is always a trace and all it takes to ruin things for the CIA is a nosey journalist or an idle Congressman. That is why President Bush secretly declared the Nigerian breakthrough an asset of vital importance to the national security of the USA. If Nigeria has used her new and exclusive scientific knowledge to disappear a ship, a plane, and a woman without a trace, the Americans, it is claimed, are hoping to secretly apply that technique to Iran, Syria, Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela. These countries have been behaving like impertinent mosquitoes on America's scrotum. When a mosquito perches on your scrotum and proceeds to feed on your blood from that inauspicious location, it is a bad idea to slap, kick, smash, or crush it. What you need to take care of the embarrassing situation is knowledge, the sort of scientific knowledge the Nigerians have mysteriously stumbled upon! If the CIA succeeds in stealing Nigeria's most famous contribution to Physics, Iran, Syria, Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela could be made to vanish quietly into the black hole without a trace and the blame placed on Nigeria. So goes the theory of idle rumour mongers in the streets of Lagos.