Nigeria, Dec. 28 -- There comes a moment in the life of a nation when denial becomes more dangerous than failure. Nigeria has reached that moment.

We are not poor. We are not unlucky. We are not cursed.

What we suffer from is something far more damning: collective negligence in the face of overwhelming abundance.

Nowhere is this contradiction more glaring than in Northern Nigeria, a region blessed with land, livestock, minerals, sunlight, and human capital, yet trapped in poverty, insecurity, and economic stagnation. The tragedy is not that we lack resources. The tragedy is that we have refused to organize them. And if we do not wake up now, history will judge us harshly, not for what we lacked, but for what we wasted.

THE LAND THAT C...