Nigeria and the Vision 20:2020 Projection: Building Castle in the Air?

Vision 2020 is the objective of the Nigerian government to grow the size of Nigeria’s economy from a position of 40th in 2005 to the 20th Nation in the world by the year 2020. The drafters of the vision had believed that by 2020 Nigeria will be one of the 20 largest economies in the world able to consolidate its leadership role in Africa and establish itself as a significant player in the global economic and political arena. But given the Nigerian government's history of performance, high level of incompetence, overwhelming corruption and infrastructural decay, can we reasonably expect anything to come out of Vision 2020? This paper answers to the contrary. Using historical antecedents of vision failures as point of departure, as well as the current lackadaisical attitude to governance by the Nigerian leaders, the paper sees the whole idea of vision 20: 2020 as an unrealizable projection.