The other day I was at my dentist’s to keep an appointment. While there, series of tests were carried out. In addition to the usual x-ray, I was subjected to a 3D imaging to check deeper into the root canals of my teeth for which the normal x-ray presented a not-too-clear picture.

The 3D imaging machine looked a lot like a helmet fixed on two stands, only that some sides of the helmet were not covered. I was told to bite hard into a metal frame, which tasted bland, as the machine slowly move around my head.

The result was displayed on the dentist’s computer in real-time. On the computer, I saw what looked like shafts (of bones) running deep into my gum, at the top of which my teeth rested. After examining different parts of the shafts – enlarging aspects and scaling some sides, the dentist sought the opinions of two other dentists and after a series of questioning, to which I supplied answers, I was given a clean bill of ‘dental’ health.

As I told the dentists, I have never lost a tooth. After admitting that occasionally things like that occurred, they carefully noted that it is possible that my milk teeth transformed into my ‘adult teeth’, to use a non-technical name. I prefer to call it my vampire’s teeth!

Whether they believed me or not, I did not care. In fact, I was less concerned about the state of my dental health than I was about the 3D machine. I wondered if a machine with such power could have helped had it been around in the early 1980s when I was in high school.

Between 1979 and 1980, I had measles that took a long time to heal. After it cleared, my voice became shrill, and I was barely audible. I went through high school in that state, with many classmates believing that I was deaf and dumb. While the situation lasted, I was a regular face at the General Hospital, Owode, Oyo and the University College Hospital, Ibadan.

My mates at Durbar Grammar School were merciless. They bullied, harassed, and mocked me endlessly. I was nicknamed “Alade Olohun Ikonko” – Alade, with the frog voice. As it turned out, a thick ball of blood lodged in my larynx and muffled my voice. This was in 1984.

If a machine that could see into the human body as the 3D machine used to examine my teeth at OMS, Mercy Hospital, Springfield, MO had been in existence then, I would not have suffered for many years, enduring ridicule from classmates and schoolteachers. My parents would also not have wasted their resources, seeking cure from dubious pastors, Imams, and herbalists.

So, watching the dentists poring over the x-ray on the computer and, with the click of the mouse, they were looking at different sides and angles, top and bottom of my teeth, I struggled to hold back my tears.

I shed tears of joy for the triumph of humanity, the triumph of knowledge, and the result of years of trying.

Between 1979 and 1984, I suffered greatly from classmates and teachers who mocked me for my disabilities. Unlike in years and generations past, God must be very proud of us, humans, of today’s world. We have taken the work of God to a new height: we divided the atom, explored space, the sea, air, etc. We also cloned genes and invented many things, including the human heart.

In 2019, Covid brought the world into a stand still. Faced with teeming number of patients and victims, humanity spent 2020 in a lockdown and, despite the darkness that enveloped us, we developed a cure for Covid, the first time that humans successfully defeated a pandemic in record time.

In that same year, a Nigerian doctor successfully operated on a fetus, restored the fetus into the mother’s womb and the baby was born at the right time. As if those were not enough, NASA successfully landed a rover on Mars. Five universities in Missouri State developed the batteries being used by this rover.

The rover, named Perseverance, is not only a living machine but also the best self-operated system of interconnected laboratories ever made. Onboard the rover was an ultraviolet spectrometer, an X-ray spectrometer called PIXL, and a stereoscopic camera called Mastcam-Z, which has a zoom feature. In summary, Perseverance has the best cameras, telescopic equipment, etc. ever built. As noted in Science, the rover operates “with different instruments that have different insight.” It collects samples, analyze them, and sends results to earth.

To truly understand the magnitude of this feat, we need to recall that Mars is a desert with a peculiar characteristic. For instance, when humans first flew past Mars on July 14, 1965, we discovered that it was composed primarily of carbon dioxide, therefore its atmosphere is very thin and littered with cosmic rays. Explorations after explorations have revealed more about Mars. We now know that its temperatures range from -220 Fahrenheit to +70 Fahrenheit, making it both the coldest during the winter and the hottest during the summer.

Despite this strange and inhospitable climatic condition, Perseverance is still hard at work. Did I just say the Perseverance? No, humanity successfully conquered Mars and is still hard at work on Mars.

I wish to be among the first set of historians to reconstruct the history of Mars, using material remains. Despite that clothes are perishable, and fashion is fleeting, I have a record of using them in writing the history of the Yoruba people of Nigeria. So, I am ready and looking forward to writing the history of Mars from material remains.

I am a Missourian and since we built the batteries that have, over the last year and some months, survived the hottest and the coldest, I see no reason not to dream of surviving on Mars. As a Nigerian, a people known globally for their resilience, I think I am custom-made for the task.

Few years ago, two professor friends and one engineer with the City of Springfield, Missouri, the three of them are Nigerians, had brain surgeries without a single cut on their heads. Robotics did it all.

Before now, we have airplanes and supersonic jets that changed the face of traveling. We invented post and telegraph and the telephone. Today, we have successfully surpassed ourselves. The internet is faster than light and sound. Facebook and Twitter are not only faster than light and sound in information dissemination, but also bigger and more powerful than countries and governments.

Humanity is no longer helpless victims at the mercies of nature. We have conquered and mastered nature. We no longer need a clairvoyant to tell us tomorrow, as our mobile phones and cars, watches and wall clocks as well as numerous other smaller gadgets, can tell us when and where it would rain, snow, sun, etc. In fact, we can tell with accuracy and mathematical exactitude what the weather would be for the next ten or thirty days.

Although we have stretched our God given brains and conquered limits once known to those who came before us, yet we have challenges. Hunger and want, poverty and pains, wars and conflicts, inequalities and want, etc. are very much with us. Nevertheless, we are million times better today than our ancestors.

No religious text credited any other person, including Jesus and Prophet Mohammed (PBH), with as much wisdom as King Solomon. Today, the computer that we built are wiser than a million King Solomons fused together. Notwithstanding this, humanity is not perfect, and we are still a work in progress. Yet we have done more than ever before in human history. This is a triumph, a victory, and we are not resting yet. God must be very proud of us today than at any time in human history. This is the triumph of man.