By Jude Atupulazi
Nigerians may be divided along ethnic and religious lines but when it comes to football, everyone unites. It becomes difficult to separate Okafor from Abubarkar and Kunle from Akpabio. Football becomes the only language. Football has also replaced religion as the opium of the masses in Nigeria; at least there are no fake pastors in football, no tithes and no deliverance sessions. When it comes to the national team, the Super Eagles, there is only one denomination, one religion.
And when we talk about football, there is nothing that ranks higher than the World Cup. That is the king of competitions that allows the smallest nations to rub shoulders with giant nations; it allows local players of certain countries to mix with the super stars of world football.
Any nation that misses out from the show piece has missed everything and being that it is something that happens once in four years, the opportunity to make amends after failure doesn’t come immediately and may not come in a long, long time.
For Nigeria, its national team, the Super Eagles, have made mistakes twice in the recent past and missed out on the show piece. And now the country is tottering on the precipice of missing out yet again. It is particularly painful because presently Nigeria boasts of some of the best players on the African Continent, players like the immediate past African Footballer of the Year, Victor Osimhen, and the reigning King, Ademola Lookman.
The team is also blessed with much quality across the wings. Yet, they missed out twice. Missing out again will mean that one of the best generations of Nigerian players will not shine at the biggest stage in football.
Last Tuesday, Nigeria managed to book a play-off ticket after beating Benin 4-0. It was an emphatic win that was lacking all through, no thanks to the corruption ravaging the country’s football in which the people in charge of football hire their cronies and yes men whom they can control and share their salaries with.
That was how rookie coach, Finidi George, was hired over the likes of better local coaches like Emmanuel Amuneke and Samson Siasia (whose ban by FIFA was coming to an end at the time). Finidi, one of the best players we have had, failed to replicate his form as a player in coaching and led us to a terrible start before he was replaced.
This singular error has turned Nigerians into doing tumbom, tumbom (guesswork) on how we can qualify after being placed in an easy group with such countries as Benin, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Benin, Rwanda and South Africa.
In the beginning it was believed that only South Africa could pose problems to us but it turned out that it was the other small countries. That was how we lost the only spot to South Africa and managed to make it to the play-offs as the one of the best four losing teams.
Now, we are going to Morocco in November to play against Gabon, and the winner between Cameroon and Dr Congo. After this, we proceed to another play-off with best losers from Oceania, Concacaf, Asia and South America. So the journey isn’t anything like easy and the emotions of millions of soccer loving Nigerians are going to be toyed with. It is painful, knowing that we would have easily avoided walking this path if only our soccer managers had done the needful.
Who did this to us? This is a question that cuts across every aspect of our national life, not just football. Nigeria, ndo, sorry.
The Kanu Herd Mentality
The major topic in town now is the planned march by human rights activist, Sowore, to protest the continued detention of Biafra protagonist, Nnamdi Kanu. People are sharply divided over this. While some are advising Igbos not to join in the protest march, others say it is the Igbos that should lead the protest rather than an outsider, Omoyele Sowore. There are also people who talk because they feel they are expected to talk, while there are others who talk in order to gain relevance.
Those who are against it fear that Sowore, a Yoruba, is scheming to lead the Igbos into a trap so that the enemies of Ndigbo will utilize the opportunity to shoot at us or round us up. They believe that no Nigerian, especially a Yoruba, can claim to love us more than we love ourselves.
They readily point at the ongoing demolition of the property of Ndigbo in Lagos as a case in point. Thus, for them, when a Yoruba man suddenly comes out and begins claiming to be very concerned about the fate of our brother, Kanu, something must be fishy.
For the other side, they believe it will be shameful for Ndigbo to stay back while outsiders fight for the release of their brother. I even heard a voice note calling on Ndigbo to close their businesses all over Nigeria on that day, October 20, and join in the protest march, in order to make a bold statement.
Both sides are right. But let’s start from the first argument by those against the protest march. We are all living witnesses of what pans out in this country any time any issue involves the Igbos of Southeast Nigeria. What others from other zones do and go free, if we try it, we are arrested, castigated, scorned or berated. They will quickly accuse us of trying to leave Nigeria; that we have come again after the experience of the Civil War which they will always tell us was caused by us. They will say we have not learnt our lesson. Then they will lecture the rest of Nigerians on why Ndigbo should not be allowed to lead Nigeria. Sadly, the rest of the country tend to believe that yarn.
Again, though strange, but still factual, sudden good gestures to Ndigbo by outsiders are often viewed by us with distrust and this is no thanks to our collective unsavoury experience in the country. Thus, Sowore’s otherwise good gesture may actually be a booby trap. To this end, no one should really blame those Igbos who distrust Sowore’s intentions
Even the EndSars Protest of some years ago planned by people like the Sowores was in the end pinned on Igbos as the perpetrators. It does indeed look as if some Nigerians are always waiting to pounce on the Igbos. The Igbos are like the proverbial rat that swam with the lizard but when the skin of the lizard got dry, the rat’s skin was still wet.
But beyond this, I am not very disposed to having our people join in any protest march, given the untoward consequences that may follow. Recall that I said I listened to a voice note calling on Ndigbo all over Nigeria to close their businesses on that day and join. This call is fraught with danger as it was exactly how the infamous sit at home started. Those who flouted the directive paid with their lives. It was a development that gave birth to the notorious unknown gunmen.
Now, after the Southeast Governors are finally succeeding in sanitizing the region of the menace of those hoodlums masquerading as our saviours, another call is urging us to close our businesses again.
With this new call will come another round of bloodletting and destruction because it is bound to be hijacked by criminals hiding under the canopy of Biafra agitation. And the Southeast Zone will relapse to the recent past era of carnage.
While I understand the reason for the call, my own take is that those who want to partake of the march should very well go ahead with it but without coercing anyone to join; after all, not everyone is a fan of Kanu or the Biafra idea. It remains a free society where anyone is free to express opinions, join associations and hold their views.
We are just coming out from years of killing and kidnapping caused by those shouting Biafra! Biafra!! We do not want to return to that inglorious era. If you love Kanu, join the protest; if you don’t, face your business and let nobody come to harass or attack you. I say this because the ranks of Kanu’s supporters are filled by overzealous elements who act before they think; people who know next to nothing about Biafra’s history but who swallow hook, line and sinker, all they are told by their so-called leaders.
The mistake we made in this Biafra madness was giving vent to our emotions over sound reasoning. We went after our own people, desecrated our land and killed businesses and education in the pursuit of a phantom Biafra while leaving those who are our actual enemies. And the result was that many people and businesses left the zone. I know many people who crossed over to neighbouring Asaba in Delta State because they could not bear the terrorism going on in our state
So now that we seem to be returning to peace, let no one be coerced into doing anything that will bring doom to us again.
