SUPER EAGLES and the killings

By Joseph Edgar….

So Musa took his time and rounded the keeper from Iceland and meticulously placed the ball in a strategic angle in the Icelandic net. The whole nation from the arid deserts that surround the northern plains down to the swampy and densely populated Niger Delta jumped up in uproarious excitement, screaming and hugging each other in a wild spasm of euphoria. At that point we were untied and bound by the unmitigated joy that comes with the pure sense of a collective agitation towards winning in an endeavour that is no more than symbolic and which comes with very temporary succour.

Immediately, analysts could not beat themselves with analysis of how soccer unites the country and how it binds us as one unit numbing the deep divisions that continue to pervade our system. The social media was not left out. Graphic analogies emerged of how Moses, an Igbo man or wherever he comes from, gave the ball to Musa, a Kanuri man, trying to push the oneness that has defied us since independence. The ethnic colouration of the players all emerged in a strained bid to show that football and indeed this victory would heal all our wounds. We were a nation in a haze suffering from the very essence of collective delusion and arrant stupidity.

The wakeup call did not waste time in coming. Over the weekend, the plateau erupted in a seismic voltage of violence. Over 100 people lost their lives in a macabre dance of wanton ethnic laced violence. Blood flowed all over the plateau and once again with a thud, we were thrown back into our dark and hollow existence of mutual distrust and anarchy.

Read also: The 2018 Budgetary Allocation to Education

So where are the Musa goals? How have they stopped this carnage? Did the murderer wielding the machete or AK 47 remember the goals or super eagles at the point he needed to slit the throat of his ‘’brother’’ ? Are we not a country of drunken jokers? How for the life of me depend on a team of young lads who in themselves do not really understand the issues that lace our very existence to bring healing. A team of lads who at best when lacing their boots really have no inkling of patriotism in their heart but the burning desire of using the global platform to further their individual goals. Can you blame them?

Today, we live in a wasted country. A wasted cohesion and dissipated prospects on the last legs of extinction. Is it by force to remain one, shouldn’t we begin to align with those who have called for an outright break up into little nations if this will save lives?

Depending on a Super Eagles team that at best is as unreliable as the leaders who have berthed them to provide the tonic for unity and cohesion is a journey towards the abyss of hopelessness. We are stunted pygmies bereft of any vision of nationhood with nothing but selfishness and waste to gift the next generation.

As we match out for the Argentine game, we would as usual purposelessly, drop our misgivings and hatred for each other for 90minutes and hold hands, hug each other and wait for the elusive victory that will never come because even if we win the real victory which is the victory of nationhood will continue to elude us.

We are a country of marauders.

 

RipplesNigeria… without borders, without fears

Click here to join the Ripples Nigeria WhatsApp group for latest updates.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now