Super Chickens And Spirituality
Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. -Galatians 6:7 (English Standard Version (2001))
There has been an ever-increasing Babel since last Saturday when the more purposeful Syli Stars of Guinea flushed out our clay-footed national team, the Super (?) Eagles, from the 2012 African Nations Cup to be co-hosted by Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. While most soccer buffs want the players roasted for playing as if nothing was at stake, a staccato of voices have been calling for the head of Coach Samson Siasia.
I can understand the national umbrage against the lusterless team and their clueless officials. It is justifiable because to whom much is given, much is expected. Soccer-loving Nigerians have invested hard-earned money, via tax, and a lot of goodwill on the team. And at a time like this when majority of Nigerians are suffering under grueling economic burden, football has been providing the much-needed succour, even if temporary, especially when their teams win crucial matches. But where the converse is the case, like it was last Saturday, when the Guineans tucked in a last minute goal to end the game at 2-2, and flushed the Eagles out of the competition, their sorrow deepens.
This would be second time in 25 years that the national soccer team would be missing from the African Nations Cup. As that sad reality weighed in on the fans on Saturday, an eerie atmosphere descended on the Abuja National Stadium, moments after the match. It induced cold beads on many people’s temples, and mingled with their tears as they sat dumbfounded, pondering on the calamity that had just hit the Eagles.
But I never lost any sleep over the loss. In fact, I had a nice meal and enjoyed some nice films till the small hours of Sunday. I’m neither a sadist nor a fatalist. I’m a realist. That was why I was happy that we lost the game. I was happy not because some prophet had ‘predicted’ that the Eagles would lose, according to some media reports, but because for too long, we had banked more on luck, rather than hard work as we prepare for major competitions. Hard we won last Saturday’s match, we would have trudged on as if nothing was amiss. Contrary to the practice in the 1970s and 1980s when the Nigerian Football Association would organize Grade A international friendly matches to put the national team in shape, the Nigerian Football Federation, NFF, as they are now known, does not seem to have any idea on how to put the team in a killer form.
Rather, they squabble over almost everything. They squabble over money. They squabble over estacodes to ‘monitor’ players abroad. They squabble over coaches and, even, over players to field for a particular game. They squabble over their rancorous elections. They fight over virtually everything, and behave like spoilt brats all over the place. They never had any well-thought out programme to prepare the team for the hurdles ahead. Rather, they run from pillar to post as D-Day nears. They would declare three-day fast, as they did in the case of our tragic encounter with Guinea, or bring in spiritualists and marabouts to fast and pray with the ‘boys’. And to make assurance doubly sure, they may even now seek a seer to offer divination on the outcome of the match. This much was revealed in the furore that trailed a newspaper report that quoted Super Eagles striker, Osaze Odemwingie, as having said that the team could not fly to the Nations Cup finals because Prophet Temitope Joshua of the Synagogue Church of All Nations, SCOAN, had foretold that the team would not qualify.
Meanwhile, a more serious Guinean team had camped in France, days before the encounter, training and perfecting strategies to stop our Eagles in flight. They didn’t take chances. But I wouldn’t know if they, too, enlisted any prophet or voodoo priest or a prayer merchant to pray for and with their team. Please, don’t get me wrong. I’m not averse to our team praying for success in crucial encounters. After all, isn’t prayer better than voodoo rituals that ex-international-turned-pastor, Taribo West, once told me that some coaches, players and clubs do to be invincible on the field of play, and score magical goals? Even in Europe.
However, what I’m against is for our administrators and team handlers to tempt God by declaring a three-day fast to pray for the victory they don’t deserve because they never worked for it! God recognizes the efficacy of prayers and enjoins men to pray ceaselessly. But there is a caveat. The same God, through the Apostle Paul in the Bible, says that faith without work is dead!
So, why are we deceiving ourselves by praying without working hard at achieving success? Why do we always have slipshod preparations for crucial assignments only to resort to last minute prayers for miracles to happen on the field of play? If God had been magnanimous in the past by allowing us slim but hard fought victories, why do we think He will condone us the next time?
To me, our case is like the case of students facing their final exams. While the serious–minded ones among them pray and study hard, the slothful among them play hard and waste precious time only to begin to fast and pray three days to the exam. Do we need any seer to predict the outcome of such useless exercise? Why do we deceive ourselves thinking that we can mock God? The Bible says in Galatians 6:7 (English Standard Version (2001)) thus: ‘Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.’
Do I need to add more? Is it not the law of nature that you cannot plant maize and reap cowpeas? Is it not in the law of nature that whoever sows the wind will reap whirlwind? That is exactly what happened upper Saturday. No one can mock God. You can only deceive yourself. Do you get the drift?
There is no controversy about this. Nigerian football has become a distressed brand. It is in its most virulent tempest. It needs to be rescued fast. It needs to be repossessed. It needs rehabilitation. But there may not be a quick fix, cure-all solution because it began its slide to the abyss long ago, before our very eyes. The players, the administrators, indeed, most football buffs, saw the dangerous decent unfurl before their very eyes.
The courageous ones screamed at the rooftops. The lily-livered melted like butter in a furnace. They lost their voice. Others simply joined the locusts that ravaged the field and inflicted more harm. Today, the field is brown and in patches. And our wingless Eagles have crashed like humpty-dumpty off their Olympian height.
Like I said, there is no quick fix to the problem. Yet, redemption must come, and come fast. We must safe the Eagles to restore our national pride. We must nurse the Eagles back to health because it is the indisputable symbolism of our national unity and happiness. In a country where hope evaporates like dews under the morning sun, football has become our opium.
Football, like religion, has become a cocktail of narcotics not only for the poor citizens, even for the prodigal elite who must still seek happiness anyway. Tragically, it is the same source of happiness that some administrators have turned into ashes through maladministration and corruption. The situation is desperate. And as they say, a desperate situation needs a desperate solution. I’m not an expert in football matters. In fact, I’m not knowledgeable in sports matters. But I don’t need to be an expert or a clairvoyant to know that the situation is extremely bad and needs urgent redemption. First thing first, we need to withdraw from international competitions for at least two years, like President Goodluck Jonathan hastily ordered last year sequel to the dismal performance of the Super Eagles at the World Cup in South Africa. But the initiative, this time around, must come from the FA to avoid the unwarranted hoopla that trailed the president’s declaration, causing FIFA to threaten sanctions if the decision was not rescinded within days. Even at that, FIFA would still slam some fines against us. But whatever fines we would pay would be money well spent once we are able to achieve our objective.
During the interregnum, there must be continuous activities to reposition our football. We should kick-start that process by repackaging our premier league in such away that would be irresistible to investors and un-put-downable by sponsors. Adjunct to that is the FA Cup, otherwise known as Challenge Cup. The Challenge Cup, up till the early 1980s, used to be the glory of all football competitions in the country. It was like the English FA Cup. But it lost its glamour to the economic adversity that hit the country from the mid-1980s, coupled with the wicked machinations of corrupt officials. Consequently, we must restructure our football administration in such a way that only those that are genuinely interested in service are thrust into positions of authority within the new board of the Nigerian Football Federation, NFF, that would emerge. None of those who turned the Glass House, in Abuja, to personal fiefdom must be allowed to come near the corridor of power again.
Lest I forget, we could take a step further by undertaking a comprehensive review of our age-group football competitions. Principals’ Cup should be reinvigorated and so packaged that it would easily yield talents into the Academicals, as it was done in the 1970s, which, in turn, would produce talents for the Flying Eagles and Super Eagles. To achieve this, our soccer administrators must stop the unwholesome practice of cheating and fielding over-aged players for age-group competitions to fraudulently achieve glory. Such ignoble practice stunts the growth of the game rather than enhancing it.
Above all, our officials and players must imbibe the culture of honest hard work instead of working to the answer; that is, achieving success through wuruwuru methods or enlisting marabouts and prayer merchants to hold our teams and players captive in the evil enterprise. There is no shortcut to success. Success comes only through sustained hardwork, through bold and disciplined activities, and never by gambling with God’s mercies and grace, as we often do.
May the Lord have mercy.
source: sunnewsonline.com
