Like the Super Eagles, Like Impatient Nigerians -By Hussein Adegoke

Two things are factual about this year’s ongoing AFCON as it relates to the Nigerian Super Eagles (never mind that I am way too late to bring up that gist; it’s not the main one): one, the team’s talented players—that influenced their successes—and two, their poor managerial tactics, that spurred their exit. The Eagles did well to win all matches until some moments in the Round-16 stage of the AFCON competition when a lone goal found a way into their net and they became intolerant. They left tactics and strategies behind and came all out to ‘battle life’ as if they saw that, with a lone goal, they were destined for doom. This became all apparent when Alex Iwobi came from the bench and manifested the team’s grievance in broad daylight, matching an opponent’s foot so terribly as if he were invited for a conquest in a warzone. At 47 minutes when the goal was scored, there was yet at least 47 per cent of unplayed moments in the game; 47 per cent of unplayed chances, critical decisions, strategies, trials and a handful tactics. So, why become much worked up unnecessarily? But viola! Iwobi’s early exit happened and the Eagle’s failure became written. That would be to the team Manager’s discredit; one who was visibly agitated to sporadically invade the battlefield with new brands of guns however it was that the riffles at play would only have needed more bullets (in terms of team spiritedness and coordinations) for the favourite team to outshine the enemy. Coaches Austin Eguavoen and Joseph Yobo were ruled by their temperaments and this had culminated in their downfall.

On the 29th of January, 2022, the worst tragedy for the year so far happened at Oke-Aregba in Abeokuta of Ogun State where compassion was sent on a compulsory leave. Three ‘teenagers’ were reported to have severed the most precious identity of a female individual for money propitiation and occultism. They were headlong in the rituals after the act when their smoke caught fire (both ways). A vigilante within the premises had sensed a foul smell emanating from an uncompleted building until he walked over to discover the lads ‘roasting’ the head in broad daylight. The three criminals (or maybe, suspects) have since been whisked to the police station where they are being investigated and making heart-shattering pronouncements. What readily comes to this writer’s mind in these scenarios is a wonderment of how many more of such evils have been perpetrated and gone unexposed? Like the Super Eagles of Nigeria, we are a people battered by temperament and impatience. We become desirous of mind-blowing successes after having put our hands into nothing. True, there is poverty in the land and an average countryman goes about with no solid guess of his next meal. But what responsibilities or poverty level had driven a kid into the shackles of Lucifer and eroded his conscience? The oldest of them is just 20. And in all your twenties, to go by the average life expectancy rate in Nigeria put at 55 in 2022, you have at least 47 percent of your life unspent! You have 47 percent of your lifetime left; to strategize, think, explore, convert, and take legitimate and decisive actions that affect you in a positive way. So, why become unnecessarily worked up and write away your life ever before it begins? Those guys have most assertively not even been through university education much less become ‘jobless’ or skeptical about their successes in life. They would not have been through with trades and appreticeship if they had enrolled in one. So, what hasten hearken to the voices of thoughtlessness and satanism?

Most of the time, we become prodded to action by the vibes we get. We are ruled by the noises (or so, voices) from the precincts of a football stadium and from the enclaves of our domiciliary as these are found applicable. Perhaps, it was the outbursts from the teeming Nigerian fans that affected Joseph Yobo and his counterpart to make sporadic and incalculable decisions that spelled doom for Eagles, and perhaps not. Perhaps it is the eerie sounds from uncouth musicians—one as Naira Marley, as displayed in a shirt worn by one of the ‘teenagers’—that displaced Rofiat’s killers from rational consciences, and perhaps not. What we listen to would affect us. But it is not in place to say we should thus listen to nothing. We are humans with two ears, meant to listen to good—and only good—vibes that catapult us to the summit of our ambitions. We should have good friends and be readily patient for your good turns. As Eagles/Nigerians, we are meant to soar—as no wing of ours is clipped, yet.