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Reactions
have trailed the embarrassing fall of the Super Eagles yesterday at
their first match at the ongoing World Cup in Russia.
The first tragedy of the Eagles' performance tonight was the
revelation that many Nigerians truly believed that in the absence of
quality preparation and good organization, the predictions of the
so-called 'Marcus the mystic pig' would spur the team to victory.
For those who have followed the sub-par performances of Nigeria's
sports teams over the past few years, this timid and uninspiring show
against a lackluster Croatian side didn't come as a surprise, it is
consistent with the trend.
There is apparently a correlation between the Mediocre performance
of the country's leadership and the performance of her sports teams; the
one rises or falls with the other. And they both seem to be on a
consistent decline.
These Eagles, much like the country's leadership, were feckless,
lacked imagination and creativity, and had very little ambition. The
surprise was not their horrible performance, the surprise was that we
expected them to perform, to give in essence, what they do not have.
This is a clear case of harmful illusion, the natural consequence of
reliance by humans on predictions by pigs!
It is the same illusion that has many of our people still expecting
Buhari's APC or Jonathan's PDP to fix our country, and give her the
sort of ambitious and creative leadership required to harness her
potentials and unleash the limitless imagination and creative force of
her proud people; the kind of leadership of which the Buharis,
Jonathans, and their co-travellers are simply incapable.
Also, this illusion seems to have blinded us to our collective low
self-esteem borne out by the fact that more than half a century since
our first participation in international football, we still rely on the
questionable expertise of a string of under-achieving Europeans -
fraudulently tagged 'expatriates' - who turn in mediocre performances
after pocketing very high wages from our lean national purse.
This illusion speaks to our national vanity, and led us to the
ridiculous celebration of sports kits made by a foreign company rather
than question why in 2018 we cannot kit our teams domestically. This is
besides the curious stupidity of celebrating our team's fashionable kits
in a tournament where laurels are won by performance not fashion.
While it is almost certain - especially to those of us not caught
in this collective illusion - that these Eagles will deservedly end up a
flop in Russia, there is the consolation that this team is a poor
representation of our actual abilities in this and other sports; and the
sooner we fix our leadership question, the sooner a competent and
gallant set of Eagles managed by one of our own, will emerge and conquer
the world.
Until then, we might remain steeped in our collective illusion,
celebrate mediocrity in the name of patriotism, and ultimately rely on
the vacuous predictions of 'Marcus the mystic pig' or, perhaps next time
it will be 'Marcello the prophetic rat'!
Written by a U.S-based Nigerian lawyer, Oyinye Gandhi
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