Blasts from the past

This past weekend was cold and rainy, the kind of day that White folks call “miserable” but the kind of day of which we Africans are well pleased. Readers should forgive me because when I sat down to write at the weekend, I decided not to worry about Omoyele Sowore’s arrest; the alleged factionalisation of […]

This past weekend was cold and rainy, the kind of day that White folks call “miserable” but the kind of day of which we Africans are well pleased. Readers should forgive me because when I sat down to write at the weekend, I decided not to worry about Omoyele Sowore’s arrest; the alleged factionalisation of Islamic Movement of Nigeria [IMN] between its caretaker leadership and Sheikh El-Zakzaky’s foreign-based and British-accented daughter over whether street protests should continue; what happens to the detained Shiite leader’s bail application at a Kaduna High Court today; whether ex-President Obasanjo’s meeting with Fulani leaders at Ota was for real; whether today’s scheduled RevolutionNow protest will hold in Abuja after the Police Inspector General declared it to be treasonable; or even, the 43 ministers-designate who are fretting to have to wait for a month after Senate clearance before they are sworn in.

No, I don’t want to comment on any of that stuff on this fine Monday morning, the beginning of a week when millions of Nigerians are thinking of how to get a ram to ritually slaughter on Sallah day, while millions of their fellow countrymen, who belong to different faiths, are also salivating and hoping that friends and neighbours will accommodate them in the ram-eating action.

I sometimes wonder why Nigeria is full of gloom these days. Why can’t the newspapers find good things to write about? Sometimes you get the impression that the mass media is thinly disguised terrorism. Certainly, most world leaders think so. In the 1980s when then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher granted an interview to a BBC Focus on Africa editor ahead of her visit to Africa, the woman asked her a string of hostile questions about her opposition to sanctions against Apartheid, her hostility to immigration into the UK and the like. Finally, Mrs. Thatcher looked at the editor in the eye and said, “Don’t you have something nice to say?”

I think columnists should find something nice to write about especially when they are about to go on holiday. I am thinking of the days when reading newspapers in this country used to be more entertaining and more pleasurable because they used to report a lot about pleasurable events, such as the Argungu Fishing Festival, pictures from which event used to dominate newspaper pages for days on end. Pictures of the prize-winning catch, often a 100kg-plus Nile perch locally called giwan ruwa featured prominently on front pages of newspapers, together with pictures of the man who caught it.

I have fond personal memories about the Argungu Fishing Festival. In early 1975 my father took me to the event and I saw on the protocol list that the man occupying the chalet next to ours at the Festival Village was “Federal Commissioner for Communications, Brigadier Murtala Mohammed.” A few months later he became the Head of State. I attended the same festival in 1974 where I saw the President of Niger Republic, Diori Hamani and his glamorous wife, Aisha Diori. A few months later he was overthrown and Aisha Diori was killed.

In 1974, organisers of the Fishing Festival added another great spectacle, the Argungu Safari Rally. Many motor companies made entries and a Toyota Corolla emerged the winner. The newspapers splashed pictures of the winning car, which breasted the tape with its bonnet open, with the mechanic working on the engine while the driver half stood out through the car’s window as he sped past the finishing line. Afterwards Toyota company erected giant billboards on Nigerian highways screaming, “Toyota Corolla, King of the Road!”

Two lawn tennis tournaments, Ogbe Hard Court in Benin and Kaduna Clay Court used to be media sensations in Nigeria. The table tennis champion Kasali Lasisi featured prominently in the newspaper sports pages. These days, little is heard about lawn tennis and table tennis in the newspapers. In 1974, the world table tennis champion from China arrived in Nigeria and played at a tournament in Jos. The champion lost the first six sets to the Benue Plateau State champion, and the whole stadium was on its feet, saying the world champion was about to lose by a “love,” as we used to call it. The Chinese man then won the next 21 sets while our local champion was fixed at 6. It turned out that he was only joking!

Not just tennis; the exploits of great Nigerian athletes used to adorn the newspapers and made for much pleasurable reading. During the 1973 All Africa Games in Lagos, Nigeria’s Modupe Oshikoya dazzled with her three medals. The newspaper also devoted ample space to the Ghanaian sprinter Alice Annum and her male counterpart Ohene Karikari. The Egyptian swimmer Faten Afifi, who won seven gold medals, was the games’ golden girl.

We read everyday in our newspapers about top African athletes such as the Kenyan runners Kipchoge Keino and Ben Jipcho; Ugandan policeman and African 110-meters hurdles champion John Akii-Bua; Tanzanian airforce officer and great middle-distance runner Filbert Bayi, not to mention the legendary Ethiopian marathon runners Abebe Bikila and Miruts Yifter. Today’s youngsters hardly know that this country used to have the world boxing sensation Dick Tiger, world champion wrestler Power Mike, world military wrestling champion Sale Mamman Zaria and the great weightlifter Oliver Orok.

Nigerian Premier League football clubs of today are punnies compared to Enugu Rangers, Bendel Insurance, Mighty Jets of Jos, IICC Shooting Stars, NEPA, Stationery Stores, P&T Vasco Da Gama and even the latter ones BCC Lions, Ranchers Bees, Bauchi Wunti, Alyufsalam Rocks of Ilorin and our local team in Sokoto, Sahara Storms. On the African scene too, we read a lot about teams such as Guinea’s Ohafia, Ghana’s Asante Kotoko and Accra Hearts of Oak and Egypt’s Mehala. Footballers such as Emmanuel Okala, Christian Chukwu, Sule Kekere, Aloysius Atuegbu, Audu Buba, Segun Odegbami and the legendary 1960s goalkeeper Inuwa Rigogo were to readers in the 1970s what Nollywood and Kannywood actors are to today’s social media audience.

These days there is no anxiety and hope in Nigeria such as was once generated by Bendel Lottery. Tens of thousands of people used to buy the lottery tickets, the winning results of which were published in the newspapers on designated days. Come and see the rush for newspapers on those days! Right into the 1980s we also had football pools’ betting. When I was a patient at Dala Orthopaedic Hospital in Kano in 1986, patients all around me were doing pools’ betting, and a man will busily go round the wards to collect his customers’ bets or bring to them their winning prizes.

Nigeria was a very exciting place in January 1977 when we hosted FESTAC, the world African and Black arts festival. We watched dancers from all African countries and the black diaspora dancing throughout the days and nights for one month. The mixed-race Ethiopians, Somalis and Sudanese were the most glamorous, judging from the Lagos audience’s shouts of approval. The Federal Government had a lot of money to spare in 1977; one newspaper reported that it imported N20million worth of soft drinks for the festival, which would translate into tens of billions of naira today. But we also got FESTAC estate in Lagos, National Theatre and Kaduna’s Durbar Hotel, which is a carcass today.

“Democratically-elected” African rulers of today also contribute to the boredom. They are far less flashy and much less newsworthy than the autocrats of old. Field Marshall Idi Amin Dada of Uganda was a world-wide news maker despite the smallness of his country. Muammar Gaddafi of Libya’s taunts easily put world powers on edge. Africa also once had some of the world’s best-known statesmen including Mwalimu Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Leopold Senghor of Senegal.

With no dazzling festivals, great football teams, safari rallies, great athletes and boxers, rich lotteries or larger-than-life African rulers, we are today reduced to discussing herdsmen, foreign football teams and BB Naija evictions. [Sob, sob].

Mahmud Jega will be on four weeks’ leave from today.