Winners and losers
“So we lost”. Mutum uttered in between a mouthful of chicken parts and rice.“It’s bad manners to talk while eating and remember this Ramadan period is not for frivolous talk”. I shot back, being in no mood to join in the futile repartee which he wanted to start now that he was no longer hungry. […]
“So we lost”. Mutum uttered in between a mouthful of chicken parts and rice.
“It’s bad manners to talk while eating and remember this Ramadan period is not for frivolous talk”. I shot back, being in no mood to join in the futile repartee which he wanted to start now that he was no longer hungry.
“So painful after having whipped up our emotions…”, he continued completely ignoring the veiled insult on his gluttony. I decided to ignore him and concentrate on the serious business of my bude baki. Undeterred, he continued in between gulping down water to wash down all he had eaten. “And thinking that we were hoping to reach the semi-final stage, at least”.
–But you’re impossible. Of all issues it is the flop of the Super Eagles that exercises your mind. It was just a game which must be won or lost and it just so happened that we lost. That’s all, case closed-
–No, case is not closed, we did not just lose, we were cheated, robbed-
-Ha! Mutum, I know you’re a fanatical supporter of the Super Eagles, but that does not mean you should be unrealistic when they lose and begin to fish for unreasonable reasons to explain the loss.
-Did you watch the match-?
-Which one of them-?
-The last one of course, the one played against France-?
–‘Cos I did, it was a fair match that the Super Eagles lost fair and square. They were beaten 2-0 at full time. They played well though-
–Don’t tell me the outcome; tell me what you saw on the pitch. Was it fairly officiated?-
–Yea, up to a point. Except for one or two calls, I did not see anything grossly wrong with the officiating-
–Then you must have watched a different match, or you watched nothing at all. No one who watched the match could miss the obvious vicious attacks on Onazi’s right angle which should have fetched the French player/assailant a straight red. He was out to incapacitate Onazi and the referee knowingly looked the other way and waved the match to continue with Onazi writhing in pain on the turf, and only stopped the match when the boos became strident from the stand.-
-Yes, I saw that and Onazi was taken out and replaced by someone else-
-True enough, but a less capable one. Onazi roamed the midfield like a colossus making it difficult for the French to play their free flowing game that could create goals. That was why the first half was a barren draw. Onazi’s replacement couldn’t hold the position well resulting into the goals-
–Anyhow Brazil 2014 wasn’t a bad outing for Nigeria. The Super Eagles were super at the group stage with a draw against Iran, a win against Bosnia-Hezegovina and a loss to Argentina in a scintillating match that could have gone either way had the referee not given undue advantages of spot kicks against us that allowed Messi to show his wizardry. Our own goals by Ahmed Musa were also sublime resulting from cutting through the Argentine defence effortlessly. I was expecting a similar display against the les blue, as the French team is called.
–Did I hear you say the referee gave undue advantages to Argentina? –
–Even the blind could see that and when Messi was withdrawn after scoring two of their three goals, he went straight to the referee for a hand shake, as if to say thank you for the favours-
–How inconsistent you can be. Just now you said I was unrealistic for imputing the Super Eagles loss to bad officiating. You have now virtually agreed with me by the “undue advantages given to Argentina’’ as you claim. Anyway there was another kind of winners and losers, this time on the political arena-
–I warned you about gorging yourself with too much sugar. I am sure too much of the stuff has got to your brain. What has politics to do with the World Cup tournament in Brazil-
–Don’t play dumb with me. You know that I am talking about the Ekiti poll where Ayo Fayose trounced the incumbent Kayode Fayemi to the chagrin of the APC as a party and the intellectual class-
–Oh that. It was one of those inscrutable things about politics in Nigeria-
–Come on, there is nothing mysterious about what happened. The voters behaved typically, they voted for the one that mobilised them. Simple. Fayose induced voters’ support by given them bags of rice, sugar and, wait for it:-yams and gari plus money; Fayemi gave nothing. He expected the voters to vote for him on his records in office and they did just that-
–I don’t understand. You support the vote winning inducements of Fayose?-
–My friend, I overrate your intelligence. Is it difficult to understand that our people would not stop to give power to those who materially mobilise them, who give them something to put in their stomachs in return for the trouble they take for voting? Fayemi campaigned as he should, brandishing his sparkling achievements of his first term in office. In an ideal situation, may be somewhere in Europe and the US he would have walked on a red carpet back to a second term. His loss shows that in Nigeria performance is not enough. The voters must be bribed. Fayose did just that and since there is nothing in the electoral law that forbids inducing the voters to vote for you, the fellow has once again been returned to Ekiti government house, in spite of what happened during his first coming of which the voters are well aware.-
–In other words what happened in Ekiti during the election was classic real- politick-politics of the stomach. Fayemi may have been the champion of the transformation of Ekiti State from a rural to a cosmopolitan one complete with spanking new township roads, well paved with drainage system or turning Ekiti into a modern social democratic state by instituting social welfare policies in health, education and so forth, alongside infrastructural development. But no one gives a damn. So he had to go. To be replaced by the same person they had booted out some years back for not doing what Fayemi has managed to do.
–Now, don’t betray which side you belong to. Let’s just say that it is enough that the election was declared free and fair. So fair that Fayemi was quick to concede defeat, and by so doing pre-empted his followers from unleashing violence and mayhem thereby breaking the jinx of violence that was second nature to Ekiti State, so that should count for something-
I agree. After all, all is well that ends well.