It was an interview I needed to do, but the organisers were not helpful. They practically left me to my own devices. I decided to somehow force my way through when the players were on their way to lunch.
In my hand was a copy of “World Soccer” magazine, fresh from the press. On the cover was the big, bold picture of my would-be interviewee – the legendary George Tawlon Manneh Oppong Ousman Weah.
That was in 1999 at the Taribo and Friends game in Lagos. I was the Sports Editor of “Thisday”.
The “World Soccer” cover did the trick. It came out the previous day and I was sure Weah hadn’t seen it. He walked towards me, politely asked to see the magazine and held me by the hand. We walked into the lunch room.
Weah asked for my name and we got talking, but I noticed he was engrossed with the content of the magazine. I asked him to keep it. He got up to embrace me and I asked him if he could give me a few minutes after the game.
Weah agreed, but he changed his mind. He asked me to follow him to his hotel room for the interview right away, stressing that he could leave immediately after the match in his jet. No protocols. It all seemed magical.
Please, don’t ask me what it could have cost me if it was a Nigerian superstar? Weah was seeing me for the first time. No appointment. I was a stranger. He didn’t feign being unable to speak English and I got his attention just by flashing a magazine with his picture. He saw it and walked away from the strolling pack to ask for it.
Dear reader, pardon my long preamble. It is in a dramatic bid to join the debate – Can a Nigerian ex-soccer star become president? My candid opinion? No; not yet.
We like to be pacesetters. When we are not, we strive to cover up with a quick fix, not minding the culture shock that comes with such copycat ventures. Why must it be Liberia to have a former soccer star as its president? Why not Nigeria? After all, Liberia isn’t a football power in Africa. But our soccer stars don’t have the simplest criterion to endear themselves to voters.
Everything that Weah (born October 1, 1966) did came on impulse. He witnessed all that happened in his hitherto war-torn country, Liberia, and empathised with his people, who endured the horrors of a mindless civil war. He was a soccer star, who started playing on the streets of Liberia, which became grounds for war machines and battle tanks. His rise to stardom and the number one job is the manifestation of an audacious desire, conviction, hardwork, iron-cast will and uncommon commitment to a purpose.
The dreamer in this case appears propelled by an inner spirit to save his country, his people from pain, poverty, destruction and all things odious to peace and the destiny of his fatherland. This trait and inclination he showed several times as a footballer, carrying the Liberian national football team on his shoulders time and time again. He paid bills and match bonuses of his teammates, besides chartering aircraft to take the team to match venues. Weah also engaged in charity work on which he spent his money.
Weah isn’t Liberia’s President because he played the beautiful game. He is because he embarked on people-oriented programmes in those dark, eerie days of war. Weah spent millions in hard currency to alleviate the suffering of his people. He could have changed nationality in 1995 after he was named FIFA World Player of the Year and won the Ballon d’Or, becoming the first and only African player to win these awards. In 1989, 1994 and 1995, he was named the African Footballer of the Year. In 1996, he was named African Player of the Century. Not even the allure of playing at the World Cup could tempt him to change nationality.
Weah single-handedly sponsored the Liberian soccer team, making efforts to get the war-torn country to the 2002 Japan/Korea 2002 World Cup. Nigeria stopped Liberia because it was our golden era in soccer. Need I name our stars who played against Liberia? Like they say in boxing, it would have been a no-contest fight.
Since Weah became Liberia’s President, soccer followers, including some avid readers of this column, have asked me whether it is feasible for an ex-footballer to be Nigeria’s president. In all the discussions on this topic, I have remained silent, preferring to listen to their arguments. But many of them feel strongly that I need to lead the crusade for a Nigerian player to become our next president.
Let me disappoint you, dear friends, an ex-footballer can’t become our president. Why? Simple; our players are peacocks who want to be seen with only the elite, not the common man. Weah is a giver and a leader with purpose and mission. The Nigerian footballer or ex-footballer is a prig and perhaps morally obtuse and dense to all that Weah, a champion of the masses stands for.
Weah’s aspiration received blessings from all. The Nigerian footballer has to be begged and paid for any charity work; he bluffs and struts around with bodyguards who always get in the way when you try to engage him for any service to the society. All these are negative traits many of them need to drop – if they must command the type of followership Weah has.
And now that Weah has showed what is possible and some footballers think they too can follow the same path and become President, I advise that they study his script very well and adjust their thoughts and version of the dream for a superb career like Weah’s. Dreams unsupported by positive moves die fast.
A few times you find our celebrity players in a public gathering, they are always in a hurry to leave when it dawns on them that fans know they are around. Rather than worm themselves to these Nigerians, majority of whom are soccer faithful just seeking autographs, selfies etc, they ensure that their bodyguards show their might. When faced with surging masses, they resort to throwing cash in the opposite direction to distract the fans while they make good their escape.
You need to see the mad rush for the cash while our stars zoom off at breakneck speed, leaving others with the urge for autographs and selfies struggling to flee the stampede. Not Weah; he comes out of a vehicle to greet the fans, stretching his hands and holding on to those who need attention. Weah is never in a hurry to leave the fans. He holds them in high esteem. He shares in their problems.
With all the disasters and terrorists’ carnage in the country, how many of our players have identified with our large army of Internally Displaced People (IDP)? If anyone has, he would have been taken there as a celebrity, paid and sponsored by a state government. Not so for Weah. He was daring in his support for Liberia’s post war efforts.
Without a Weah-kind of player here, we are forced to challenge the government to rescue our ailing sports stars. I ask, where are our players? Take a bow Tajudeen Disu, the late Stephen Keshi, Paul Okoku, Francis Monidafe et al who live in the United States for all that you have done for your Alma Mata in Nigeria.
It won’t come as a surprise if Mohammed Saleh contests any electoral position in Egypt in the future and wins. He is already a cult hero, drawing global applause.
Salah showed he has not forgotten his roots by donating 27,000 pounds to a charity helping out retired Egyptian footballers. The Liverpool winger has loosened his purse strings to help out the Association of Veteran Egyptian Players, which supports ex-footballers struggling to make ends meet. The money will help around 120 families, reports Egyptian news site “King Fut”.
How many of our players give back to their communities? A few of them, but such projects start like a house on fire only to melt away like ice-cream under the scorching sun, largely because they are always self-serving projects.
Obafemi Martins towers above everyone in terms of people-oriented programmes. Martins has touched lives where he lived. He identifies with them and participates in their affairs through his lieutenants. He cherishes the physically-challenged people, who defy their physical disabilities to appreciate his presence anytime he is with them. Is Martins thinking politics? I don’t think so. But if he decides to run for any position, the song in such an area would be “winner o, o, o, winner… Martins you don win o!”.
Please, don’t remind me of those soccer stars who mounted the rostrum urging the late Sani Abacha to remain in power in the infamous One Million Man March in Abuja, in spite of what the late Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola did for some of them. The late Abiola was the Pillar of Sports in Africa; you remember?
