Like most Nigerians, I did not give Coach Stephen Keshi led Super Eagles any chance at the just concluded Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON 2013) in South Africa for obvious reasons.
For close to two decades our senior male national football team have not inspired confidence and pride in us no thanks to their fitful style of play that we are always forced us to go on our knees praying fervently and furiously for victory each time they entered the field to play even against some supposedly minnows.
The winning mentality and the can do Nigerian spirit that was always there in the Super Eagles have been missing for so long since Keshi captained the team to AFCON victory in 1994 in Tunisia, that we don”t even know how victory tastes again.
The Olympic Team at Atlanta in 1996 reminded us of our prowess in football by winning the gold medal in football, but that was under-23 stuff. We came close to reclaiming our greatness in football when we co-hosted AFCON with Ghana in 2000 but fell at the last hurdle. From then on the Super Eagles went into a free fall and we could not even command a place among the elite of African football not to talk of rubbing shoulders with the best in the world. This was disaster for a team that was once ranked fifth in the world after our superlative performance at the 1994 FIFA world cup in the United States of America.
The pains and disappointments of the past would now seem to have been erased by that lone goal victory by the Super Eagles over the Stallions of Burkina Fasso at the National Stadium in Johannesburg last Sunday. But as we celebrate that victory, it will be wrong to assume that the worst is over for our football and begin to see ourselves in the same league as Spain, Germany, The Netherlands, Brazil, Argentina or even England. We still have a long way to go even though the Federal Government’s spin doctors will seek to portray the situation differently as they will certainly proclaim this as one of the good lucks that President Goodluck Jonathan has in stock for us. Well, they are entitled to say that if that will make them happy but Nigerians know the true state of their nation and no amount of sweet talk of Jonathan’s good luck would change that. But all the same let us all enjoy this rare moment of joy that the Super Eagles have brought to us and congratulate ourselves including our president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan and his dearest wife, Nigeria”s alternate President and Commander-In-Chief, Dame Patience Jonathan. I know what I am talking about.
Unfortunately some Nigerians will not be joining us in this joyful and victorious celebration following the cutting short of the lives of their loved ones in Kano last week by some demented gunmen. I am talking about the families of those health workers gunned down in Kano state by some religious terrorists as they were administering Polio vaccines on children. The victims of this dastardly act were on a mission to sustain and protect our future by ensuring that our next generation do not suffer from such childhood diseases as Polio, but these agents of the devil who do not want a healthy future for our children and do not mean well for us chose to kill them for trying to help us.
The perpetrators of this act would want us to believe they were fighting to protect the children from what they and their sponsors believe is a conspiracy by the western world to use the vaccine to either kill our children or make the females amongst them infertile in future so as to stem the increase in the population of black Africans. And they even have a religious angle to this madness by tracing their action to Islam. In fact some Islamic leaders in the North even support them on this. This is madness, there is nothing Islamic here. Islam is definitely not against medicine or science. In fact many of those scientific/medical feats being celebrated today are well documented in Islam even before the advent of modern medicine.
What is greatly troubling here is that some supposedly learned people who knew or should know the truth as regards this vaccination thing and Islam are the ones behind or giving support to those madmen crusading against Polio vaccination for our children in the North.
Remember one Dr Datti Ahmed, a medical doctor, who I learnt trained in Medicine in supposedly progressive Russia in the 60s and perhaps the first Kano indigene to qualify as a medical practitioner. His wife or one of his wives, (as the case may be) a Yoruba woman, was already a matron when he married her. The man in question has a daughter who is also a medical practitioner. So, medicine runs in his family. They are supposedly enlightened people. This Dr Ahmed heads one Islamic group in the North, as chairman of the Sharia Council and acts in that capacity purportedly in defence of and interest of Islam. Some years back he, for no scientific reason began his campaign against Polio vaccination in the North, especially in his native Kano and persuaded parents not to allow their children to be immunized. With the kind of religious society we have in the North and his position in the Sharia Council, his campaign gained ground and created tons of problem for the various state governments in the region, particularly Kano, which he practically held to ransom for years over the issue of immunization. Unable to convince the people otherwise, the state government had to sponsor overseas tests of the vaccines to convince the people that Dr Ahmed was wrong and that there is nothing harmful about immunization.
Although the issue later cooled off and appeared to be over, but the latest attack and killing of health workers carrying out immunization exercise on the children in Kano appears to indicate that Dr Ahmed was able to plant his doctrine of falsehood against immunization firmly in the minds of some people and the seed is beginning to germinate and in its most dangerous form. If he was able to stop the immunization then by his verbal campaign against it, his supporters or those that believe in his campaign are now prepared to go a step further. If the people refuse to heed the call not to submit their children for immunization, why not kill those administering the vaccine, they seem to have concluded, and they were probably taking their inspiration from Dr Datti Ahmed.
The question here is why would a man with all his training and knowledge chose to ignore scientific evidence, already proven, and mislead his people to accept and follow a path which his head tells him is wrong.
How I wish Dr Datti and his supporters could find out from those adults suffering the effect of Polio affliction in their childhood whether given a choice of a vaccine to cure them of their deformity now they would take it or remain the way they are. I am sure the answer will most certainly be yes, bring the medicine.
Dr Datti may not have intended his campaign against Polio vaccination to get this far but we are now suffering the consequence of his action and he must accept responsibility for this, apologise to his people and begin a fresh campaign in support of immunization against all forms of killer diseases for our children. In the true spirit of Islam, he should beg for forgiveness and atone for his sins against the people in this regard.
Islam places a huge responsibility on the shoulders of religious leaders, who because of their exalted position as servants of Almighty ALLAH (SWT) are supposed to be obeyed by their followers, so, they have been enjoined not to misrepresent Islam and mislead their people. The consequences of misleading their people is grave for them in the hereafter. Dr Datti Ahmed, I am sure knows this.
And for those who killed those health workers, they have questions to answer from Almighty ALLAH (SWT) on the day of judgment, but before then the earthly powers in Nigeria must fish them out and punish them for that crime. They have sinned against the rest of us.
While praying God to grant the families of the victims of that Kano killing the fortitude to bear their loss, the Kano State government must assist them to cushion the effect of that loss, especially their children. Adequate security should also be given to health workers on similar missions in future.
Having said that, let’s come together and celebrate our Super Eagles, THE CHAMPIONS OF AFRICA.
