The rambling youth who abandons his farm to seek greener pastures on his neighbour’s land is never as manly as the starving cow which kicks over its food bucket, leaps over the barnyard fence to run after its calf at milking time. Even the maternal cow commands greater respect than the Nigerian youth. Even a plough-wearied bullock tilling barren land excites greater dignity than the youth who passionately maligns Nassarawa United, Rangers of Enugu and Gateway FC to worship A.C Milan, Manchester United among others.
Some would rave that I have made a sweeping statement but the tragedy of the Nigerian youth at home isn’t any different from that of his peer in diaspora. A pitiful lust remains their woe; it’s a hankering for undeserved luxury, base sentimentality and unearned greatness. It is what drives a 38-year old Masters Degree holder and soccer enthusiast in the United Kingdom to call Super Eagles’John Obi Mikel, a failure even though he, the 38-year old, washes the anuses of mental patients in a low budget geriatric home in the UK and Mikel earns about £80, 000 a week playing for Chelsea Football Club in the same country.
The 38-year old soccer buff was pissed with Mikel and his team mates’ performance at the on-going African Cup of Nations (AFCON) 2013. He thinks they constitute monumental disgrace to Nigeria. And he painstakingly states so on his Facebook social networking page. Some would claim he has every right to criticize and condemn the Nigerian Super Eagles, so does every Nigerian who loves to see and breathe and talk fantastic football.
But this is hardly about the ignorant youth’s debatable logic or Mikel’s deep pocket, it’s about the rabid inclinations of the Nigerian youth and soccer enthusiast to criticize and condemn everything Nigerian within and outside the exciting world of soccer. It was fascinating to see the nation’s youth unite in condemnation and virulent abuse of Nigeria’s Super Eagles over their perceived lackluster performance at the ongoing AFCON 2013. It doesn’t matter that the hastily constituted squad was meant to use the on-going tournament fine-tune in depth and strength. No sooner than the tournament began than the Nigerian soccer enthusiast began to fantasize of the team’s incontestable right to excellence and invincibility even though it was ill-prepared to function and gel as a team.
It took Clemens Westerhof four years to build the excellent squad that served Nigeria for well over a decade but the Nigerian youth and soccer enthusiast wants Stephen Keshi to parade a perfect team in three months. When the team drew against Zambia and Burkina Faso, not a few of their peers cursed and demeaned them as the worst things to ever happen to Nigeria. When they beat Ethiopia 2 – 0, their peers at home ridiculed them endlessly, claiming they shamefully managed to win by penalties. However, nothing compares to the ill-will accorded the team as it prepared to face the Ivorien team.
The”Super Chickens” will fall to the might and soccer prowess of Didier Drogba, Yaya Toure, Africa’s current best footballer and their Ivorien team mates, claimed the Nigerian press and other soccer buffs. Eventually, the Super Eagles put a lie to prophesy of doom by their peers at home and abroad; they simply outclassed and dominated Drogba, Toure and team mates from the first blow of the whistle to the end of the match. The Super Eagles beat Ivory Coast 2 – 1.
It hardly matters what final fate await the Super Eagles in the ongoing tournament, what truly matters is their spirited disavowal of the abject disloyalty and rabid sentimentality of Nigeria’s soccer loving youth.
Currently, Nigeria is afflicted with youth irredeemably dim and misty in persona and worth; like spent shadows, they incarnate an insensible perspiration towards the sun. Their contempt for Nigeria extends beyond their disdain for Nigerian soccer. Like the beautifully dull and half-witted, this generation of youth encapsulates an inordinate contempt for everything Nigerian. They would dump the Nigerian dream for scraps and crusts of the American dream, British dream, South African dream, Malaysian dream, Ghanaian dream and even the Malian dream to mention a few.
One cannot pontificate enough – even by unrelenting self-righteousness –to lay a foundation of true understanding and compassion for their plight. I speak of the unrepentant critic forever mounting the soapbox in his living room, courtyard or public bar to curse our leadership and curse the times even as he does nothing to improve the times.
It’s even more tragic to see a journalist in his youth incarnate such pitiful citizenship despite expectations that he ought to know better. Such character that will play muscle to the most hideous politician for the paltriest fee often turns around to blame politicians for everything that is wrong with Nigeria. This young Nigerian journalist that I speak of espouses more bleakness and disdain for the Nigerian dream than his contemporaries from every other professional divide.
By his contemporaries, I speak of children of the rich acquiring the best of Ivy League education abroad funds stolen by their parents. I speak of Nigerian youth cum self-styled intellectuals washing the anuses of the senile in geriatric homes and hospices abroad, even as they return home to belittle the impoverished teacher and farmer burning out under the worst living conditions, with dignity.
I speak of postgraduate alumni from Nigeria driving cabs, cleaning public toilets, robbing, scamming and trafficking their sisters, daughters and mothers to foreign brothels for a fee. Then I speak of the very successful living abroad and yet propagating as much venom as bloody solutions to every problem in our fatherland.
Lest I forget the maddening horde of Nigerian youth whose clamour for change is meticulously smothered no sooner than they gain access to vulgar privileges they whole-heartedly condemn as the excesses of the ruling class. With this shameful lot, the Nigerian journalist in his youth brazenly casts his lot every time he incites cheerlessness and contempt for everything Nigerian.
What pleasure is there to be derived from ridiculing one’s heritage just for the pleasure of doing so? The one who derives his thrill from doing so, himself becomes an everlasting jest, oftentimes to his great loss. The Nigerian youth who does so besmirches the essence of true citizenship and grace. But aren’t we all identifiable with such character?
To this, many will vehemently object but it still doesn’t belie the fact that left to our devices, we shamelessly abide with degeneracy. Little wonder, the hue and cry over the removal of fuel subsidy has abated to a burp. Little wonder the profligacy and sleaze of the Nigerian ruling class became acceptable to hordes of cowardly revolutionaries that threatened to “Occupy Nigeria.”
The infinite cowardice in our hearts shall continue to betray the mutinous duplicity of our battle cries. The Nigerian youth is undoubtedly a researcher’s delight; every hour he substantiates the fraudulence of grief and revolutionary marches this side of the divide.
Why are we in desperate haste to protest the corruption of the ruling class only to cower at decision time? Why do we demean the electoral process despite its worth as the most powerful revolutionary tool yet?
• To be continued…
