An angry man who recently assaulted Super Falcons players on a travelling coach in Vienna illustrated all that is wrong with the ‘escape’ syndrome without constructive re-engagement in efforts to make Nigeria better. People like this fellow run away from difficulties in the country, but haven’t much to offer from their gilded exile in the way of remediation back home. They consequently stew in forlorn frustration over a fruitless exile that gets taken out on the faintest semblance of representation of the source of their frustration. Poor souls.
The Super Falcons team members were just settling in on the coach when the man called them to attention and spewed out vituperations on them for representing their country whose government, in his reckoning, is liable for misfortunes suffered by citizens. “I want to speak to you people, please. I am also a Nigerian and live in Vienna. I have lived here for so many years. You Nigerian youths should be very ashamed of yourselves, every one of you here,” he charged at the players, adding: “There are over 10 million Nigerian youths here, and you people that should know are representing a terrorist organisation…I am calling on you idiots to go back home.”
From the video of the incident that went viral, one could see the Super Falcons teamsters – nine-time African champions who had arrived the Austrian capital for a training camp preparatory to the Aisha Buhari Invitational Women’s Football Tournament – momentarily dumbfounded and off-tracked. When they rallied back to find their voice and one of them asked the fellow what his contributions had been to improve the situation in Nigeria, he retorted that what he was doing at that instance was aimed at changing the system. “I’m doing it to change you people who don’t know what it is to be a citizen,” he said.
But it became apparent this fellow was a cowardly runaway to the core, because he stated that he was recording the incident and would be sure to post it online; but while he took care to capture even facial expressions of some of the teamsters, he kept his own face out of the picture. Besides, when some people on the coach inched forward, apparently to pacify him, he screamed a jittery warning against being touched. “This is a democratic nation…If you touch me, I will call the police on you. I’m living in Vienna and I pay my tax. The corruption in Nigeria brought me here and I’m here suffering,” he said.
If the guy was suffering as he stated, why waste away in self-imposed exile? He challenged the players to “go back home,” only he looked like he needed same counsel, frustrated as he sounded. But even in his blind rant, the fellow struck home when he noted that millions of Nigerian youths had fled the country. Nigerian leadership elite must feel challenged to work at redressing those things that make the country lose its vibrant population to vacuous exile.
Leave a Reply