02 Feb 2006 |
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Helloo village people, This is more or less a public confession. You know, I have only tasted this wine a few days but I’m already NVSqoholic. Is this happening to everybody else or am I just a hopeless case of vertigo? You see, I read a brother’s complaint, a week or two ago, here on the village square, about his woman who wouldn’t let him watch football on the TV. Another guy replied to tell him it was a good reason to file for a divorce! Well, knowing what football means to us Naija men (now don’t get me wrong Naija women. I am neither being chauvinistic nor sexist here. I know that a countless number of you guys are just as Ball crazy, if not more, as we men. I beg’o), I could understand both of them on one hand, considering my personal suspicion that our mutual love for football is probably the strongest tie still holding us together as a nation. On the other hand, however, I couldn’t be perturbed because that kind of a problem was completely alien to me. You see, my woman happens to be one of those football crazy Naija women I am talking about. She is particularly fanatical whenever the Green eagles are playing. Any day the Eagles play, it is either late dinner if we win or no dinner if we lose, except if I take things into my own hands, you know what I mean (this does not justify a divorce, does it?). On such days I would make sure I got home on time because it was more fun watching the game together from the executive lounge proximity of our leaving room stadium. If for one reason or the other I wasn’t getting home quick enough, I’d call to let her know I would be on my way. “Hurry up,” she’d say, “they are about to start playing!” On the background, the steady blares of trumpets coming from the Eagle’s fan club corner reveals that she has already taken the front seat and my fever heightens. In short, we had no problems with football at all except occasionally when I unwittingly hit her by reflex action while reinforcing a sudden shot by a striker. “Nnaa!” she’ll reprimand, “you’re not on the field here!” And that will be it till next kick. Apropos football, this Africa Nations Cup na wa’o! I know it is superfluous to ask if you guys watched the match between Their performance all along had been too precariously lax for my liking but it was at that point that I finally had enough. I decided to go to the computer or to the telephone and find someone to chat with. I wasn’t going to be there watching those Senegalese wallop us that way. Half way out of the leaving room, it occurred to me that all Nigerians all around the globe were most probably glued to their screens just like my Mrs. at this point in time and I would only be a nuisance trying to chat with any one of them right now. So, I took a tentative glance at the screen again and was suspended on the spot in the real sense of the word. I couldn’t take my place, I couldn’t leave the leaving room, I couldn’t stand up, I couldn’t sit down until the referee’s end of first half whistle jolted me out of my catatonic trance. Meanwhile my Mrs. who had since abandoned our stadium to me alone, came back during the break demanding that I remain seated during the entire second half because she was preoccupied with dodging my kicks for most of the first half while I was standing. She must be kidding, I thought, when did all that happen? In any case it sounded like demanding that I remained seated with my seatbelt fastened all through take off and landing in a Nigerian airline! I would rather go on foot. But this Nigerian village square is something else. She has not been that easy with me since I stumbled onto the square. If I call from work to tell her that I am coming home unusually early, she goes, “you can’t even stay at work any longer because of this your NVS, uh?” Admittedly, it is mostly my fault that it has come to this because since I discovered the Square, I can’t tear myself away from the PC anytime I am home. Blaming myself now cannot help the situation anyway because I am just beginning to discover what I have been missing all these years. You know, the familiar jokes, the diverse but peculiar language nuances, the openness, the outspokenness, the insouciance, the seriousness, the infectious hilariousness, the ambitiousness, the versatility, the creativeness, the natural bond informed by the mutual love for football, especially among the younger folks, etc. Anytime I am at the Square I am be overwhelmed by this uplifting feeling of de;;ja` vu, which is difficult to describe. Whoever started this forum must have had those of us that have been too long in the Diaspora in his heart. Nigerians are a wonderful people and I love them. To them I dedicate the following poem, which I titled sweet-bitter home.
Sweet-bitter home When we say, wazobia, we underline our cultural diversities Up our skies and down our soils, from the Atlantic to East to West and North to South, no world is more endowed But our leaders selfish schemes forever hold us in doubt “Which way Tell him to sing again, for the children are yet to redeem. Menini? Obugini? Kinide? What’s going on, Niger-area? Do you subscribe to the statistics of global happiest folks? _______________________
Abi a lie? Indeed Our bane is our utter ignorance of how fortunate we are. While we are busy focusing on our little differences, the colonialists have long identified their big error and have since been busy keeping this Giant asleep. Unfortunately, a handful of seriously myopic individuals, wittingly and unwittingly, have been aiding such detractive agents to achieve their aims while callously compromising the future of their own very posterity for ephemeral personal gains. In another fifty years or so many of us would not be here, but what about the children, are we going to leave them a worthy home, a home they can be proud of or would they still be suffering and smiling like orphans who had no fathers and no grandfathers, adopting homes abroad and being dumped in foreign jails for crimes committed and not committed? The only place you are at home is at home. It doesn’t matter how much wealth you have stolen and stashed away in a foreign country and how comfortable you may think you are in such a country, you are always an exile away from home. However, lets hope that like the Green Eagles we shall one day get our acts together and start winning. By the way, if the Green Eagles want to clinch the cup and make reparations for their botched up world cup ticket, they better tighten up and play every game from now on, from the first to the last whistle, like they played Ghana. Sometime ago, somebody at the village square said he was not that enthusiastic about the Eagles coming out tops in this nations cup because if they did, his disappointment over their failure to clinch the world cup ticket would be more painful. I guess he is not alone. All the same, let us forget the past and look forward. Lets keep our fingers crossed and wish then well. If they lift the trophy, and I think they can, perhaps they would garner enough confidence to torpedo them to SA and, who knows, bring home the 2010 trophy too! Dreams are for free, aren’t they? Lets stay positive and optimistic. The future can still be great for us all. No shaking maan!
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