As citizens, we Nigerians complain about a lot of things. Usually we externalize the blame, point a finger at "our leaders", at "XYZ ethnic group or region", at something other than ourselves. Sometimes we insist the very existence of "Nigeria" is to blame for our perceived woes; holding the amalgamation to blame is an indirect way of blaming every other ethnic group for allegedly bringing your own group down (not to mention an indirect way of calling for a break-up of the federal republic).
The truth is Nigeria is a river, and we the people are the raindrops that ultimately make up the river called Nigeria. All the individual decisions we make, and actions we take, collectively create the pool of our shared outcomes, positive and negative.
I have noticed something that bothers me.
When we Nigerians discuss our issues in a broad, generalized sense, we seem to properly identify problems, prospects and solutions, and to fervently support the search for optimality in all of our affairs as a society. But when it gets down to the hard specifics of deciding and acting, a strange metamorphosis takes place, and the very same people start defending and advocating the very things (people, decisions, actions, choices, systems, institutions, frameworks) that create and sustain the very problems they otherwise complain about. And where assertions of support for optimality never proceed beyond the level of verbal/rhetorical insistence, the protection of the sources of our problem can get stringent, bellicose, and even violent.
To some degree we are afraid of the unknown. The system may be broken, but it is a system we understand. Most of us have (following great struggle) found niches within the system, and are able to support ourselves and our families to the best of our abilities within the system. And as much as we realize the system is limiting the horizon for ourselves and our children, we are afraid that we might not find a place in the new, improved system (particularly since our survival skills are adapted to the current system, and may or may not be relevant to the new one).
To some degree, we defend the status quo because we do not see any worthwhile alternative. If you lived in the First Republic, and all of the major and minor parties are either ethnic blocs or regional pressure groups, you really don't have a choice but to vote for your ethnic bloc or your regional pressure group. No seriously, what would be the point of voting in another party whose official or unoffical goal is the advancement of another ethnic bloc or regional agenda? The fact that your own ethnic bloc or regional group is as corrupt, waste-prone, autocratic, antidemocatic, police-misusing, and minority-oppressing as its rivals does not have much of an impact on your decision -- you either pick that group or no group, if for nothing other than the sense of self-defence that is created within ethnic/regional blocs when they perceive the other ethnic/regional blocs to be maneuvring to control the central government.
But I don't really want to take up too much space with this blog post. I am not really in a mood to delve deeper into this issue.
What motivated me to mention it is the many weeks of discussion I witnessed and participated in on a Nigerian online discussion forum. The topic was Adokie Amiesimaka's accusation of cheating levelled against the Nigerian (Under-17) Eaglets team at the recent FIFA Under-17 world championships hosted by Nigeria.
It is not my intention here to discuss the substance of Adokiye's allegation. Rather there is something else that caught my attention in the arguments that pit dozens of Nigerians against each other on that discussion forum.
What caught my intention is the number of people who SUPPORTED age-cheating. Don't misunderstand me. I am not saying they agreed that there was age-cheating. In fact they insisted no such thing had happened. That was not what bothered me.
What bothered me is their declaration that even if age-cheating existed, Adokiye should not have said anything about it. They said he was unpatriotic to try to expose it. They questioned his motives, and insisted that if he had bad motives, then we shouldn't listen to his allegation even if it was true. They said life was hard for young men in Nigeria, and so if they had to age-cheat to make it out, we should not pour sand in their garri (a Nigerian phrase that roughly translates as spoiling a good thing for them). They said every team age-cheated, and that we had to age-cheat to keep up with them. And they said (and this was really perplexing) that if you support the SENIOR Eagles team, then you cannot criticize age-cheating at the junior levels because (wait till you hear this) the senior team players were guilty too! Yes, they insisted you must boycott all of Nigerian football if you think we shouldn't age-cheat at the youth levels.
Again, none of this proves we do or did age-cheat.
In fact I want to make clear that I am not saying we do or did (nor am I saying we don't or didn't). You see, that ceased to be important to me, as I watched a raging argument in which a majority of the discussants DEFENDED age-cheating as a concept, regardless of whether we do it or not.
The odd thing is this argument raged in the two weeks before our make-or-break World Cup qualifier away at Kenya, which (along with the result between Tunisia and Mozambique in Maputo) would decide whether we qualified for the 2010 World Cup.
The same people who were gladly defending age-cheating would have attacked, trashed and bashed the Nigerian Football Federation, the manager Amodu Shuaibu, and the Eagles' players if we had not qualified for the World Cup. They would have raged and railed, wondered why bad things always happen to Nigeria, called the country all sorts of horrible names, claimed (with inferiority complexes) that Ghana is so much better at electricity, football, blah, blah, blah.
Now there are many things that contribute toward ending up with a national team that is not dominant, and that has to struggle mightily where others (e.g. Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire in the 2010 qualifiers) sail more smoothly. Indeed, every team, even the good ones, goes through a cycle that resembles the sine and cosine curves -- sometimes you are up, sometimes you are down (Ghana just emerged 3 years ago from an extended period of being down).
Still, the way we manage our football at the grassroots and youth levels are part and parcel of the wider picture of dysfunction in Nigerian football. It is both hypocritical and (more importantly) self-defeating to support that, while complaining that our League, our senior national team, and our current international "stars" are not meeting your lofty expectation. You cannot plant pawpaw and harvest yam. Actually in this case, we are not planting anything at all, but are somehow expecting a bumper harvest, and (worst of all) proceed to complain, whine, bitch and moan when no such bountiful harvest occurs.
Seriously, how can you expect any output at all (even electricity generation) to come out optimal, when the input is consistently suboptimal? If you support the input, fine, that is your right, but don't then join me to complain about the output.
Many of those supporting age-cheating claimed Brazil did the same thing. Mind you, there were other countries they mentioned, but the tendency of comparing ourselves to Brazil in football (the "we produced abundant talent, only matched by Brazil" myth) makes them a very apt example to use to counter those who advocate self-defeating behaviour.
I have watched a documentary film crew go to the grassroots children's football club where Brazilian international Kaka got his start. We all knew what Ronaldinho could do while he was still at Gremio, and were thrilled by Robinho while still at Santos. There is no comparison in Nigeria. It is not just the fact that the histories of "young" players are shrouded in mystery, rumour and innuendo, but the League itself can not be compared to the Brazilian league.
There was a time in life that I stopped taking our age-restricted successes seriously. What little regard I had for them quenched after our success at the age-restricted 1996 Atlanta Olympics. We won that tournament using our de facto national team (minus Finidi), comprising 1994 World Cup and Nations Cup veterans, players from the Under-17 triump in 1993, and a sprinkling of others (notably Victor Ikpeba, from the 1989 Under-17 team).
We beat Brazil (yes, them, I bet you know where this is going) in the semifinals of the 1996 Olympics, in one of the greatest comebacks in our history. That Brazilian team, and those Brazilian players, went on to make it to the final of the 1998 World Cup, went on to WIN the 2002 World Cup, and quite a few of them were still around and kicking when Brazil made it as far as the final eight in 2006.
By contrast, the 1996 Nigerian Olympians, heroes of the nation went on to ..... well, there were a lot of blowout losses in 1998, most significantly to Denmark in 1998, and a general continuation of the 15 years of decline that began in 1994 and continued up till 2008. And it is not yet uhuru (permit me to misuse the term) in 2009, though our qualification for the World Cup could turn out to be the first spark of the revival.
One team in that 1996 semifinal was around the starting point of an upward growth in their developmetnal process, while the other team was at the height of its abilities (remember many of them had won the 1994 Nations Cup).
I will leave it at that. It is not my thesis that we are age-cheats. It is my thesis that we cannot point to Brazil, claim (without proof) that they age-cheat, and then insist that if they do it, we can do it too. Haba, the Brazilians have a football system that produces world champions, world players of the year, and some of the best players in the history of football, on a continuous and consistent basis. To point to them, and say that they are proof that it is okay for us to do the wrong thing, the stupid thing, the self-defeating thing, is insane.
In fact, we shouldn't compare ourselves to ANYBODY, successful or not. The question should be, "Does it work for Nigeria? Does it achieve Nigeria's goals?" If your goal is endlessly winning kiddie tournaments, that is one thing, but if you are looking to be a long-term, permanent, continuous WORLD POWER, then you cannot possibly bring yourself to support the continued absence of the necessary structures and foundations.
But I am (as always) starting to digress.
The point I am making is that for all our complaining about issues, we are often the footsoldiers who fight to protect, defend, sustain and continue the exact things that produce the outcomes we complain about.
In fact, that is why we have "bad leaders". These so-called leaders were born into the same families as the rest of us, into the same lives we all lead, except some quirk of fate gave them a chance to step into leadership. And you know what? The things they do once in office are the same things too many of the rest of us would do if we got that same chance. Far too many of us spend our days hoping and praying for the chance to do exactly what "they" are doing.
But then we complain when the persistence of such decision-making leads to problematic output and negative outcomes.
It is too difficult to try to change all of Nigeria at once. By contrast, we can all change ourselves as individuals, which would have the effect of changing all of Nigeria.
The thing is, it has to be in the context of a revolution, because we all have to do it at the same time. If only one person changes, and everyone else remains the same, then he or she will simply lose out in the vicious competition for survival under the current system. This is the fear that keeps Nigeria from reform, transformation and substantive change -- the fear that if I or you change alone as individuals, no one else will, and the only result would be the loss of our individual niche in the system.
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