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Africa was said to be the cradle of humanity. It is the place where the rest of the world originated from and dispersed to different continents as we have today. It is the center that gave birth to the various territories but has ever since remained the cradle. It has not progressed beyond the teething problems that most infants suffer and this has made it a subject of plunder, rape, violations and depredations from time difficult to remember up till Arab invasion, trans-Atlantic slave trade, colonialism and neo-colonialism.
Its intestines have always been a home of many self-destructive worms of hatred, prejudice, inconsolable avarice, tragic internecine warfare and destructive self-subjugation. Just like Europe, China, the Arab world and others had their own wars that prevented or cemented modern statehood process of development, Africa had its wars but which did not assist in state formation until the European colonial depredators came, carved it into irreconcilable entities, made it their subject of ownership with all manner of pretence, force and destruction to subjugate the peoples.
After colonialism, Africa has remained more disunited than expected. The emergence of the various countries inhabiting the black man’s continent still remain internally displaced and conflicting in a strange and incomprehensible wars of attrition.
This plague of disunity has made it easy for the colonial overlords and western imperialists to continue subjugating it and making it under-developed. Much would not have been achieved by the imperialists if Africa had not remained its own enemy over the years after independence were won by all the countries. It remained impossible for the early leaders of these countries of Africa to form a union that can protect their collective interests when even at the level of the Organisation of African Unity, now African Union, the leaders were never together to coalesce into a genuinely united entity. The name was once described by Professor Wole Soyinka to be an empty collection of words as there is no organization in OAU and neither was it really African with the foreign interests being served by the leaders and neither was there really a union. Hence, the emergence of the Casablanca bloc, the Monrovia bloc and the non-aligned movement. Many puppets of western imperialism continued serving the interests of their masters, plundering the resources of their people and tying their countries to the tethers of slavery in order to enrich themselves personally and remain the favourites of their colonial masters. Till date, the so-called independence has remained a façade used to deceive us as politically we are not free and economically we remain slaves of the west. The francophone African countries are the worst. Their foreign reserves and central banks are still in France until a few weeks ago that Burkina Faso declared the creation of its own central bank while Mali and Niger are in stiff resistance to continued domination by France. Till date, the leaders of the African Union are unable to win substance of freedom for themselves as many are still tied to the colonial mentality and influence that produced them in office in the first place.
That is why many of them oppose genuine efforts to liberate Africa and one would think there would even be unity among them when they serve foreign interests. Alas! There is none and for so long they are tied to foreign dictations, Africa will remain underdeveloped. This leads me to the recent development between Nigeria and Libya by which a mere game of football that ought to entertain the people has become an instrument of continued hostility between two African nations. I understand that the TotalEnergies CAF Africa Cup of Nations Morocco 2025 Qualifier is on-going and it was scheduled that Nigeria and Libya would engage in the round leather game the second leg of which was to be played in Libya.
The first leg had been played in Uyo, Nigeria where Nigeria beat Libya 1-0. With the second leg scheduled to hold in Libya, the Nigerian football team flew into Libya but its flight was dangerously diverted to a local airport that is said to be usually used for hajj operations. That it was the Libyan authorities that ordered the diversion of the plane from Benghazi where it was supposed to land to Al-Abraq local airport in a dangerous manner has been revealed by the Tunisian pilot who took the Nigerian team to Libya. It was a poor landing strip without modern facilities and other scanning equipment. The airport officials were hostile and disrespectful to their football guests as they shoved them aside. They had no scanning machines to process the immigration entrance of the Nigerian footballers and they were said to be using phones to scan the passport information pages of the Nigeria footballers. The players were kept in the airport for over sixteen hours without food, water or any other amenity to make them comfortable. Even the airport lacked internet connectivity.
They were denied entry into Libya without an official announcement and pictures of Nigerian footballers lounging tiredly on the airport iron benches soon invaded the internet.
They were not taken to any hotel in accordance with arrangements normally made and neither were they allowed to venture beyond the arrival lounge at which the airport officials treated them with reckless hostility. The young men were subjected to humiliation and wearisome treatment that the Nigerian Football Federation had to agree with the players that it was better to return home. A Yoruba adage says ti iwaju o ba see lo, eyin a maa se pada si which means if forward movement becomes impossible, retreating once steps cannot be impossible. The Nigerian footballers were then arranged back home with dreams shattered and hopes dashed.
The Nigerian Football Federation, for once, received public commendation for the way it treated the whole imbroglio with enviable maturity and discipline. It displayed equanimity in the face of unwarranted provocation and the players from Nigeria were dignifying in this state of unnecessary attacks and humiliation.
What Libya did this for is difficult to understand. If it was fear of another defeat by the gallant Nigerians boys, it is definitely childish and hubristic. It is part of a game that one side would win and the other would lose. Who even says that Nigeria could not have lost the match i it had been played. History of football is full of unpredictability that a team with all promises and prophecies of victory would end up kissing the grass while the underdog would emerge the winner. A Nigerian/Brazil match that gave victory to Nigeria in the historic 1996 Olympic is a classical example. No one expect Nigeria to defeat the almighty football team from Brazil with the latter’s records pointing to invincibility.
One cannot also forget what football history has named “the Damman miracle” where a quarter-final football match between the Nigerian Under-20 football team and the USSR Under-20 football team at the 1989 FIFA World Youth Championship in Saudi Arabia ended up with the surprise of the century. The Nigerian underdog team was already coasting to an unmitigable defeat when it suddenly turned around in a few minutes equalized against their counterparts and ended the match in 4 goals to 4. The game had to be decided by penalty kicks with Nigeria winning the match. It might be such history of stelar performances in the past that scared Libya that it decided to frustrate the Nigerian team out of the contest.
Check the part (2) of this story
Nigeria, Libya and African unity (2)
