The 2 Most Unpatriotic Groups Of Nigerians.
Is there any Nigerian adult who does not know who the most unpatriotic Nigerians are? But in case there’s one, I’ll help such a person out with the right answer.
The most unpatriotic Nigerians are GOVERNMENT FUNCTIONARIES, especially the elected politicians and high-ranking civil servants, including the officials of the Nigerian football administration. Does anybody need me to expatiate or buttress this allegation with an evidence? I’ll do that with a verifiable stories under two sub-headings.
1. Nigerian Football Association Administrators
The story that I’m about to share with you took place several years ago. It was an argument between me and some of my journalist-colleagues at the National Stadium in Surulere, Lagos, Nigeria.
As my colleagues and I were discussing sports development in Nigeria that day, one of them said: “The most unpatriotic Nigerians are our modern football players, especially the foreign-based ones. They are always asking for money all the time, especially when they come back home to represent Nigeria in international soccer competitions? Was that how players before them, including Segun Odegbami, Chairman Christian Chukwu, Adokiye Amasiemeka, among others, used to make outrageous demands?”
I was very upset by my colleague’s so-called observation. He had hardly completed his last statement when I attacked him verbally, with a view to educating him on what he didn’t know about our dirty soccer administration.
I want to use this opportunity to reiterate how I responded to his observation, as well as confirm, to you, that our footballers are not the most unpatriotic Nigerians. Let’s go ahead with my story!
Whenever there was a soccer competition between any of Nigeria’s soccer teams, especially outside Nigeria, the officials of the Nigerian soccer-governing body, the Nigeria Football Association, NFA, as it was then called, ( now, Nigeria Football Federation, NFF) would make sure that as many of them travelled to watch the match, at the government’s expense.
Oftentimes, the number of those officials who travelled to watch such international matches were about four times more than the number of the players who went to play the match. Those officials always got their allowances, popularly called estacode, (?) long before they departed Nigeria.
Meanwhile, the footballers invited to play those matches would sponsor themselves to come to Nigerian and to return to bases overseas with their own money, with the hope of getting a refund of their flight ticket and match allowances from the government. Oftentimes, it usually took months before such refund was made by NFA to the footballers.
It was in the process of the footballers asking for their overdue refund that my journalist-colleague heard them talking about money.
Was it wrong for those footballers to ask for their well-deserved refund, considering the fact that NFA officials who travelled to watch the match they played got their own allowances long before they travelled for the match?
The answer is No! No, because, most of those players, like those NFA officials, also had their own families to take care of.
One of the foreign-based Nigerian footballers of that time once said to me: “If NFA officials can develop our football with their own money, that is, without earning salaries and without asking for any allowance, my colleagues and I would be willing and ready to play for Nigeria without asking for any form of allowance or refund from our government.”
Does this not make sense to you? How many of our sport administrators would ever agree to this type of super patriotic arrangement? That’s the point!
Nigerian footballers are not the most unpatriotic Nigerians. Nigerian football administrators are. Apart from feeding on the government by way of salaries and allowances, officials of the Nigerian football governing body are full of allegations of missing money and other forms of fund-embezzlement, since that time till now.
To prove that our footballers are more patriotic that our soccer administrators, many of them are willing to play for Nigeria for free; without asking for any form of allowance. I know some of them who have even been begging to be given the opportunity to play for Nigeria for free, but are yet to be given the opportunity.
How many Nigeria football administrators are willing to work without being paid allowances and salaries? Over to you!
2. Elected Politicians
Whenever Nigerian politicians are canvassing for votes from the Nigerian masses, especially when elections are around the corner, they would do almost everything possible for the masses, including visiting them in their poor homes and in the hospital, as well as eating with them on the streets, as you can see from the photographs below. (More of these photographs can be found at: Legit.ng).
But as soon as they become elected into their desired offices, they become inaccessible to the people who elected them and people who they are meant to serve. Neither could the masses be able to reach them again, either by phone or by visit to their homes or offices.
Apart from being inaccessible, as soon as Nigerian politicians get into office, they begin to feel superior to their electors. Immediately that feeling of superiority enters into them, anything made in Nigerian, including food, health care services, education for their children, house equipment, clothes, shoes, and even the water they drink become inferior to them. What do we call this type of behaviour if not antinationalism?
As that new habit develops gradually in our politicians, travelling overseas, sending their children to schools overseas and buying houses overseas becomes their second nature. This is to enable them disappear from Nigeria in any eventuality, including riot, coup, assassination and kidnap attempt.
This explains why ordinary Nigerians do not believe Nigerian politicians whenever they talk about patriotism. Patriotism in the mouth of Nigerian politicians is simply a matter of “do what I say not what I do.” They are simply opportunists and unpatriotic.
