Deprived of pride

Also published in Daily Trust

While watching the last two matches of Nigeria’s Golden Eaglets in Dubai and Abu Dhabi stadiums respectively, in the recently concluded FIFA U-17 World Cup, I observed that the enthusiastic exuberance that defined Nigerian fans’ passionate cheering of the Eaglets before, during and after the matches was quite disproportionate compared to the significance of the achievement, even though the Eaglets were indeed recording an achievement worth celebrating anyway.

Besides, I also observed that almost all the national achievements that have generated similar widespread excitement and celebration across Nigeria have always been in sports, particularly football. Though I recognize the importance of sports in our national development, and indeed recognize the value of whatever success Nigeria has achieved in various international championships, I felt quite disappointed for our collective inability as a nation to make any profound and remarkable achievement of global significance, in more important aspects of life e.g. scientific research & development, economic development, manufacturing, etc.

Furthermore, even the much celebrated achievements in various sporting activities e.g. football, have often been largely due to the sheer determination of the players, who have always suffered systematic neglect and lack of enough motivational incentives. For instance, despite his impressive achievement as the coach of Nigeria’s senior national football team, the Super Eagles, Stephen Keshi was recently reported to have lamented the non-payment of his salary by Nigeria Football Federation, for seven months.

While many countries are busy making their respective citizens proud by making significant achievements in various fields of human endeavour, Nigeria, which is incredibly blessed with abundant human and material resources, has very little to show for it. For instance, just a couple of days before Nigeria’s final match against Mexico in Abu Dhabi, India launched a spacecraft to the Red Planet with the hope of reaching Mars orbit in 2014.

Incidentally, such achievement came within the context of their strategic and comprehensive development drive that covers various important aspects of human endeavour aimed at improving the quality of life in India. Yet, though obviously a remarkable scientific achievement with huge economic potential, such achievement never generated the amount of celebration among Indians as Nigeria’s victory in the U-17 World cup did among Nigerians.

One wonders how, despite Nigeria’s dismal and frustrating performance in all aspects of its national endeavour, yet when it comes to celebrating sporting achievements, Nigerians are particularly and indeed disproportionately passionate, pretending as though there are no serious challenges facing the country.

By the way, though I don’t find anything wrong with celebrating a sporting achievement, yet I felt the need to find a reasonable explanation for this ironic attitudinal tendency. And though I did not refer to any theoretical or scientific principle to analyze it, I was able to arrive at a reasonable conclusion that explains it.

It is noteworthy that, regardless of Nigeria’s monumental failure as a nation and despite Nigerians’ tendency to harshly criticize and strongly condemn the country’s performance, they are still patriotic anyway. Interestingly enough, contrary to the general assumption, no matter how long a Nigerian stays outside Nigeria, and even if he holds another citizenship, his love for Nigeria, loyalty and patriotism remain intact all the time.

Also, should Nigerian leaders behave patriotically in discharging their leadership responsibilities, the average Nigerians would automatically get inspired and react accordingly, and the consequence would automatically be the emergence of an ambitiously progressive and vibrant country with potential to compete with any other country in the world in all competitive fields of human endeavour.

After all, as an emotion, patriotism is inherent in man even though people differ in their methods of expressing or displaying it. For instance, those who are lucky to be led by good and progressive leaders, do always see reasons to express their sense of patriotism consciously and unconsciously, and do therefore enjoy the pride of belonging to a successful country.

Whereas, on the other hand, those who are led by corrupt and incompetent leaders e.g. ordinary Nigerians, have to endure a constant sense of disappointment and frustration, which overshadows their sense of patriotism and provokes unpatriotic reactions and negative behaviours from them.

Nevertheless, in the event of any national achievement, which in any case occurs quite rarely, and no matter how insignificant, Nigerians seek to exhaust their accumulated sense of frustration by overreacting with disproportionate excitement, apparently in order to make up for missing the joy of pride inspired by belonging to a progressive and successful country.

Incidentally, though normally short-lived, such rare sense of pride enjoyed by Nigerians for winning a sport trophy for instance, is indeed exciting. Yet, Nigerians in the Diaspora find the experience particularly comforting, for it at least, though briefly, makes a good news story about Nigeria in the foreign media, which depict Nigeria as a country of unrepentantly corrupt leaders, shameless scammers and hardened criminals.

In light of the foregoing analyses, it is clear that Nigerians do, though largely unconsciously, display their obvious desperation for pride, which they are rightly entitled to, but are unfortunately deprived of, by overrating any relatively insignificant achievement e.g. a sporting victory and celebrating it disproportionately. This obviously emphasizes the urgent need for an inspiring leadership in the country that would live up to the expectations of Nigerians to enable them pursue and realize their individual and collective potential hence enjoy the pride of being Nigerians.