[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he success of the Golden Eaglets shows how Nigeria is supposed to be when you give the best guys a shot.
Federal Character, Quota system, nepotism, tribalism, cronyism etc are the bane of Nigeria towards achieving her full potentials. Only people that have deep reasoning and foresight understand it. People that try so hard to please the born to rule cabals won’t understand it.
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Efulefus (slang for those who oppose their own people) would never understand why many of us agitate for equal opportunities and merit based system in Nigeria.
Looking at these young lads, you see that they are excited to represent their country. They play for each other and cover up for each other. Their coach, Emmanuel Amunike, chose the best players irrespective of where they come from or what their backgrounds are. You could see from their body language that they are close to their coach. They play hard for him. They go and get “high fives” and “fist bumps” from the coach anytime they score goals. They run to their bench to “check in” with their coach. He selected the creme of the crop out of millions of young footballers. The result shows for everyone to see.
Nigeria didn’t only win the trophy, they also won the Golden Boot, for the highest goal scorer (Victor Osimhen); the Golden Ball, for the Most Valuable Player (Captain Kelechi Nwakali), the Silver Ball for the second Most Valuable Player (Victor Osimhen), and the Bronze Boot for the 3rd highest goal scorer (Kelechi Nwakali). Victor Osimhen set the new world record as the highest goal scorer ever in the history of the Championship with a whooping 10 goals followed by 2 assists.
When merit and hard work are given a chance, you see the results. FIFA would not give you those awards because you come from Anambra or from Jigawa or Osun state. You prove it on the field of play. Goals are not awarded to players, they earn them by scoring goals. FIFA does not care about where a particular player comes from as long as he put everything on the field scoring and helping his team win.
Nigeria always do fine when you give the best people the chance to go to work for us. The born to rule mentality, which I changed to “Born to Destroy Nigeria” has been killing us and making us big for nothing in the eye of the world.
The Eaglets success once again proves that we know what to do to get to the top, but we allow few selfish people and their short-sighted cheerleaders to keep us down. Why can’t we duplicate the Eaglets’ model in other fields of human endeavours? We can’t because we are lions led by donkeys!
Kudos our Super Golden Eaglets!
Chukwudi Nwokoye is a lawyer (LL.M.). He is on Facebook and can be emailed at HERE.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
