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Nigerians Sha! A must read
In a piece titled, "Manchester United, Chelsea and Nigerians" (The Guardian, May 23), I had commented on the fanaticism of Nigerian football fans and their psychotic obsession with European football. Three reports taken from the Sports sections of The Guardian, The Punch, and The Nigerian Tribune on the same day are further instructive. The Guardian story: "Five feared dead celebrating UEFA Championship final" by Aniete Akpan: "The reckless manner with which Nigerian fans celebrated the victory of Manchester United in Wednesday's UEFA Champions League Final has claimed no fewer than five lives in Calabar.
The fans died at various locations in the city in the build-up and post-match celebrations of the game that took place in Moscow, Russia. At about noon on Wednesday, thousands of supporters of the two English clubs trooped into the streets of Calabar adorning the familiar red and blue colours of Manchester United and Chelsea FC, singing and dancing. They mounted giant loud speakers on the vehicles they used for the campaign while the supporters hanged dangerously on various cars they used for the rally....
Literally the streets were painted red and blue and the enthusiastic supporters on motorbikes and cars drove dangerously, performing several displays and manoeuvres that led to loss of lives and injuries. The Guardian gathered that three Chelsea fans in the reckless rally were involved in a fatal accident at IBB Highway, by Otop Abasi. Two of them died while one sustained serious injury. Similarly, another two Chelsea fans wearing blue jerseys on a motorcycle collided with a truck. The two died instantly7 at the Army junction. A Manchester fan sustained serious injury in an accident along Mount Zion Road.. while another of its fans had one of his legs cut off in another accident along Calabar Road.....A football enthusiast and businessman Armstrong MIchael decried the reckless celebration saying the government has to put a stop to it.
The Punch in its "United's victory brings sorrow to Abuja fans" wrote that "Multiple accidents along the Ahmadu Bello Way in Abuja on Thursday left many football fans in sorrow following the Manchester United's victory over Chelsea in the UEFA Cup Final on Wednesday.... According to the News Agency of Nigeria barely an hour after the final whistle, some excited fans were involved in accidents which left their carts in serious damages.,,."
The Tribune story is titled "7 die in Ibadan, Port Harcourt - 2 injured in Calabar, Man Utd/Chlesea fans clash in Ibadan. Indeed, all the Nigerian fall-outs of the UEFA Champions League Final match in Mosocw, are scary. In Ibadan, one Man U supporter was shot dead. In Port Harcourt, an over-excited supporter slumped and died. In Mushin, Lagos, we have since learnt that there was a shoot-out after the match between Man U and Chelsea supporters.
Nigerians are a peculiar brand of extremists. Nobody has slumped or died in Europe because of the UEFA Cup final. Not in Britain. Not in Germany. Not in Spain. Not anywhere else. We have not heard of riots between Man U and Chelsea supporters on the streets of Russia or London; surprisingly the famous English football hooligans did not misbehave either before or after the match.
The English and other Europeans have moved on with their lives since May 21, but on the streets of Nigeria you can still find young men and women, wearing Man U jerseys. They have even started talking about a likely friendly match in Abuja between Man U and the Super Eagles or between Man U and Enyimba FC. So what is all this about gun-battles in Lagos and Ibadan because of a football match in Europe? This is clearly a case of dying one's indigo a shade darker than the celebrant's. And it is a familiar story.
In the 1960s, for example, there was a popular American dance style called Twist. It soon caught on globally and Nigerians also started dancing Twist. In the United States, nobody died Twisting on the dance floor, but in Nigeria, people started slumping on the dance floor and dying; our people managed to turn an otherwise graceful and stylish dance movement into something suicidal as they twisted themselves to death! And most recently, when a Danish cartoonist was accused of having offended Moslems with a certain irreverent cartoon, nobody died in Europe as a result of that cartoon. There were protests across Europe yes, but all within the scope of decency. In Nigeria, churches and mosques were burnt by Moslem and Christian warriors, people were murdered on account of a cartoon that nobody had seen. No Nigerian newspaper had published the controversial cartoon; most of the gladiators did not even know what they were fighting for.
The obsession with English and European football among Nigerians may well become a national security issue. The solution is not as Armstrong Michael suggests, to ban the celebration of football victories. The thing to do is for the police to begin to arrest football hooligans, and step up security on match days. At the moment, the police treat football-related violence with kid gloves, if they themselves are not busy taking sides.. Public enlightenment may also be necessary to remind the Nigerian football fan who is ready to die for Man U, or Chelsea, Arsenal, Portsmouth etc, that sports should be about fun and friendship, not hate and violence, or suicide
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