By Otomewo Oritsejolomi Joshua
At the moment there are two things keeping Nigerians sane and happy, music and football. And there is only one thing that unites Nigerians, football.
On Tuesday night, football failed to keep Nigerians happy, but it still kept the country united. This time, the feeling of unity the sport brings was not used for good, unfortunately a life was lost.
The National Stadium was filled to the brim for the second leg of the World Cup qualifiers against Ghana. Government in a show of goodwill, gave out 20,000 tickets. It also gave civil servants in Abuja a half day of work to enable them attend the game and show their support for the national team.
The game which ended in a stalemate wasn’t too extraordinary, but the result was what mattered. Nigeria would not go to the World Cup for the first time since 2006. That was simply unacceptable to the over 40,000 Nigerians in the stands and they proceeded to express their displeasure by vandalising the newly renovated stadium.
For over a month, there has been growing discontent among the citizenry concerning the state of the nation. The previous day, terrorists attacked one of the busiest inter city trains connecting Abuja and Kaduna State. As if that was not enough, news of another attack on a train station filtered in, all coming after weeks of fuel scarcity and the collapse of the national power grid. So when Nigerians trooped out en masse to the stadium and tuned in their television sets from all over the country to watch the match, it wasn’t just about qualifying for the World Cup, it was more than that.
They were looking to the Super Eagles for relief, for escape from the terrible reality that is Nigeria, and for a brief moment of joy, unfortunately the Super Eagles could not deliver.
Ahmed, a student at the University Of Abuja who was at the stadium described the experience.
“At the start of the game everything was nice, people were optimistic and confident, making videos and so on, then they scored against us and then people started to fear, but we equalized. It was towards the end of the game when it was clear they were going to win on away goal that the tension in the stadium rose. At the end everybody was first stunned for about five minutes, then they started reacting, throwing bottles at the players on the pitch before one of the barriers broke and people started to get on the pitch. The truth is that even if Nigerians won, the fans were still going to get on the pitch to celebrate. The energy at the stadium was just too much and needed to be expressed, it was like a boiling pot that had started to spill over.
However, there is no excuse for violence and the destruction of properties.
Sadly, stampede at the stadium is a reflection of a larger issue that the country is a keg of gun powder that can explode anytime.
Citizens are angry and under much pressure. They will continue to find joy in events like the stampede. Unless drastic actions are taken, disaster looms.
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Rip to the doctor that lost his life
But why did they play the match in Abuja instead of Uyo stadium which is the best stadium with proper security facilities, or even Asaba stadium
I really hope they catch and prosecute some of the culprits. Needless destruction of that beautiful stadium.
The country us really getting bad things that used to give joy no longer do so. Even the comedians are not even funny again.
Thank God Nigeria did not qualify, we need to sit down and solve of our problems in this country first, before going to worl cup.
It’s not as if we were going to win the world cup beforw