THE GOD FACTOR IN THE AFFAIRS OF OUR NATION
By Peter N. Peters

We are still smarting from the embarrassing defeat suffered by our own dear senior national team – the Super Eagles before our own eyes here in Abuja, in the hands of the senior national team of Ghana – the Black Stars. What is more hurting is that it puts paid to Nigeria’s dream of participating in the forthcoming highest international football tournament, the World Cup slated for Qatar next year.
Early in the year, Nigeria was also unceremoniously booted out of the African Nations’ Cup by lowly rated Tunisia.

The embarrassing loss to Tunisia at the Round of 16 of the tournament was quite telling because Nigeria, with her brand new indigenous coaching crew led by Coach Austin Eguavoen, started so well contrary to everybody’s expectation, by beating all the three other teams in its group including Egypt, raking in all the 9 points available and topping the group table.

Quickly, pundits began to give it to Nigeria, as one of the best and most favoured to lift the trophy at the end of the tournament. Then boom! The team crashed out at the Round of 16. Wow, what a crash! What went wrong? How come they were so easily overrun by Tunisia that only managed to scrap through to the Round of 16 by the whiskers? Questions, questions and no answers! But the deed was done.

Our darling team quietly sneaked back into Abuja at the middle of the night with virtually no body of note at the airport to bid them welcome. Failure is always an orphan. So one can only imagine the degree of embarrassment and disappointment in the hearts of football loving Nigerians who had thronged the MKO Abiola International Stadium, Abuja on the fateful day of the Ghana/ Nigeria match looking up to the Super Eagles to redeem their image with this all important visa of a match to the World Cup, only to watch them crumble under the tactical superiority of the Ghanaian team.

As expected, nearly everyone was calling for the heads of Coach Eguavoen and the entire team to be served on a platter. No one at this point dared to remember how well the team played in her first three matches at the African Nations’ Cup under this same interim Technical Adviser and his team who took over from a floundering Garnet Rohr barely few weeks before that tournament.

As I write Austin Eguavoen and his coaching crew have taking the fall as they have been relieved of their appointments. This is completely wrong. They do not deserve this harsh treatment. If there be anybody that deserves to be sacked, it’s our wicked leaders who have by their deeds attracted God’s anger upon the land.
No one has stopped to ponder over the ‘God factor’ in all of these.

Why did a team that gave such a good account of themselves under these new sweat merchants only few months ago suddenly started underperforming? What did they get right at the first three matches at the African Nations’ Cup that they could not get right anymore? No one has spared a thought about the toxicity of the environment that these lads are operating in and discovered that you hardly can win under a highly toxic and polluted environment such as the case in Nigeria today.

Some victories, though desirable could be undeserving and capable of sending out the wrong messages. God is fair and just and would not allow some victories, if He sees that it may not help the prevailing situation. Imagine what would have happened if we had won in that epoch making match.

The sheer noise and euphoria from our leaders would have drowned out the agony, pain and sorrow of our brothers and sisters in Kaduna and other parts of the North where mindless bloodletting by terrorists were going on simultaneously and had become the order of the day.

Just look at it, as the tournament was going on terrorists were on rampage in Southern Kaduna killing, stealing and destroying lives and properties, with no one coming to the rescue of the hapless citizens. And this has become a recurring decimal on the defenseless citizens in that part of the country. As that was going on, another set of terrorists struck blowing up the rail tracks thereby forcing the moving train commuting passengers from Abuja to Kaduna to stop and literally hijacking it and robbing and killing some of the passengers.

As I write the railway authorities and the security agencies are yet not sure how many persons lost their lives in the ensuing mayhem as many are still missing. Few days earlier, the Kaduna airport was attacked by the same terrorists.

This was happening in the midst of other life threatening issues of grave concern like the lingering power collapse resulting in nationwide blackout, lingering fuel scarcity, striking university teachers and none teaching staff, famine and hardship occasioned by ever rising cost of food items, etc.

Simply put, Satan is on rampage in Nigeria this period. Tell me how you will feel with your victory in football tournament under this very toxic and highly volatile atmosphere?

Those who swore to protect lives and properties of citizens and are in charge of taking steps to alleviate the sufferings of the people and they are doing next to nothing about them, would have cashed in on the so called victory of the Super Eagles to raise their egotistic shoulders and walk with obscene swagger and arrogance in their failures, while the country keep receding uncontrollably down the path to perfidy.

The situation in the country today is utterly hopeless. There is unprecedented gloom across the land. God is not mocked! He is not interested in massaging the over-bloated ego of our leaders with an undeserved victory in a football tournament more than He is in the mindless wastage of human lives going on all around us. He would not permit them reaping from where they did not sow.

Hear me, those lads and the local coaching crew assembled recently are among the very best anywhere in the world. Given a very healthy environment the coaching crew is capable of delivering excellent results with those young and enterprising football stars that make up the present squad of the Super Eagles.

Not even they (the footballers) can adequately explain what came over them in the field of play. You think they stepped into the MKO Abiola stadium that evening not very sure in their hearts of victory? They wanted by all means to win. It was of utmost benefit to them to win the tournament, because of all that should have accrued to them monetarily and in career upliftment going forward.

Those blaming the lads and the entire coaching crew are missing the point. It’s not their fault at all. On a very good day the present squad of Super Eagles parades more quality players than what Ghana had on offer.

The most sensible thing to do would have been to forgive the new coaches and encourage them to go on and tinker with the team and their tactics. Let them keep dismantling and recoupling for the next three to four years.

They will eventually come up with world beaters out of this present crop of Super Eagles players in a couple of years and everybody will be the happier for it. Under the present atmosphere in Nigeria, you won’t get a better result even if you bring the best coach in the world. Mark this!

This case study of the Super Eagles and the coaching crew is just a microcosm of the state of affairs in Nigeria today. The entire nation is almost grinding to a halt with nothing in the horizon to assure anybody of any respite soon. While things are receding from bad to worse God is watching and assuredly not happy with our leaders both in the political and religious circles.

How do I know this? The scripture says so in Psalm 7: 11, “….God is angry with the wicked every day.” God has endowed this nation with everything it requires for a nation to attain the highest level of greatness. But our leaders are ever so busy squandering the riches of the nation as though there is no God to account to.

It is said that a nation deserves the kind of leadership it gets. It’s also correct to say that only God bestows leadership on a people. However, let it be known also that God bestows both good and bad leadership depending on the purpose He intends to achieve with each leadership. President Muhammadu Buhari’s presidency is certainly God’s idea. However what most of the citizens have failed to examine is for what purpose did God bring him at a time like this?

From biblical history, each time God wanted to call the attention of His straying people back to Himself, He puts them under an oppressive leader. It is such that when they begin to see suffering like never before, they are forced to seek Him once again. The Pharaohs, the Herods, the Nebuchadnezzars, etc. of biblical history were all instruments in God’s hands at one point or another to call His people Israel back from their invidious parts of sinfulness.

Why do you think a rag-tag army in the name of Boko Haram (later joined by ISWAP) rose from nowhere and has held the country hostage for so long, with Nigerian army and all their sophistication, not able to tame them? Nigeria has over the years strayed so far away from the part of Godliness unto unbridled self-destruction, contrary to God’s plan for this very strategic nation. Yes, Nigeria is strategic because it is the headquarters of the black race.

Nigeria is meant to be to the black race what United States of America is to the white race. And all the hardship and suffering we are facing are all God’s design to call us back to Himself. And He is ever ready and waiting to welcome us back. But are we listening?

No country in recent history that will see the degree of plunder, corruption and criminality that Nigeria has been experiencing right from her independence till date and still stay together. It’s because God is completely in charge; and will not relent until He has completely executed His plan for this nation. And this is why I’m completely sure that those clamouring for breakup of the nation will not succeed. Our nation, though a careless contraption by our colonial masters, Great Britain has God’s endorsement.

The best that should happen is for us to continue to survey the best ways to manage our diversities with a view to building a just and egalitarian nation and live together in peace, unity and prosperity.

The 2023 elections are critical to begin putting the building blocks together to achieve the new Nigeria of our dream. What we lack and are in desperate need to have is good, accountable, visionary and god fearing leadership. It lies with the electorates to make this happen with their Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVC) in 2023.

One of the best legacies that President Buhari has bequeathed to Nigeria and her flawed leadership recruitment process is the 2022 Electoral Act which he signed recently. Managed religiously and carefully by the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), it is a game changer. Some of its provisions are keys to a reformed electoral process.

The electronic voting system, the electronic transfer of results to collation centres, the use of the BVAS to determine the number of accredited voters, etc., are all very revolutionary. And if properly managed across the length and breadth of Nigeria, shall ensure that people’s votes determine who comes to power to preside over their affairs.

It will go a long way in returning faith and credibility in the leadership recruitment process of our nation. That way those who have mindlessly plundered our nation (and we know them) shall be shown the exit door. That way only the right caliber of leaders will be allowed to retain their offices and serve the people creditably.

That way the huge resources (both human and material) that our nation is blessed with, shall now be adequately harnessed for the greatest good of the greatest number. And that way Nigeria shall be rebuilt; she shall rise again and be counted among the greatest nations of the world. And that is exactly how a new Nigeria shall be born. So help us God!

*Peters is Abuja based Media Practitioner and Executive Secretary of CoEViN (Concern for Ethics & Values in Nigeria). Feedbacks can be sent to: pnpeters22@gmail.com or SMS only to 0703 833 2221