Lamikanra: A tale of two countries

AS with practically all members of my generation, the first country outside Nigeria that I was made aware of, was Ghana. It was difficult not to take notice of Ghana, which had just become independent at a time when our own leaders were still having a destructive argument

over when Nigeria would become free of British suzerainty. Apart from being independent, Ghana was led by Kwame Nkrumah, a flamboyant, charismatic and foresighted Pan-Africanist who seized the high ground of African (at home and in the Diaspora) leadership. The Osagyefo as he was affectionately known by his people had been freed from prison to lead the push for Ghanaian independence and dispensing with the old name of Gold Coast. Ghana was on show for many reasons but for most of us, our fascination was in the sporting contests with Nigerian teams.

   In those days, there were annual contest between Nigeria and Ghana in virtually all sports and to our collective disappointment, Ghana was more often successful than Nigeria even though Nigeria was far bigger in terms of population and geographical area.

Ghanaian success in most games could be absorbed but our frequent  losses in football was too biter a pill to swallow especially as  throughout that period we could not achieve a single victory away from home and there was one infamous occasion, thankfully before my time, when we were thumped 7-0. For me personally, the bitterest disappointment in the series of disappointments that were dished out by the Ghanaians was the 3-0 defeat handed out to us at the National Stadium in October 1960. Nigeria had finally become independent in 1960 and to celebrate the occasion, the Ghana Black Stars were invited to play against Nigeria, represented on that occasion by the Green Eagles. 

   Up till independence Nigeria played in red shirts and one of the changes made at independence was for national teams to wear green, the colour of the national flag and with the eagle being prominent on the nation’s coat of arms, it was natural for the national football team to be dubbed the Green Eagles. That match remains one of the unforgettable experiences of my life.   

   For a start, it was my first life attendance at an international football match and in addition, I was still high on the euphoria of independence, a status I barely understood but which I felt was right to the very marrows of my bones. The temporary stadium built on a swampy piece of land in Surulere was full to capacity with excited and expectant Nigerians who were looking forward to a Nigerian victory over her old nemesis.   What unfolded before our eyes that glorious Sunday evening was a nightmare of titanic proportions. Everything that could go wrong duly did so as the Green Eagles, green in every sense of the word, came up against a team in superb form and were given a severe mauling by a team which scored three goals without reply and could have scored seven if they had a mind to do so. The 3-0 score line was emphatic enough but one other thing that got to me was the superior sartorial elegance exhibited by the Black Stars in their silken all-white strip with red trimmings and a black star on the back of their shimmering shirts. Because the pitch was muddy, all the players were in various stages of muddiness by the end of the first half and as the dispirited Green Eagles trudged off the field at halftime, they all looked as if they had been given a mud bath but the Black Stars who sparkled throughout that half looked slightly worse off because of their all-white strip. 

     The Green Eagles, eager to change their fortunes were the first to trot unto the pitch at the start of the second half and our patriotic voices burst into loud cheers which unfortunately was cut to a stunned silence when the Black Stars made their reappearance in a pristine change of strip so that they appeared as if they were coming on for the first half. The spectators, only a few it must be said, were so disgusted that they left for home! Those of us who stayed to the bitter end were almost too paralysed to leave the stadium at the end of the match. 

   The next time I was in the same stadium to watch another Ghana/Nigeria match was in 1973 when Nigeria only needed to win the match to qualify for the 1974 World Cup. We were predictably beaten by a lone goal and this time the spectators were so shocked that they set the Ghanaian coach on fire and had to be sent home with the smell of tear gas in their nose. Back to 1960 and the names of some of those Black Stars still echo in my mind more than 50 years later; the powerful Charles Gyamfi who could not stop scoring against Nigeria, the elegant Agggrey Finn, team captain and tormentor in chief, Baba Yara, the elusive right wing wizard and Salisu, with the cultured left peg on the other wing, not to talk of Dodo Ankrah with reflexes which suggested that a cat had made a hefty contribution to his gene pool in goal. The Ghanaians even came with their dashing Minister of Sports whose colourful kente was as compelling to the eyes as Salisu’s left foot. That day, the Green Eagles huffed and puffed and were blown away, leaving scars on my mind, which are still alive more than half a century later.

    Ghana still looms large in my imagination as it does in the imagination of many other Nigerians of my generation. Our two countries gained their respective independence on waves of justifiable optimism and for various reasons have so far failed to live up to their potential. The Ghanaian economy based on gold and cocoa crashed within a few years of independence and the Osagyefo was unceremoniously booted out of office by his soldiers barely six weeks after a small group of unreflective soldiers decapitated the Nigerian

government leading to a bloody civil war which appears to have changed the Nigerian landscape forever. The Nigerian economy was miraculously rescued from the doldrums by crude oil but the Ghanaian economy continued its downward spiral, so much so that Ghanaians in their thousands at one point streamed out of their economically dying nation and took refuge in Nigeria’s oil rich economy showing the complicated ties with Nigeria. They came here and took on all sorts of jobs; our schools swarmed with Ghanaian teachers, our bakeries took them on in droves and many factories were kept running by Ghanaian workers. A

generation before, a rather dumb Ghanaian leader, never mind that he was an Oxford Professor, had chased Nigerians out of Ghana, sending ‘home’ thousands of Nigerians, some of whom had never set foot on

Nigerian soil in their lives. With the Nigerian economy under the corrupt management of the NPN, it was the turn of Ghanaians to be railroaded in the opposite direction by an unimaginative Nigerian government, grasping at wispy straws in an effort to find salvation.   

    The Ghanaians went back home to rescue their country and a few years down the line, Ghana began to flourish once more. A great deal of water has flowed under the bridge since the ‘Ghana must go’ episode and both Ghana and Nigeria have undergone a whole basketful of changes in that time. The Ghanaians have been able to repair their economy and have succeeded in installing democracy in their land. They have even struck oil and are managing the explosive black gold with greater responsibility than the Nigerians who are yet to find the true meaning of democracy seeing that the same collection of irresponsible men and women have been in charge of their ship of state for more than 15 tortured years and have run the ‘largest economy in Africa’ into the ground. Even then, they are still hopeful of continuing their ruinous tenure.

    Ghana has always been on my mind, now, more than ever before but with their example firmly in mind, I am hopeful that Nigeria’s recovery would be as miraculous as theirs once we are able to install democracy in our land. After all, we have the resources; both human and natural to plot the miracle we so much desire but which we must work assiduously to achieve. After all, the Ghanaian recovery, like their independence, was not presented to them on a platter.

• Professor Lamikanra is of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.