Before he called time on his international career in 2018, Victor Moses was a dazzler on the right wing for Nigeria, coming in close comparison to the “Mathematical” Segun Odegbami, mercurial Finidi George, mesmerizing John Utaka and the speedster Tijjani Babangida {may God heal his heart over the recent loss of family members in an auto crash}, With his beholden skills, deft touches, fluffy dribbling, breathtaking wing runs and the exuberant back flips, celebrating his 12 international career goals in 37 caps, the chubby-cheeked young man with dread, was always a delight on the football pitch and joy to Nigerians everywhere, since football is practically in every home globally, including in the space. Like Kemi Badenoch the current opposition leader in the United Kingdom, Victor is an immigrant British. He is also native Nigerian like Vice-President Kashim Shettima, the two senior public figures who recently engaged in bolekaja diplomacy because Abike Dabiri-Erewa chose to become the idiomatic odada eku eda {the harbinger of trouble} in her ta’na webi {homeland affinity} voyage to U.K politics in the name of playing the diasporic politics the brilliant Bishop Hassan Kukah stylishly told her she isn’t well-equipped for.
Hear Kukah in his so-long-an intervention in the Shettima/Badenoch face-off, “Often, immigrants hold the rough end of the stick and are endurers of structural injustices in the societies in which they find themselves. Nigeria need not see them as simply ‘remittances donors’. In my view, the organization ‘Nigerians in Diaspora’ should be restructured, and headed by a former Ambassador or a Nigerian who has an international Rolodex and can operate at the highest levels of global soft diplomacy. The commission could serve as a lighthouse, identifying and pointing out Nigerians of great achievement in whom the country should believe and invest. Such a head could help Nigeria identify where and how to seek (I nearly said, steal) technological assistance and collaboration whether in Russia, China, the United States of America, Canada, the United Kingdom. It was patriotism that enabled Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan to steal nuclear technology secrets from the Dutch company where he worked to enable Pakistan, Iran and North Korea have nuclear weapons today. Developing nations with ambition must deliberately invest in their citizens in diaspora. I hope that Nigeria takes Kemi quite seriously for its own interest.”
Back to Victor. Until 2002 when he was about 11 years and an only child, he had no second address beyond the shores. But he also knew no peace in his Kaduna neighbourhood because of those killing for their god, foretold by Jesus in John 16:2 “They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God’, to prepare His own for the persecution ahead.
But his Nigerianess was brutally tested on a particularly wild day in 2002 when another round of killing in god’s name consumed his parents, Pastors Austin and Josephine Moses, their church and home burnt down by mentally deranged Islamists. Victor was victorious over death that day because he was streets away playing street football with a ‘sticky tape’ ball. But his life was in constant danger in his father’s land that couldn’t then and still can’t protect its own. He was smuggled out of Nigeria before Nigeria would happen to him the way it did his parents, making him an orphan within maddening minutes and altering his existence in an extraordinary way.
But in just about seven years in the UK, the boy that would have become another count of the almajirai’s jama’a, scavenging dustbin for a mishmash of food leftover, had bought his own flat, taking his driving lesson and being called up to England U-19 national team. Victor would be justified blasting Nigeria as a zoo and a hellhole every opportunity he has, because that was what Nigeria of his early life was to him and still to millions like him. Though with experiences of lesser gravity than Victor’s, that was what Nigeria was also to a younger Kemi, who like Victor, also had her life literally given back to her by the United Kingdom. You cant blame their kind for turning their back on the fatherland the likes of Shettima have mismanaged for decades, especially the insecurity in the North, obviously grown by politics and still being exploited by the political class to which Shettima belongs, as a front-row participant.
We process emotions, especially hurt, differently and it is wrong of eku eda Dabiri and later the Vee-Pee to try criminalising Kemi’s attitude to how Nigeria happened to her. Many of those mouthing patriotism and nationalism today, had likely, at one point or the other in their past, on the basis of their nasty experiences, denounced Nigeria brutally without caring about the platform being used or whatever rippling effects.
On April 13, 1997, Thisday’s Ayo Arowolo conducted a rifling interview with today’s incumbent president, then a leading democracy activist and the screaming headline on Page 9 was “ I don’t believe in Nigeria—Tinubu”. The synopsis says the interview was conducted in Asiwaju’s London home. This was Shettima’s current boss 27 years ago, doing {Kukah said no big deal throwing somehow under a stationary bus} what Kemi did recently and both doing it from the same UK. Does the Vee-Pee still consider his boss a patriot or a surplus-to-requirement, not needed for Nigeria’s dream greatness, like he tried to cast Kemi? Maybe if our leaders will just stop rambling. Today, Tinubu would do anything, at least as the titular representation of Nigeria’s unity, to preserve its oneness. But he wasn’t so convinced 27 years ago and nobody should criminalise his convictions. And to think that before Tinubu made that statement, he had been a senator of the federal republic and about two years after the now-infamous statement, he returned as the governor of Nigeria’s commercial nerve. Did all these say anything to the vice president? Hopefully, he would exercise a greater restraint befitting of his office next time another successful Nigerian immigrant unloads on a country still killing dreams.
Both Badenoch and Shettima were wrong to go personal; the vee-pee seemingly attacking Kemi’s heritage by pointedly taunting her to drop her Yoruba name and the UK politician, by attacking Shettima’s region. Both demonstrated poor application of emotional intelligence and despite being older than Victor Moses, it is to him, I will still refer the duo. No doubt, Nigeria shook Victor. It was noted in many stories about him in UK tabloids when he became a football sensation that for days when he arrived to stay with foster parents in Croydon and classified as an asylum seeker, he found it difficult to speak. That was the highest level of trauma.
About 10 years after, it was Nigeria he chose to play for at the senior level. He chose motherland over England that gave him comfort and security. He chose to forgive and move on. He returned to Nigeria the people’s hero. He was banging goal and wagging his dread to delight. He would not allow the past to hold him down. He chose to be the bigger person.
That would have also been his moment to become a culture warrior for Nigeria like Shettima is trying to position himself, by blasting Kemi and her ilk and Victor would have been eminently qualified and justified. But he had better judgement and appreciation of men and situations as well as emotional intelligence, that far outweighs his age. Truly the age of Methuselah has nothing to do with the wisdom of Solomon!
In 2018 when he was bidding the national team farewell to allow for up-and-coming talents to flourish, he had this to say among others, “I have experienced some of the best moments of my life wearing the Super Eagles shirt and have memories with me that will last a lifetime. Nothing will ever compete to what it felt like to represent Nigeria on behalf of our country. I have already spoken to the manager by telephone and would like to say thank you to him and his staff, the NFF and all of my teammates for all of their support over the years.
“Most importantly I would like to say thank you to the Nigerian people for believing in me and supporting me over the years. It’s meant the world to me and my family and I will always be a proud Nigerian supporting the team. Thank you for the memories and good luck to the team for the future.”
I had tears in my eyes re-reading this. If Nigeria is seeking a real Diaspora ambassador, here is her man. May God help Ms. Badenoch heal and maybe, she would have to stop being a cultural Christian.
