11 July 2009
analysis
Lagos — I did not care much about the world around me in 1989. I was too young to be bothered about stuff that did not include sweets, ice cream, movies and school. I was in that period in my life when nothing mattered. The sort of days we sometimes wish we could get back as adults. But I remember the FIFA World Youth Championship that held in Saudi Arabia that year.
Nigeria ended up losing the finals of that tournament to (an eventual world dominant) Portugal, after they had defeated the U.S.A. in the semi-finals by 2 goals to 1 in extra time. But it was the quarter final match, played on the 25th of February 1989 that stuck with me and most people across the world.
The U.S.S.R. was still in existence at the time and was a dominant force in almost all spheres of life from politics to the world economy to military force and even sports. Nigeria had managed to qualify from the group stage to the quarter finals only by having scored more goals than the then Czechoslovakia as they both finished with the same points. That set them up for a meeting with the winners of Group B, which was the U.S.S.R. Not a lot of Nigerians were confident and understandably so; yet no one was about to concede even before the match started. But after 58 minutes of play at the Dammam centre of the World Cup, it looked like we should not have bothered coming out to play at all.
Sergei Kiriakov had put the Soviet Union ahead after 30 minutes and that still seemed okay. But Bakhva Tadeev made every Nigerian a little more worried when he struck to make it 2-0 just before half time. That was not a good way for Nigeria to go into the break.
At the start of the 2nd half, Coach Tunde Disu took off Goalkeeper Angus Ikeji and brought on Emeka Amadi, hoping to stop the goals from coming in. Sadly, that did not even last a minute as just after the second half resumed, Oleg Salenko (famous for his 5 goals against Cameroon at the FIFA senior World Cup in U.S.A. 1994) struck to make Nigerians wish they had not come out to play at all. It was now 3-0 to the Soviet Union. What were we to do? At least even if we could not score them, let us even try stopping them from scoring any more goals. But we could not.
At the 58th minute, Sergei Kiriakov, who had started the goal scoring for the U.S.S.R., made it 4 goals to nil against Nigeria. Things were beginning to look embarrassing and some Nigerians silently hoped the referee would stop the match before it turned into a basketball score line. But the boys and their coach had other plans. And less than three minutes later, the Nigerian U20 national team, started something that most people across the world had never seen before or never believed would happen.
At the 61st minute, Christopher Ohenhen, pulled one back for Nigeria and things were a little more respectable. At least we were now on the score board; even if we would still lose. Oladuni Oyekale got pulled off and Chinedu Odiari came into the game and that goal plus the substitution, seemed to breathe new life into the entire team. Naturally, the U.S.S.R. believed that a 3 goal cushion at the time was still insurmountable. But the Nigerians were not about to give up.
Chris Ohenhen was back on the score sheet in the 75th minute, as he took another breathtaking free kick to make it 4-2. That seemed more like it and at that point, a lot of Nigerians had started thinking that just maybe we could pull back. That was helped especially with the exploits of Mutiu Adepoju in the midfield. But as much as Mutiu fought to control the midfield for most of the second half, it was Samuel Elijah who scored Nigeria's 3rd goal in the 83rd minute. The commentator, who was supposed to be unbiased, could not hold back his excitement as the score board read U.S.S.R. 4 Nigeria 3. At that point and with the way Nigeria was playing, it was clear that Nigeria would score a 4th goal and it was only a matter of when. Just about a minute later, we got our answer.
Mutiu Adepoju, got the ball just inside the half of the Soviet Union and at that instant, Nduka Ugbade started a race down the right hand flank. As he ran, Adepoju put through a ball in between two defenders and the ball rolled in front of Ugbade, just inside the 18 yard box. The goalkeeper, Vladimir Pchelnikov, rushed out to try and stop Ugbade and just as the commentator screamed; "A good chance for Nigeria", Ugbade fired a powerful shot, just above the keeper and the ball buried itself right at the roof of the Soviet Union's post. It was 4-4.
The game went into extra time but no more goals were scored and it came to penalties. Nigeria was understandable the more motivated of the two sides at this point and so were firing on all cylinders. They took all 5 penalties and scored all. The Soviet Union had already missed one penalty and did not have to take the 5th one anymore since Nigeria had scored all of theirs. Nigeria won the game 5-3 on penalties and what was eventually dubbed 'The Miracle of Dammam' had just unfolded for the whole world to see.
The other interesting thing about 1989 for Nigerians, may have been the completion of the Constitution by the constituent assembly and the subsequent permission of political activity by the then Head of State Ibrahim Babangida. He promised to return Nigeria to democracy by holding elections in 1990. Two parties were formed as a result; the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Republican Convention (NRC), and Nigerians were upbeat about the future. Well, as we all know, the elections were pushed forward to 1993 and even then, we still did not return to democracy.
Sports had its own share of the 1989 revolution even if in a sad way. The date was April 15, 1989, the venue was Sheffield's Hillsborough Stadium and it was an FA Cup Semi-Final match between Liverpool FC and Nottingham Forest. Too many fans were directed to fenced pens at one end of the ground and a crush soon developed. People started screaming as they were pushed upon the fence but the police was slow to respond because of the fear of hooligans. A small gate opened up and a stampede followed. Just about 5 minutes into the game, the match had to be stopped. 95 people had died, mostly due to asphyxia and the 96th person died in 1993 after being in a coma as a result for 4 years. New ground rules were laid after that and games now witness better police response in situations like that. It is sad though that it took 96 lives for that to happen.
1989 also saw what would be the birth of today's World Wide Web. A certain Tim Berners-Lee began work with Robert Cailliau in 1989, at Europe's particles physics lab CERN in Geneva. The internet was just beginning to emerge at the time but it still lacked a standardized system for dealing with information. Tim solved these problems by writing the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP), a computer language for communicating documents over the internet, and a system to give documents addresses. He then created the first browser, calling it the World Wide Web, as well as a language (Hyper Text Markup Language or HTML) for creating web pages. Today, we are all beneficiaries of the power of the internet and thanks to Tim; some of us did not have to be watching CNN or the BBC to know that Michael Jackson had died.
Other incidents, like Denmark being the first country on the 26th of May 1989, to legalise gay marriages; the Dalai Lama winning the Nobel Prize for Peace that year against China's wishes; the Exxon Valdez accident that spilled 42 million litres of crude oil into the sea, killing millions of wildlife and endangering lives on March 24, 1989; the fatwa issued on Valentine's Day 1989,against author Salman Rushdie for his book 'The Satanic Verses' that was said to be blasphemous against Islam and the subsequent protection given him by the British government; the launch of the Space Vehicle No. 14 which was the first in a constellation of 24, making up the global positioning system or GPS (yet to be in full swing in Nigeria 20 whole years later); the birth of the iconic animated series, 'The Simpsons'; and the Russian Revolution; amongst others, meant that 1989 is probably the most important year in the modern history of man.
Nigeria may have missed its opportunity to join in the defining moments of 1989 by failing to follow through to democracy then; just as we may have also failed to at least, create our own 1989 even if in subsequent years. But the lessons of that year should not be lost on us, especially lessons from the one significant event which all Nigerians were able to enjoy. The 'Dammam Miracle', may have been a game of football, lasting all of 125 minutes but the lessons there for all fall to see. At the 58th minute, Nigeria was down and out as far as everyone was concerned. That for me is significant because we have been a nation for about 48 years now and sadly there is every reason to believe that Nigeria is failing as a state. But the belief by the players and the coach that nothing was insurmountable, as long as there was still time, made them triumph. Thus, it is never too late for us as a nation, to dig deep and get things right. As our U20 team scored 4 goals in 22 minutes to shine again, we can start now to fix things and show why we really should be taken seriously. Life is a race and no one will wait for Nigeria if we do not decide to move. Who knows; maybe 2009 could be the Year that Changed Nigeria!
ANSWERS ANYONE?
Since his visit to Ghana was meant to highlight 'Good Governance', will Obama ever visit Nigeria?
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