STEPHEN KESHI: ADIEU THE 'BIG BOSS'

Just yesterday I started this article about how the life of a celeb sucks and left off for the day as I was too tired to continue after a hectic day.

And so it was with great shock and pain that I received the news of Former super Eagles Coach, Stephen Keshi passing away after a heart attack this morning.

If you think it’s easy being a celeb then you must be seriously in a world very different from this present one that we live in. Celebs are in a better position to tell you, that is, if they are willing to open up to you in all honesty. 

Dear reader, there is no way you will walk away after they must have opened up to you wholeheartedly, without you thanking your stars for the simple sane and private life that you enjoy which is a very expensive venture for most of them.

Forget about all the hype and jazzy lifestyle of some of these celebs that is spread all over social media, beneath all that razzmatazz is a very lonely person who inspite of all the hangers-on in the name of followers and fans, is yearning for that indescribable thing that seems to keep eluding him/her everytime they feel they are almost getting ‘there’ as they keep wanting more and more of a never ending ‘insatiable’ longing.

We place our celebrities so ‘high’ up there, hence putting them in a constant circle of trying to meet up with our expectations from them. Yet we won’t accord them the respect while we still can or have the opportunities to do so. Instead some of us will put up funny attitudes with the ‘who does he think he/she is’ expression. So, why won’t they have heart attacks?

On the right is a picture of the late Stephen Keshi and the son of one of my childhood friends at Heathrow airport taken in 2015.

We were talking about how sad Stephen had to go just a few months after burying his wife, Kate and she narrated how people including Nigerians barely recognized or acknowledged his presence while at the airport as they just stood and stared at him even as she mentioned that he was our ‘Super’ Coach.

I was so hurt when she described the nasty ‘I don’t care’ attitude of the other Nigerians present at the airport.

Mtcheew! Hypocrites and sychophants!! Now that news of his death has hit the airwaves, these same group of hypocrites who despised or did not acknowledge his presence when he was alive and well at the airport that same day, would still be among the people who would cry ‘oh how we will miss him’ even as the honest people mourn his departure.

I bet you, if it was Jose Mourinho that was at that airport that same day, those ‘I don’t care’ Nigerians would be the first to jostle over themselves to take pictures with a man who may not care a hoot about their love for his games or whatever. Some of those ‘nutheads’ would be willing to even pay with all the money on them to get an autograph from Jose that very moment if they were asked to do so. Yet all they needed to do was simply acknowledge our ‘very own’ but ‘whosai’ thereby confirming again that 'a prophet is never recognised in his homestead'.

Hmmm! This life is really complicated.

The Big Boss

For those who didn’t know, Stephen Keshi is the only Nigerian who has won the Nations’ Cup for the Country both as a player and a Coach, in Tunisia 1994 and South Africa 2013 respectively. Also he was the second indigenous Coach after Shuaibu Ahmodu to qualify Nigeria for the FIFA world cup in 2014 even though we were sent packing in the second rounds.

What more can I say?

Stephen  Keshi, ‘Big Boss’ as he was fondly called by many, was the second indigenous Coach after Adegboye Onigbinde to have led the Super Eagles to the FIFA World cup. Also, he led the super Eagles to the 2013 FIFA confederation cup in Brazil.

He made history in Africa in 2006 as the first Nigerian Coach to qualify an African Country, Togo for the FIFA world cup in Germany. It is also on record that he qualified the ‘Eagles’ of Mali to the Africa Cup of Nations in Angola 2010.

Most importantly, he was a loving father and first Nigerian footballer to sign a professional football contract abroad. His performance in France opened the floodgates to Nigerian and African players to sign professional football contracts abroad which was one of the reasons why he earned the nick name ‘the big boss’.

I could go on and on.

Stephen Keshi was the first national team captain to captain the super Eagles at the FIFA world cup in USA 1994 as well as being the first captain of the super Eagles to lift the trophy outside the shores of Nigeria.

Interestingly, he captained all the football clubs he played for throughout his football career within and outside the country.

Keshi and family during wife's funeral

I guess I have said enough already. I am so hurt that it still feels like a dream.

Rest in Peace Keshi, guess you’ve gone to join your wife in the bosom of the Lord. May God grant your family the fortitude to bear this great loss. You were indeed an enigma.

ADIEU! ‘BIG BOSS’ KESHI!!

Also continue to Rest in Peace, Uche Okafor, Rashidi Yekini, Wilfred Agbonavbare, Thomson Oliha our football golden stars of 1994.

WHY DID I MARRY YOU?

How many of you would sit and watch someone poo in the toilet while you watch and genuinely still laugh and joke about the stench coming from the poo?   

Or how many of would laugh over a partner’s fart when you guys are cuddled up in a room? 

How many of you would rather make sure your partner has the car while you hitch a ride or go by public transport to work? How many of you would get worried and panic when they say there is heavy traffic on third mainland bridge just because your spouse takes that route? 

How many of you would rather let your partner have the only meal in the house for the night and go hungry in his her place? I could go on and on with the ‘how’ questions?

    

The saying ‘marry your best friend’ which some people feel is an overemphasized cliché is still to millions of people around the world, including me, a saying that would continue to hold a ‘lot of water’ for even the unborn generation.

Without any apologies or mince of words, you CANNOT falter that saying.

No one needs to be told that the rate at which divorces are carried out on a daily basis around the world, it confirms that 99% of those marriages were not based on true friendship. These divorces confirm Friedrich Nietzsce’s words that “It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages” which I strongly agree with him.  

The truth be told. Every true relationship starts with ‘friendship’ there is no ‘jumping-the-gun’ here. 

Before you start talking about loving a person fit enough to spend the rest of your life with, it HAS TO BE someone who makes you laugh or smile. That someone when you are together, you can be yourself and be honest with each other no matter how embarrassing there be. He or she can let you be a fool and not be disgusted because both of you end up laughing over those things. Someone who can make you feel like a child again when you are together thus confirming Darlene Schacht’s thought that “when you marry your best friend, you bring back a little piece of your childhood”. 

As best friends, you share the good news and the bad news together and the next thing you hear even when it is bad news is “so what are WE going to do about it” even when you are just friends.

That for me is TRUE friendship.  And it points to a kind of love that even the deepest, darkest of waters cannot in anyway dilute. So I would say “marry that friend”. That kind of friendship will not speak ill of you. I can say again and again that any marriage based on such a companionship is bound to last for a very long time.  

When you marry your best friend, nearly everything you do together will be fun all the time even when it has to do with doing the laundry, dishes or cooking; it will be fun. And because you know each other so well, everything you dream and embark upon would seem like an adventure even when/if they turn out wrong decisions at some point.

Life is always better with your best friend. Both of you can just be together all alone in your world, away from the stress of reality and talk for hours without getting bored and you could find yourselves telling each other things that you have not told another soul and yet feel free to share between yourselves.

That is your soul mate. And if you are not yet married, never let them go and happiness will always be your companion.

I laughed after reading somewhere that “marriage is getting to have a sleep over with your best friend, every single night of the week”. Hmmm! That sounds really romantic right? So why waste it. Marry your best friend and that ‘every single night of the week’ will be forever. Don’t make the mistake of ever inviting your best friend to your wedding because once you do that, it means you are surely getting married to the WRONG person. Don’t make that mistake.

Come on everyone, let’s curtail the high rates of divorce by marrying our best friends and people who truly know you and are willing to love you all the way. It honestly will stop the silly melancholic feeling by some people who see marriage as some sort of jail.

Now you have it. The best marriages are based first of all on true friendship and true friendship includes trust, honesty and the likes which sums up the four letter word L O V E.

Once again, MARRY YOU BEST FRIEND!

IS EVERY TRIAL A MESSENGER WITH A HIDDEN GIFT FOR YOU?

On a few occasions, I have heard people say “every trial is a messenger sent to deliver a hidden gift to you”. A lot of us may want to hold that thought as true while many others may beg to differ and may simply let out statements such as “that’s not true”. On the other hand, another group would say ‘not entirely true’ as they would rather do without such hidden gifts than go through any horrible trial accompanying it.

A few days ago, I read in one of the dailies, Thisday to be precise, about a former bank employee, one Omotade Johnson on how he lost his banking job a couple of years back during the era of voluntary and involuntary  bankers ‘mass exodus’  due to the biting harsh realities of economic recession which was experienced all over the world at the time.

According to Omotade, he decided to face reality and picked up what was left of his life and with the little he had from his savings, decided on entrepreneurship hence went ahead to set up a puff-puff selling business, thereby turning his trial into triumph. What a lot of people in his same predicament at the time would never have given a second thought having just left a Porsche or ‘tush’ paying job.

Without a care in the world of what people would think about his new status of ‘puff-puff’ selling, Omotade strove hard at it and today, he is inspiring a lot of people with his story.

In his own words, “Formerly, I worked with Intercontinental Bank PLC. That happened shortly; I lost the job when the bank got liquidated and everything went flat. But, as a man, you have to work and I can’t see anything I can’t do. So that was why I joined the new trend. The business has been on for the past 11 years; I met it in 2012, when I came to Lagos. I never went to school for it, I learnt it from my friends who were professionals in the business. Although, some of them were younger than me in age then, but that never mattered to me, because all I wanted was for them to teach me how to fry and all other things involved, which they obliged and taught me, even without demanding I should pay money for the training. So, since I joined, the business has been good; I don’t have anything to regret. I’m not lacking any money. I love the business. It’s quite a profitable one. Of course, if it’s not, this my team you see working here wouldn’t have been here. Because you can’t just wake up early in morning, stay here till night without going home with something that is worth the time and you continue working”.

Quite inspiring. I have come across a lot of individuals who are not willing to do such jobs yet they will go out to beg from the people who do such jobs. Kai! What an irony of life. That is one of the things one would signature ‘wickedness or witchcraft’.

A couple of years ago, a friend told me about a family who would always approach her for help on a nearly daily basis. Healthy family with a couple of kids, yet father and mother were doing nothing except begging from one person to the other nevertheless they had this ‘high horse’ thing going on around them.

So one day, this friend of mine had an opening in a laundry organization and so asked the lady to apply but she bluntly refused that she couldn’t do such a job so did her husband. These were people with nothing but barely secondary school certificates nor any professional certificates, yet they were selecting jobs.

My good friend was so upset and told them out rightly that they were both ungrateful people and hence should never ask her for a dime anymore as she did all sorts of jobs including menial jobs to make the monies that they always hounded her to give to them. And according to her, that was the last they heard from her till today as they kept grudges with her from that day. Interestingly, my friend was past caring about how ever they felt or thought about her anyway.

Another inspiring story before I draw the curtains on this outing.

I also read in the course of the week about a lady as seen in the picture on the right with no arms who drives a car on her own, proving again that no fully healthy human being has a right to be idle not to talk about even those with minor disabilities as the picture resounds the notion again that there is ‘really ability In Disability’ hence nothing should be impossible if you are willing to make a difference in life.

Again, I know many people will say that she is advantaged because she was born and lives in a society where things work, hence she can flourish and accomplish her many dreams given her abilities. To a large extent you could be right, however, in this same country of Nigeria, there is an endless list of many disabled people who have achieved many of their dreams and are doing well to a large extent. Thus no one has any excuse to go hungry or begging on the streets. Do something to make a living.

Finally, when I say ‘do something’ I do not in any way insinuate ‘something’ as prostitution, fraud, rituals and their likes, I mean do something legal, good and dignifying to make ends meet and not any form of vices thereby becoming a menace to the society.

So, dear reader, turn that your trial and situation around. Cheers!