Jordon Ibe and Nigeria’s cognitive dissonance
Caveat: I wrote this piece in 2015, when Ibe’s star looked to be on the rise. It never got published in this exact form though. It is quite embarrassing to read now, not just for the horrid style, but following the player’s development in the intervening period.
Aesop’s fox, gruff at the inaccessibility of grapes on a vine, declared them unsuitable and departed, his wounded pride limp in a cast of self-delusion. That frustration, both at its own inadequacy and its unsated hunger, is one which Nigeria can relate to following the decision of Jordon Ibe to give preference to an England senior call-up.
One truth is undeniable right off the bat: Nigeria want young Ibe, barely legal but the glimmering bauble in Liverpool’s slipping Merseyside crown. So what if he chooses to deliberately mispronounce his last name, rhyming it with ‘tribe’? So what if, for all intents and purposes, this severs the sole remaining attachment between the player and the world’s most populous black nation, 9000 kilometres away? That did not dampen the lust or dulled the gleam in the eye with which Ibe was courted.
So it is that, with the same self-loathing that a wanton abases herself, an entire nation feels the burn of out-of-hand rejection, and has turned its anger outward. Rafiu Ladipo, head of the nation’s peripatetic football supporters’ club, captured the mood of a nation, citing examples of Nigerian players who opted to represent foreign nations, in an interview with Goal.
“The truth is that England will only use and dump him,” Ladipo insisted. “[John] Fashanu and [Gabriel] Agbonlahor…have learnt their lessons the hard way.”
These are, of course, valid examples. However, it says a lot that the biggest weapon in the arsenal is to prey on the uncertainty of the future by way of scare-tactics. That, combined with an inordinate sense of entitlement and an almost megalomaniac belief in the primordial righteousness of the local interest — God is Nigerian, as the occasionally tongue-in-cheek saying goes — makes it hard to sympathise with a system whose efforts in indigenous player development range from half-hearted to non-existent.
The sudden explosion of talent in the late 80s and early 90s spawned a golden era in Nigerian football, and the nation remains in thrall of its dimming glow. Like all things that evolve without design, sustainability has proven problematic, and increasingly Nigeria has been forced to turn to its talents cultivated on foreign shores. The 19-year-old winger represents the danger of this attempt to transplant: the possibility that the new, foreign roots have already sunk too deep.
Ibe, much like Fashanu and Agbonlahor before him, was born on English soil and has the inalienable right to self-determination. His directness and invention on the ball are indicative of a player for whom a challenge holds any fears. The path to greatness is often beaten down rather than paved, and there also exist such success stories as Oguchi Onyewu (USA) and Emmanuel Olisadebe (Poland), both household names in their adopted countries and veterans of World Cup campaigns.
In time, Ladipo may prove to be correct in his assessment. The oddity is that it will be viewed as a vindication of the view he should have opted for Nigeria. While there is some merit to this position, it is simultaneously an indictment, a tacit admission that greater latitude is given to middling ability in the West African nation. For if Ibe fails to make the grade with the Three Lions, it will not be because he is of mixed heritage, it will be rather because he is not good enough.
As it is, the youngster has hedged his bets somewhat, his wording ambiguous enough to permit a U-turn in the future. If he does, he will learn a lot about his fatherland in the reaction to the decision, which will no doubt be initially frosty. However, much like a fond lover, there will always be room in Nigerian hearts for a contrite return.
