HISTORY CREATED, LOST AND BURIED (A TRUE LIFE STORY)

History created, lost and buried is like living without history or existing with no reference nor memory of the past. Although I am neither an historian nor an anthropologist but I’ll try to be a bit empirical on this, trying to flash back on the historic event of my service year (Batch A 2016). Reminiscing my first day in Drugs Free Club (DFC) Sokoto Chapter for Community Development Service (CDS).

The journey to serve my father’s land came at last and I was so excited to visit the far north for the very first time. Ignoring all the rumors of war, bomb blast and Sharia law in the North, as some of those rumors were mere gossips and fallacy. I arrived Dambua and with the help of Pidgin English an okada man could read my lips and took me straight to wamakko camp, (wamakko L.G.A).

A time came for inter- CDS competition and we had to register our football team, the challenge was that we had less guys than ladies, so we end up merging with our very own NAFDAC CDS to form a team. Little did i know that DFC/NAFDAC Fc was a team destined for the trophy. People believe that God don’t take sides in sport competition, but the God of football was on our side. We played all the matches from group stage to qualifiers, and from knockout stage to finals.

DFC/NAFDAC Fc finally met with the best CDS team in the tournament which was the “Almighty Football CDS”. History has it that in Sokoto State, no CDS team has ever been able to knock out Football CDS even on finals, so they always emerge the winner of every Service year’s Inter-CDS Football Competition. On the D-day it was like little David (DFC/NAFDAC Fc) meeting face-to-face with Goliath (Almighty Football CDS), so the initial fear and tension was so enormous that some of our players began to shiver. The sign of fear was written all over our faces in the middle of the State Township Stadium, in the midst of all the Fans, Sport Lovers, Corp members and Officials. Thank God for our Captain an Akwa Ibom boy we called him “The Oracle” because he knew how to drive fear out of our souls and reignite the flames of courage into our mind.

The referee finally blew the whistle and the 1st half began and ended with 1-0 in favor of our opponent, but we were more determined to conquer as we never lost focus but played with all our heart and might. The second half began and ended with a 1-1 draw which took us to penalty kick, it was there the journey to our victory began.

According to the birds saying “Since the hunters has learned to shot without missing their marks, we too must learn to fly without pegging our wings” At the end of the penalty kick, we defeated the Almighty Football CDS as the match ended 5-3 in our favor. Our keeper was able to catch two of their player’s shots while our five players scored all the five kicks.

Today no one remembers the 16 man team that stood bold and fought face-to-face against fear/history to secure victory, and rewriting a new history in the sand of time for generations to come. As their only parting gift after the whole tournament was just a token of N7,500, not to be compared to their energy, injuries, time and resources into the game. Yet their joy was full as they left the pitch jubilating and celebrating as HEROES in a strange land.

If only our Government would look into such games and sport activities, and encourage the youths by sponsoring some skillful/talented players out of the country to compete in global games.

Then our world would be easier and the hope of serving just to come home and join the labour market que would reduce gradually. If the likes of Neymar junior, Lukako, Ronaldo, Messi and the rest are earning so much from football today, why wouldn’t our leaders, parents and politicians support every talented youths in the street with the passion for sport? Rather than focusing on training youths to carry arms and weapons, fighting against each other just in the name of our “National Cake” oil money. We should diversify our youth’s interest from politic to sport. Instead of betting so much on online games and players, we too can become the players that others will invest and bet on. “We are gifted, we are talented, and good at what we are doing” all we need is your support to drive politics away from even our sports, local and national games. Let’s fish out the best for our national team, and drive favoritism far from our squad if we must secure team victory at Olympics and Nation’s cup. Today no one recall the glory they earned yet without a medal, nor story to tell the world, it was just a mere “history created, lost and buried”. Above is the picture of the squad that created this history.