When Trophies Feed, but Salaries Starve

Just some weeks ago, our women’s national football team won the WAR ON — no, not an actual war, but in this country, sport is the only battle the government seems eager to fight. They returned home triumphant, lifted high on the shoulders of a grateful nation, and were promptly rewarded with fat cheques, gifts, and promises that for once didn’t arrive in an IOU¹ envelope.

But there was a small, inconvenient detail. Some of the foreign-bred players, perhaps not yet fully trained in the art of Nigerian silence, casually revealed that the team was still owed arrears from previous national duties. Translation: you can sweat, bleed, and wear the green and white until the jersey smells like history itself, but unless you bring home a trophy, your payment is negotiable.

 

The irony? On the very Monday their lavish rewards were announced, nurses were on strike. Somewhere in the country, a doctor friend of mine online made it known that they were supposed to perform three major surgeries — surgeries whose prognosis could have been better if performed earlier — but the strike meant theatre doors stayed shut. The patients? Well, they didn’t get televised victory parades or presidential handshakes.

A few weeks later, the women’s basketball team won their championship as well, prompting another shower of rewards and another public display of generosity. Now, here’s the question: what is it about our government that makes them so reluctant to pay ordinary workers fair wages? Not just health workers — teachers, civil servants, engineers, the very people whose labour keeps the country functional. Must you win an international medal before your salary becomes a priority?

We live in a place where a footballer’s bonus can feed a family for years, but a nurse’s monthly pay can barely feed a family’s goats. Where a player’s gold medal will get them a handshake from the president, but a nurse saving lives will get… a handshake from their landlord, asking when they’ll pay the rent.

Politicians, of course, are immune to these struggles. Their paychecks arrive on time, padded with allowances so generous that even their allowances have allowances. They take home millions monthly for the sacred duty of “representing us,” which often seems to mean appearing in public to clap when athletes win trophies.

So maybe the solution is simple. Forget degrees. Forget professional licenses. If you want to survive in Nigeria, quit your job, pick up a sport (football, basketball), and start practising your victory dance. Your hospital may collapse, your classrooms may empty, your power grid may flicker like a candle in the wind , but as long as we’re bringing home trophies, the country will keep smiling through the pain.

Until then, welcome to the dystopian Nigeria: a place where goals score cash, and lives… well, lives can wait for the next budget cycle.

1. IOU - (I Owe You) a paper that has on it the letters IOU, a stated sum, and a signature and that is given as an acknowledgment of debt {Merriam Webster Online Dictionary}

by Muhammad O.S