Last week, the world’s football community stood still when news of the demise of Nigeria’s ex-captain and former coach, Stephen Keshi, found its way to social media. Few days later, we also heard of the demise of another Nigerian coach, Amodu Shuaibu. As expected, everyone began to say sweet things about the ex-international – just like they did when Muhammad Ali died. But a tweet by ace comedian, Ali Baba, got me thinking.
According to him, Keshi had to die before he was commended by everyone. To a large extent, I think Ali Baba was right. I remember when we were all clamoring for his sack the last time he coached the Super Eagles. In support of the citizens though, being a legend doesn’t mean someone would not be criticized. Real legends like Ali had it rough with the people – he was described as a racist and he got into trouble for refusing the fight for USA. But we can all agree that he was a legend.
For Keshi, he helped Nigeria to cling the Nations Cup twice – as the captain and as head coach. No one else in Nigeria has been able to do that. As far as history is concerned, his feat was legendary. It is somehow similar to Hillary Clinton’s ability to break the glass ceiling when she emerged as the first female to be the presidential candidate of a major American political party.
Even though many Americans don’t appreciate this feat yet, she has been able to carve her name in history. Which means that as far as history is concerned, she is a legend – so is Keshi, so is Amodu.
Other legendary developments recorded last week included the unveiling of the fast computer in Africa, Uber’s official launch in Accra, and Amplify’s attempt to simplify recurrent payment in Nigeria. Hiro Mashita also developed interest in Nigeria’s startup ecosystem while Arnergy is introducing pay-as-you-go solar rental systems in Nigeria. Ride share platform, GoMyAfrica, also clocked one this week while the giant in the space, Uber this week said Nigeria is leading the way in promoting ridesharing in Africa.
On the other hand, some not-so-good developments were recorded last week. We reported that tablets are getting less popular, the use of social media app is declining globally, Singapore is cutting public internet access, while several countries are still censoring the internet in the twenty-first century.
Despite these ups and downs, history is the best to determine how future generations will describe the actions we are making today; it is not our job to determine who is a legend, it is history’s.
Happy new week from all of us at Innovation Village.
