It is one thing to know that a thing is, it is another to know what it is and why it is. A knowledgeable person may know that something is, but it takes a wise person to know what it is and why it is. To say that our darling Club is on par with her contemporaries is to read from an old news bulletin.
All is not well outside the organization, which may have adverse consequences within. But this, not a new problem that has crept up all of a sudden. In a club with a rich history of reckless malicious falsehoods powered by sentiments, egoism and self-aggrandisement. We must be gripped by the truth that selfishness is suicidal, therefore, hatred, tribalism, godfatherism, nepotism and profligate corruption must genuinely stop, beginning with our individual selves.
Selfish interest is a symptom of a deeper problem. Let us try and unearth the cause[s] of the impoverishment of Kwara United.
The club is not just turned an intermittent visitor in the Elite Class, [Premiership] because of the absence of good and dedicated players, but because of the greed of few. Kwara United are not just being made to look ordinary, but because of pervasive mental laziness, an obstinate refusal to put our God-given intellect and affluence to positive use so as to improve our personal and collective standard in sports.
The Club is impoverished because, despite our loud love lost for the club, our common love for the Club is not founded on unalloyed passion but coated with values.
Our darling Club, Kwara United is where it is because immorality has banished prosperity in a land where moles mistake immunity for impunity or where slanderers damage the image of the club with impunity. The land where excellence is not rewarded, and where cronyism reigns supreme.
One of the absurd phenomenon fervently pursued by those that pray for the failure of the club is the concept of failure for whoever is at the helm of affairs. This is done in an ingenious way through which the despot sought to promote anything negative about the club in a way of promoting themselves and companions in the business of demolishing a vibrant club for selfish reasons. If these personalities with Jekyll and Hyde syndrome know that when the bird flies it must come to the roost, they must know they do not need to seek failure for the club. But experience has taught me that such an act is combustible.
William Shakespeare in Hamlet says, ‘This above all: to thine own self be true’… You make a choice and your answer for the consequences of your choice.
My worry is the conspiracy of silence, the ignorance, the treachery and the stupid illusion that one day we will get it right; yet we substitute indulgence for discipline. Alas, decency is dead, exigency is sick, only come-what-may is in good shape.
It is high time we seek to define and build a trajectory that will extract our darling team from stagnation to development.
Yesterday it was Prince Oladimeji Thompson/Coach Ashifat Sulyman, Coach Ashifat Sulyman/Coach Taofeeq Babatunde. Today, it is Mr Kumbi Titiloye/Coach Abdullahi Biffo, Coach Abdullahi Biffo/Coach Ashifat Sulyman. Kwara United remains yesterday, today and tomorrow. Who knows who occupies the seat tomorrow? Why do I need to seek failure for those there today?
Kwara United, the centre of gravity, must always hold, any other force or forces must be seen as infinitesimal, which should be played along with.
Like it or lump it, the idea of individual façade is no more than a house of cards – always a kick away from falling apart. By all accounts, love lost for the club must reign supreme. The beginning of lunacy is doing something over and over again expecting a different result.
It is an incontrovertible statement that you and I are part of the problems of the club, therefore, we have to bury our hatchets and support the team to her potential. We should stop confusing motion for progress.
Enough of their negative intrigue which they have consistently made fools of most of us, antagonizing us against each other in a well known ‘divide and rule’ manner for their selfish interest to milk on the human tragedy for their personal gain. Now it should be KWARA UNITED, a unifying name for a unifying GAME.
For the people to put their weight behind the club, they must have high stakes in the preservation of great passion and unalloyed love for the club and not an individual.
Therefore, coaches, at this point in time must become truly passionate about their clubs mission because their enthusiasm and commitment are needed to inspire commitment to the cause and similar passion in their coaching and technical crew, supporters, fans, followers and spectators. People expect the top echelon of the club [if not everyone else] to embody the mission and values of the club. They want them to be the example, an epitome of the reality of the club mission statement. If the leader is not passionate about the mission, why should anyone else be?
Pertinent for us to know that the task ahead of us is enormous but that is the more reason we are called to serve and support wholeheartedly as the case may be.
Is it not true that many of the things that we automatically rule out as impossible because they look scary at a glance, turn out to be just difficult possibilities? Indeed there are challenges ahead but with the support of everyone, I mean every one of us, the sky shall be the limit.
Kwara United with a massive fan base, impressive turn out in a beautiful Stadium with rousing dominance of unalloyed support and intimidating chants and drums; many are confident that the Harmony Boys could be a considerable force of the North Central.
This is a chance to show everyone that the claims were far from spurious, in what the papers were imaginatively calling it the ‘Group of Death’. Through swing and stays, the “pandoro” fruit would mature.
To rank bosses based on their achievements is not an easy task, then: with so many nuances to take into consideration, there is no straightforward way to define the success of our darling club at this point in time rather than being solidly behind the two that God has ordained to be at the helm of affairs at the moment. Taking Kwara United back to the premiership is the pinnacle – so leading our darling team to new heights should be considered a collective effort. The power of absurdity should be permanently and continuously be looked with a stern countenance.
With our unalloyed support, the duo of Coach Abdullahi Biffo and Coach Ashifat Sulyman [Brazil] will certainly translate their individual abilities into remarkable success for our darling team. We must give them maximum support, both on and off the field of play.
One of the wise sayings that have repeatedly been drummed into the ears of Kwara United followers, lovers and stakeholders because of the way the club is being recklessly ruled by the so-called ‘technocrats’, is the one that says that those who refuse to learn from history are bound to repeat its most stupid errors.
Unequivocally, they will be doing those in society far more sophisticated than the ones in which those errors were first committed, and therefore bound to bring about more disastrous consequences. This is why all who know these wisdom inspiring histories must be quick to inform and/or circulate them to all.
Another wise saying that is worth repeating, and doing so quite loudly so that all may hear and heed it. Is it not a well-known fact, that in the history of man; no one has ever succeeded in deceiving all the people all the time?
Doing this with all seriousness will surely avert the curse that ‘each year had led from bad to worse’ which people see as a common aphorism.
By and large, all the chairmen, sole administrators, and general manager, past, present and future, whether they hold any office now or not, must learn and begin to speak positively of each other, support and promote what is good in what each of them had done, is doing or proposes to do: so that they may then be able to believably critically criticize and stop or, at least, reduce the wrong or indeed evil ones thereof.
May God open our eyes to read between the lines, open our inner mind for easy comprehension and assimilation, above all enabled us to do the right thing.
We Are United In Cheering!
Akinola Francis Gbenga
Club Psychologist
