Football Help Me Cope: How I Survive the Hard Times In Nigeria

The difficulty to survive each day in a country like Nigeria help me discover what it is to love football.

Learn the Survival Strategies of a Fellow Football Fan In Nigeria - written by Justin Abiam, a guest blogger from Lagos Nigeria.

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- Football is the Opium of the masses. Where I cannot find anything to look forward to,  but the next Premier league or champions league game will just occupy my mind all day. The only thing that gives me joy.

- Living in Hell, Football makes me feel heaven. In one whole night I may be in cloud seven after a great match, until reality hits me once again the next morning.

You see, the government has failed us! No job, no welfare package and the politicians in power are meddling with our lives. You hear these figures looted or allowances paid these senators for caricature sitting comedians, you just wonder at the level of injustice.

The school system has failed us. They say we were taught subjects and courses that are no longer relevant to our day. So most graduates produced through the school system becomes largely uunemployable...over 80 million young people rumming the streets without any meaningful  source of livelihood.

The moral fabric have been largely compromised, looters, fraudsters are paraded like stars and more youngsters are taking to online fraud and ritual killings, amidst tribal and religious conflicts.

People are so frustrated some jump over the third mainland bridge to commit sucide, far better than sucide bombers that dethonate bombs in open markets, killing themselves and score of others. The Boko haram iinsurgency killing people in their hundreds of thousands. This is the country we find ourselves.

People are so bitter, only football extend the hand of friendship, offering moments of joy in such a hostile country like ours.

Somehow, I have to survive!
Every morning, I put on my Chelsea jersey and go to the newspaper vendors, where free readers gather to argue and analyse the previous as well as upcoming games. I had to start supporting Chelsea, not because they are my favorite team, but because it is the team the NURTW road transport works and garage ''agberos' support.  We gather at the free readers together and after the day's argument I get handouts, N500 or N1k to survive for the day. Do I hear you say it is "corporate begging?" No, I rather would say it is "fandom goodwill."

We gather again in the evening, at the viewing center or sports bar close by, the best moments of my day. We watch the game, argue and argue...we shout, leap for joy, but feel bad and low when our favorite team is loosing.  And fight do broke out in such times chelsea are loosing to rivals like Arsenal or Man-u, that equally has large number of supporters in Nigeria too.

In such rivalry games when Chelsea win, drinks and pepper soup flowed freely...and you can eat and drink to your fill. They say "awoof they run belle."

You can't imagine it,  I am so engrossed in football that the agberos nicknamed me ''Chelsea." so as I walk along the road you hear people hailing me. "up Chelsea!"

My overt obsession with the round-ball game didn’t go down too well with everyone, and one particularly confrontational neighbor's question has stuck with me. “Does your life revolve around football?”

I don’t recall my response, but if he should ask me again now – and I won’t feel bad in answering with an emphatic "Yes!"

When you are a football fan you develop the heart of friendship and connect better with people in your neighborhood.

I know so many people in Nigeria suffer from mental illness... chronic depression that came through undaunted hardship, which may have metamorphed into Schezophenia. That's why you see so many irrational behaviors on our streets today. A situation being a football fan can help you overcome.

You just feel it, when we watch football, momentarily all the troubles are gone, tribal, religious and political sentiments suddenly desolves. There's no more APC and PDP, Ibo or Yoruba, Christian nor Muslim. As the game climaxes, the class thing disappear, the poor could freely huge the rich without being snobbed. I think football is so powerful and everyone should a football fan!