Good riddance ... Vuvuzela

Vuvuzela ... what a mouthful! On hearing that word for the first time my militant three-year-old daughter Petra exclaimed: “Uh! Vuvuzela.

Daddy that must be a very wicked animal”. And indeed it is very wicked considering all the trouble it has caused.

I have come across the word vuvuzela, but fleeting alliteracy, that affliction of the schooled urban dweller to overlook common texts, hindered me from examining the term and its meaning, not until my big bros, Dan Esiekpe, a marketing communications guru, rattled me with his text message last Sunday morning.

I imagined that he must have been flustered, if not threatened, by this instrument. Or else, how would you interpret this text: “VUVUZELA ...Reading an article in The Guardian this morning in praise of the vuvuzela as a football supporting device. What has happened to our home-grown talking drum, percussion sticks, maracas and rhythmic songs that gave us globally recognised brand identity in the past? Is this imported vuvuzela not another form of cultural colonisation? God save us.” Vuvuzela is a plastic horn, that makes an irritating sound of an elephant when blown, and it is emblem of South African football sub-culture. After that text, vuvuzela started invading my senses. I began to hear the sound everywhere: on TV drowning out commentaries and causing my flat screen to vibrate to its incessant irritation, on the ever busy Ikorodu Road at night after every match, as if elephants were on a stampede, from balconies by area boys terrorising the neighbourhood. I began to see this feature of oppression being brandished like the official insignia of the U17 FIFA World Cup. Traders, loafers, school children, and even professionals have caught the fever. True, the vuvuzela is everywhere, and it is vexing.

This feeling is not restricted to my big bros alone. FIFA president Sepp Blatter last week, with some subtle diplomacy, gave voice to the call by broadcasters for banning the irksome instrument at next year’s World Cup. But Rauf Ladipo, the President-General of Nigeria Football Supporters Club, did not hide his condemnation of the vuvuzela fever.

“I am totally against this vuvuzela nonsense,” he told a newspaper. “It is not our style of supporting the game. The blaring of vuvuzela is a big distraction even to the players. When you blow vuvuzela, you can’t be said to be supporting any team. To support a team the players must understand your language and what you are saying to urge them on. Vuvuzela is alien to our football culture and we will fight its introduction.” Just as the vuvuzela drowned the sounds of shekere, talking drums, maracas and trumpets, which are the traditional instruments of fanfare used by our supporters’ club during matches, so also has its introduction eclipsed our business initiative.

The sorry side of this vuvuzela fever is that Nigeria is so laid back, so recklessly receptive, and amenable to all sorts of exploiters that even South Africa can confidently pitch its tentacles on our land without fretting! It may well be our metaphysical constitution to be the cannon fodder for other cultures to sprout. Show me any cultural practice existing elsewhere that is not in Nigeria.

And this tells something about our people. For the optimistic social thinker this is a positive sign that Nigeria is a sort of paradise where any human being can find space. A Nigerian sees a heap of sawdust in his backyard and he has found a playground for his children, but the Indian or South African sees this heap and turns it into a money spinner.

What is Nigeria without football? The next good thing about Nigeria is the national solidarity that football engenders amongst its peoples. The South Africans know this, and that is the reason they milk our soft spots.

But the real question for me is: What were our brand managers doing before South Africans came and invaded our space? Why didn’t our sharp business minds think of introducing plastic or electronic shekeres if need be, portable talking drums and convert our mammoth fans into money spinning machines? How I miss the industry of the Igbo man. Where are the Aba boys? Where are the Nnewi manufacturers?

Behind all the talk about cultural colonisation, alien football culture, the bottom line is money. Somebody’s livelihood is being threatened by the vuvuzela.

My Petra said it all: Vuvuzela is a very wicked animal!