June 17, 2026
Okoh Aihe
Nigeria is not at the FIFA World Cup 2026 holding in Mexico, Canada and the United States. This is already well known because failure cannot easily be assuaged with momentary exhilaration or euphoric response to a mundial that has already earned the status of the biggest footballing event ever, 48 national teams playing in three countries.
But Nigerians are at the World Cup, playing for big and even small countries that have put their houses in order and can lay claim to a slice of global pride as nations that push their best forward instead of fetid ethnicisation of life. Nigerians are scoring goals for other nations while the few who understand the meaning of national pride at home are rueing a moment of greatness that should have been.
Marshall McLuhan couldn’t be more correct when, in 1964, he first sketched the concept of the global village in his essay, Understanding Media, The Extensions of Man, forecasting the period a combination of electronic technologies would homogenise the world and make them share actions and activities in real time. At the time, there was no Internet. Television was going through evolutionary stages. And there were no mobile phones in the hands of even the underaged to stoke the firestorm of social media and make the elderly green-eyed.
