By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
Mind games can be defined as psychological tactics used to manipulate others for an advantage.
It is boldly written in history and current affairs that mind games have been put to much effect to defeat many people, and ruin empires.
Play me no mind games, for it is not in my constitution to succumb to the time-tested waster of great projects and profiles.
Let’s start from sports, in fact English football that has all but re-colonized Nigeria and Nigerians in recent years.
The just concluded Carabao Cup final in England in which Manchester City beat Arsenal FC 2-0 to lift the coveted trophy was a classic case of using mind games to lure an opponent into defeat.
In his press conference before the match, Man City manager Pep Guardiola made bold to stress that he would be fielding his second choice goalkeeper, James Trafford, who had been manning the post in the less-fancied earlier cup matches in place of the first choice goalie Gianluigi Donnarumma.
The English press, following the mind games of Guardiola, had to ask Arsenal manager, Mikel Arteta, the goalkeeper he would be fielding for the match.
Arteta politely told the press that the goalkeeper he would field should be seen on the match-day team list, and he ended up fielding the second choice goal tender Kepa Arrizabalaga, instead of the first choice David Raya.
My point is that even if Arteta had been fielding Kepa Arrizabalaga in the preceding cup matches he ought not to have followed Pep Guardiola’s lead in matching second choice with second choice, especially as Arsenal has not won a title in five years.
There is no place for sentiment in this matter – use your best team no matter what any blighter preaches through the use of mind games!
Some doubting Thomas out there may raise some issues against my deposition, but Man City won the match, and Kepa Arrizabalaga took the flak!
Let’s make progress by upping the ante on the sphere of mind games and the rise and fall of empires.
It’s cool by me to do the reminder of raising the issue on the mind games as per showing our ancestors the looking-glass, and then getting rewarded with the sale into slavery of black brothers and sisters!
Back in secondary school, we read the so-called history of West Africa in which all the empires bare none – Ancient Ghana, Mali and Songhai – bought the mind games of going to Mecca, only to have their empires collapse thereafter.
Emperor Mansa Musa of Mali travelled to Mecca ostensibly to undertake the hajj in 1324-1325 AD but the journey ended up as a crass demonstration of power, wealth, and profligacy.
The empire collapsed after the lavish pilgrimage – a tear for Emperor Mansa Musa!
The French writer Andre Gide, author of The Immoralist, made the famous plea: “Please do not understand me too quickly.”
I am here also making such a plea when I recall that the fire-eating Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon was lured to make the trip to Mecca before the Major-General Muhammadu Buhari military regime was overthrown.
The overthrowing regime of Military President General Ibrahim Babangida swallowed the mind games of then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Queen Elizabeth on the efficacy of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), and being treated to a royal visit to Buckingham Palace, complete with garlanded horses and crimson-festooned horse-riders.
After the party in Britain for Babangida and his SAP brigade, everything in Nigeria has been on a downward spin ever since.
Now the price of a loaf of bread in Nigeria is costlier than a brand new car back in time, no thanks to succumbing to mind games.
No one should therefore blame me for smelling a rat when King Charles III invited President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for royal soirees in Britain.
As a good student of mind games, I am not amused at all that what Nigeria gained from the much-ballyhooed royal visit is the guarantee of the return of all illegal immigrants and criminals to Nigeria.
The number of City Boys will definitely swell with this mass return!
Nobody in Nigeria has asked Britain if she had signed treaties with other countries to return their own illegal immigrants and ill-assorted crooks.
Why only Nigeria, if this is not stone-cold racism?
But our leaders signed up, led on by the mind games of the mother country.
Also, the signing of 746 pounds sterling deal to refurbish Apapa and Tin Can ports can be seen as fitting to the mind games manipulation of a hapless country ensnared in debt trap peonage.
Why take a loan to refurbish two ports in Lagos when the roads leading to them can no longer contain the enormous loads?
There is still the street lingo: “Monkey see, monkey do!”
If a king invites one to jump, one can only ask: “How high?”
Mind games whether played on the football field in the match between Arsenal and Man City or in the imperial columns of Buckingham palace can only lead to manipulative loss.
The catch is that the bamboozled Nigerian leaders are asking their bootlicker legion of court-jesters to lead the sing-song of hollering that they actually won the match!
It’s not today that empires started collapsing after lavish pilgrimages…
Uzor Maxim Uzoatu is a renowned poet, journalist and author
