Lessons from Demba Ba
It was one of those unfortunate incidents, absolutely bizarre, but it made interesting reading and the story was splashed across the globe. Even the presiding judge in Dowa could not help but crack up in the line of duty as a young man—who was accused of bestiality after he was caught red-handed making love to a goat—gave his mitigation.
Appearing unmoved, the accused asked the court to exercise leniency because he had used a condom and that the act was done with the ‘consent’ of the poor animal, boy! Oh boy!
How about the story of the Chileka man Samuel Mayinga who stunned the world a couple of years back with his confession in court that he deliberately concealed his former wife’s ‘jewels’ through charms so that no other man could have pleasure in them, a situation that led to a new hubby getting increasingly frustrated because he could not locate the ‘target.’
Unfortunately, these are the stories that define the African ethos apart from famine, disease and political unrest degenerating into civil wars. However, that as it maybe, Africa has fireside tales under the baobab and we still have fond memories of how Liberian George Weah took the world by storm in 1995 when he became the first African footballer to be crowned Fifa World Footballer of the Year and who can forget the charming story of a selfless man called Nelson Mandela?
Well, just last week, another African fella called Demba Ba gave me, and I bet millions across the continent, reason to smile when he struck the priceless goal for Chelsea that knocked ‘invincible’ Manchester United out of the FA Cup.
There are lessons that can be picked from Ba’s story, the trials and tribulations of his journey in his career, and how it could all have turned out differently. One of the biggest lessons is that African players have to scale huge obstacles just to make it on the big stage and if Ba did not have a big heart, he could easily have given up when he was told he was not good enough at Lyon, Auxerre and Barnsley.
Ba’s fascinating tale tells us that African players need much more than their mere talents, for them to make the breakthrough and hopefully the boys from Surestream Academy, who are set to tour United Kingdom shortly for a series of friendlies, can draw a lot of inspiration from him. Glory be to God! Uloliwe.. uloliwe wayidudula hi..nang’esiza! [the train is pushing!]
