The Truth About the Nigeria 🇳🇬 Vs India 🇮🇳 99-1 football Match they told us while growing up 😊
Did it really happen?
In one way or the other, almost every Nigerian has heard of the mythical match between India Vs Nigeria that ended 99 goals to 1 with India being victorious. Before the advent of the internet, this story successfully thrived among Nigerians but with the emergence of the internet and easy access to social media, the truth behind the India Vs Nigeria 99-1 match was revealed.
Though there are different accounts of the match, but they all have the following in common:
1.That the match ended with India scoring 99 goals and Nigeria scoring just one goal.
2. That Nigerians were unable to kick the ball because the football kept turning to a lion which scared them away.
3. That Indians later agreed that if Nigeria could score one goal, they would concede defeat.
4. That Samuel Okwaraji scored the winning goal and lost his life in the process because the ball turned into stone as he was about to kick it.
5. That FIFA banned India from soccer because they used juju (black magic) in that match.
Why did people believe the India Vs Nigeria 99-1 match story?
Even with the absence of the internet back then, this kind of claims should be immediately recognized as lies, the kind of lies they call “big fat lies”. But most people like to acknowledge this story as true with the fact that no one has ever seen India play in an International Football Match. Since no one actually saw India participate in most international soccer games, this gave a little credence to the story. Another reason this lie thrived for long was that credible information was not easily accessible in Nigeria unlike now that even a 4-year-old child can debunk false claims within minutes with the help of Google.
This Nigeria Vs India match story would have been fabricated by one community elder to children during an evening gathering.
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