BY SEGUN OLUWALANA
To understand Odion Jude Ighalo’s rise to limelight, you have to understand that all fairy tales are inspired by true events.
Ighalo started from the slums of Ajegunle in Lagos, his life was the typical young Nigerian with big dreams and no money to achieve them. You see, Ighalo’s story seemed doomed from the very beginning, but there is a twist to this story, a story of faith over talent according to the new Red devil.
When it was announced that Ighalo was signed by Manchester United, the club of his childhood dreams, the entire population of Nigerian football fans leaped for joy! Social media was abuzz, from the streets of twitter to the suburbs of Facebook and the estates of Instagram, it was truly a memorable moment.
Everyone wanted to associate with Ighalo, Nigerians and other Africans alike and why not? Ighalo is the first Nigerian to play for Manchester United which is no easy feat on its own, some say United is akin to the Yale of football and not just anyone goes to Yale.
One should not forget that, he was playing for the club “Shanghai Greenland Shenhua’’ and at 30 years old, was thought to have been slowly losing relevance. To say no one saw the transfer coming is an understatement, if he had mentioned this a few months ago, he would have been mocked for believing in such a fairytale.
But the fairytale did happen and so did the derision.
Ighalo was criticized from all angles when he attributed his success to Favor, just to soothe feathers, he rephrased his tweet saying, “Labour is better than favour, are we okay now?”
This humble man whose current goal scoring streak in just three starts has proven that Labour is not enough but Favour fortunes those brave enough to persevere.
