Crazy stat:
Since Blue Co's take over, Chelsea have never a won a game of football against Arsenal which means this crop of players have never played on the winning side:
Raheem Sterling
Kalidou Koulibaly
Marc Cucurella
Wesley Fofana
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
Denis Zakaria
Carney Chukwuemeka
Cesare Casadei
Gabriel Slonina
Omari Hutchinson
Enzo Fernandez
Mykhailo Mudryk
Benoit Badiashile
Noni Madueke
David Datro Fofana
Andrey Santos
Christopher Nkunku
Nicolas Jackson
Moises Caicedo
Romeo Lavia
Cole Palmer
Axel Disasi
Robert Sanchez
Lesley Ugochukwu
Malo Gusto
Angelo Gabriel
Diego Moreira
Deivid Washington
Djordje Petrovic
Joao Felix
Tosin Adarabioyo
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall
Pedro Neto
Filip Jorgensen
Renato Veiga
Marc Guiu
Omari Kellyman
Aaron Anselmino
Caleb Wiley
Joao Pedro
Estevao Willian
Liam Delap
Kendry Paez
This so much shows how people have no sense of propriety and opinion becomes fluid when money and a stupendous amount of it are involved. Material success creates this halo effect where people infer wisdom or moral approval from financial outcomes.
The values you hold and second-order effect of your actions mean nothing to Nigerians provided you can demonstrate a lavish lifestyle. And what’s crazy is that we call it grace.
Our idea of grace is whoever ends up having money or fame or both and everything questionable be overlooked. Nigerians associating Grace with money is very problematic for me because I know the church is complicit.
Walaikum Salam my sister. I am happy you asked for clarification.
For we to properly understand this, we have to look at the world the way it was, not the way it is today. Because, if we judge ancient realities using our modern definitions, we will miss the profound fairness Islam introduced.
Let me make you understand…
Before Islam, the global standard for prisoners of war was brutal. If you look at the Roman or Persian empires, surviving women from conquered nations were treated as literal objects. I mean they were treated as worthless objects.
In Rome for instance, captives were thrown into mass brothels, worked to death, or sold for entertainment. Women were spoils of war with zero legal protection or human dignity. This was the world Islam was born into.
If we understand the above, it’s clear that Islam did not invent this system. It met it on ground. The world was brutal.
And instead of joining them, It immediately moved to dismantle its brutality. Instead of throwing war captives into prisons or camps where they would face starvation and mass abuse, Islamic law mandated integration.
This integration is rooted in the concept known as Huquq al-Mamluk (the rights of dependents). The Prophet (peace be upon him) explicitly called them your brothers and mandated a strict rule.
What is the rule? That they must be fed the food the family eats and clothed with the clothes the family wears.
After this, the next problem Islam solved for them is the protection of their dignity. The Quran brought a revolutionary command in Surah An-Nur, verse 33, when it stated:
وَلَا تُكْرِهُوا فَتَيَاتِكُمْ عَلَى الْبِغَاءِ إِنْ أَرَدْنَ تَحَصُّنًا لِّتَبْتَغُوا عَرَضَ الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا
"And do not compel your slave girls to prostitution, if they desire chastity, to seek the temporary interests of worldly life."
In plain words, this verse destroyed the ancient sex trade. Masters used to force captive women to sleep with men to make money for the household. Islam outlawed this completely.
Instead, it restricted intimacy solely to the head of the household. Mind you, this was not about exploiting them. It was about creating a strict boundary of financial responsibility, exclusivity, and protection. It stopped them from being passed around and abused by the masses.
The most beautiful part of this framework is how it was designed to phase out naturally. Islam created a system of Ummul-walad.
What does this mean? It is a one way street to freedom. If a captive woman bore a child for the master, her status is upgraded instantly. She will be known as the Mother of the Child (Ummul-walad).
From that moment, she could never be sold or given away. And the moment the master passed away, she became a completely free woman.
Mind you, her child won’t be a slave. The child is born completely free, and will carry the same legitimate rights and inheritance as a child born to a free wife. There was zero discrimination.
When you look at it analytically, Islam took a dark reality of ancient warfare and imposed a system of care, rights, and gradual freedom that the rest of the world took centuries to even think about.
Allah knows best.
This was exactly how Nigerian accents sounded until we all started wanting to sound like the British and Americans.
This was Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka in 1964
I have a young friend (from Offa) here who got admission into Stanford about four years ago and was running around to raise funds as it was only partly funded.
He submitted a letter to Governor AA for financial support. Government protocols and all that delayed the approval process.
He got the number of the governor directly and chatted him up and shared a copy of the letter on Whatsapp.
Shockingly, the governor responded and within a few days, he got dollar equivalent of N15m paid to him.
When he narrated it to me, I was surprised.
He is doing very well after his Stanford program now and still says hello to the governor once in a while. Surprised at such responsiveness to a private citizen.