They might not admit it, but the Libyan authorities must be regretting their actions of the last two days.
Surely, they were not expecting the kind of global blowback that has followed their deliberately barbaric treatment of the Super Eagles of Nigeria contingent for an Africa Cup of Nations qualifying match.
Apparently, all they wanted to do was exact a little (misguided) vengeance after their national team captain, Faisal Al-Badri, exaggerated what they went through on their trip to Nigeria last week.
Al-Badri claimed they were mistreated by the Nigerian authorities after their plane landed in Port Harcourt instead of Uyo.
They were made to spend three hours in Port Harcourt before proceeding by land to Uyo three hours away.
On the way to Uyo, they experienced police and military checkpoints as well as some extortion from civilians, a situation any Nigerian travelling in that region is used to.
Al-Badri sought ‘reciprocity’ from his people when the Nigerians would arrive for the reverse fixture just days later.
He got much more than he bargained for.
Despite the NFF’s explanation, with evidence, that the Libya FA screwed up their own preparations with the flight arrangement, the North Africans still had their knives out, thirsty for revenge.
The Libyan delegation could have flown from Port Harcourt to Uyo but, according to the NFF, they were penny-pinching and did not want to pay the additional charges. So, taking the uncomfortable road trip was the choice they made.
The Nigerian contingent were not given any choice in Libya; their hands were tied.
Generally, travelling for away matches in Africa comes with its unpalatable baggage, as the hosts deploy all kinds of unwholesome strategies to gain mental and physical advantages.
Noise at the hotel, intimidation, transportation hitches, lasers pointed at the goalkeeper to distract him, and some other shenanigans are commonplace, all filed under ‘dark arts’, but not bad enough to attract CAF sanctions.
North Africans are notorious for these things, but Sunday and Monday’s plot by Libya was beyond ‘dark arts’. It was downright sinister.
They went beyond vengeance and a quest for unfair advantage to actually put the lives of Nigerian players and officials in real danger.
The Tunisian pilot of the ValueJet flight that took the Super Eagles to Libya said they were already descending into Benghazi when they were instructed to reroute and head to Al Abraq.
That indeed was not even the real problem. It was the fact that Al Abraq did not have the proper equipment for safe landing at night, and the plane was running low on fuel.
According to the pilot, he became familiar with the airport while working with a Tunisian company years ago, and that was what made the landing safe.
Even then, he admitted that it was very difficult to land the plane, and any small error could have led to unimaginable disaster.
Till date, Zambians are mourning an entire generation of footballers who got killed in a plane crash in 1993 as they prepared for the 1994 AFCON.
Thankfully, a similar tragedy was avoided on Sunday night and the Super Eagles returned home in one piece.
It caused serious inconvenience to the Nigerian contingent and led to a rare boycott of an important match, but Libya’s evil pettiness could have caused much more damage.
What Libya was obviously trying to do was land a psychological blow on the much more talented Super Eagles before the match.
It ended up being a lot worse than that as the Nigerian delegation spent about 20 hours in a rundown, abandoned airport in the middle of nowhere.
Professional footballers worth millions in hard currency were reduced to sleeping on uncomfortable airport benches with no food or refreshments, and fearing for their safety.
The beginning of the ordeal was on Sunday night, therefore it did not draw too much attention and Libya would have got away with it if they had made amends in the morning and allowed the Nigerians to fly to Benghazi.
However, they continued their cruelty into the morning and that was how the world woke up and got involved.
Nigeria’s sports minister John Enoh, the country’s mission in Libya and even President Bola Tinubu all fired salvos at Libya as the situation almost became a full-blown diplomatic row.
Continental and global concerns were then raised.
CAF described the situation as ‘unacceptable and disturbing’, some African football legends condemned Libya, and global professional footballer’s union FIFPRO advocated, in strong language, for the safety of the Super Eagles.
Libya tried to blame the whole saga on ‘miscommunication’ and attempted to draw attention to their claims that they were not treated well in Nigeria, but the world had taken Nigeria’s side.
Libya was the enemy of the people and they had no way of changing that opinion, not after what the whole world saw.
Incidentally, this is not the first time a Nigerian team would suffer in Libya.
Within the last few years, there have been two ugly incidents in Libya involving Nigerian clubs travelling there for CAF competitions.
Enyimba were forced to sleep in the airport for over 24 hours after their Libyan opponents Al Ittihad changed the venue of their match without communicating with the Nigerians.
Rivers United, when they went to play Al Nasr Benghazi in Libya, had to train in darkness as the lights at the training ground were switched off.
This latest bit of cruelty could be the proverbial straw to break Libya’s back.
If there is any good to come out of this, maybe it is the pivotal moment that will force CAF to put its foot down and make a scapegoat of Libya by applying severe sanctions.
