By Segun Odegbami
It is a long, must-read!
1976 – a year like no other in my sports life!
After hovering over the city of Peking (now Beijing) for a long time our plane finally landed almost at midnight. With stops in 4 cities since we departed Lagos on July 26, 1976, we had been airborne for a total of 27 hours.
The Ethiopian Airline aircraft had long stops in Khartoum, Addis Abba, New Delhi and Bangkok. As a result of sitting for long hours in the very cramped seats of the Boeing 707 aircraft, our bodies were weary, legs heavy as lead, and ears blocked from the steady drone of the engines of the first-generation jumbo jet.
There was no onboard entertainment of any kind to break the monotony of our exhausted conversations. No music and no television. In today’s world, that would be unthinkable!
As we hung over the skies of Peking, the scenery below was eerie – a huge megapolis covered in semi darkness, not the constellation of bright lights from various sources that usually announced arrival to a large city at night.
This particular night was different. Peking was in semi darkness for a reason. As we approached the airport, there wasn’t even the usual pre-landing announcement. Only the changing noises of the plane’s engines as it landed ‘announced’ our arrival.
Our aircraft landed with a heavy thud, braked too fast on the runway, and taxied over unusual bumps to the arrival area, as we watched a few officials approaching the aircraft in the semi darkness. We sensed that something was not right when we were kept in the aircraft waiting for almost an hour with the engines turned off.
Ground staff and some uniformed ground stewards boarded the aircraft and served us cups of hot green tea without sugar. The animated conversation amongst the crew and ground staff was in Mandarin.
Eventually, we alighted the aircraft and were led to the arrival hall where more officials and security men gathered and elongated our suspense.
What was certain was that all was not well. The environment was pregnant. There was a certain restlessness in the air, but we were too tired to be bothered by whispering voices.
Finally, one Nigerian official appeared from ‘heaven’. We learnt later that he was one of the first three persons to be appointed and sent as envoys to China. Through him we finally got to know the frightening situation.
As our aircraft was approaching Peking airport, our pilot had been told to divert the plane elsewhere to land. Our plane was low on fuel. The pilot could not go elsewhere. The plane had to land or risk running out of fuel. It did in the middle of a catastrophic natural disaster measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale.
A major earthquake was happening in the heart of China and the destruction extended to most parts of China, knocking down structures even far away from Tangshan, the epicenter. It affected the capital city, Peking.
It turned out to be the worst and most devastating earthquake in the country’s history and in the world that year. Between 240,000 and 330,000 people were being buried in rubble even as our aircraft hovered over Peking.
The Chinese government officials were confused about what to do with us, members of the national football team of Nigeria, the Green Eagles. We were on a historic first visit by a Black or African team to China. We were billed to play several friendship matches all over China.
What happened to us later that night was an odyssey of almost four hours driving in a bus into town through the streets of Peking with its entire population outdoors taking refuge from homes that had become graves. There was a total absence of cars. Only a few ambulances could be seen crawling through rubbles and the sea of humanity, their sirens blaring occasionally. Only bicycles and pushcarts were everywhere.
As quickly as we were checked into a hotel, we were quickly ‘unchecked’ again an hour later. Earth tremors had continued and our safety could not be guaranteed. We were hurriedly driven back to the airport, another long journey through the densest sea of humans I had ever seen in my life. It was a scene straight out of ‘the last days’, a movie I believe I must have watched in my youth, about Armageddon, or Apocalypse!
Our hearts were in our mouths throughout the journey. No one was sure the earthquake was over. There were still mild tremors that we felt from time to time.
The squad was returned to the airport after 4 hours of a pensive uncertainty. We were huddled on board an aircraft that was obviously China-made. The interior was all metal without any cushions of comfort. At that point, comfortability didn’t matter.
The good news was that the plane left the tarmac at all. We were served several rounds of green tea through the long trip, and delivered safely to the city of Shanghai in the northern part of China that was untouched by the earthquake.
The question on my mind was ‘what were we doing in China (of all places at that time)? It was too soon after the plan of being bundled out of the Olympic Games Village in Canada.
We landed in Shanghai on July 29, 1976!
13 days earlier, on July 16, Nigeria, along with 28 other countries had been expelled and sent packing from Montreal, Canada, by the International Olympic Committee.
The Nigerian contingent of athletes in 5 sports had returned to Lagos, Nigeria, on July 17.
On July 27, the National football team were packaged for a diplomatic mission to China.
The Green Eagles became the pawns in the game between the West and the communist East in the global War of Civilizations.
Nigeria led the Frontline States in Africa in the fight for the Independence of several southern African countries and against the scourge of Apartheid in South Africa. Apartheid had reared its head again in June of 1976, on the eve of the Olympics, in the Soweto killings of young South African students. That ignited the crisis that led to the threat of a boycott of the Olympics, and that eventual expulsion of all the athletes from 29 countries (27 from Africa) from the Games!
The world was in crisis and sport had been weaponised.
Once again, with the trip to China, the Green Eagles became innocent victims of geopolitics. The trip was enrobed as some form of compensation for the players missing out of becoming Olympians. The players were told to consider the trip to the Far East a holiday designed to foster a new relationship with China.
Unfortunately, compensation intentions turned to near-catastrophic nightmare!
That was 50 years ago.
As I am scripting this now, I can still feel the chill of our the narrow ‘escape’ all over again.
We were very lucky to have arrived Peking a few minutes after one of the worst natural disasters in history.
When we returned to Nigeria three weeks later, after a wonderful experience around some Northern China towns, it was with great relief, invaluable experiences and fresh appreciation of life, its fragility, its uncertainties, its beauty, opportunities beneath all circumstances and the interconnectivity of everything in human existence.
1976 became a year like no other, a watershed of events of an unusual dimension that impacted my life profoundly and changed the world in my humble eyes. The Tangshan Earthquake was only one of such incident that shaped the rest of 1976, a year in my life like no other!
