NAIROBI, Kenya, March 21- A full-scale Twitter war erupted between Kenyan and their Nigerian counterparts over the apparent maltreatment of Harambee Stars in Lagoa ahead of Saturday’s 2014 World Cup qualifier in Calabar.
The hash-tags #SomeonetellNigeria and #SomeonetellKenya set worldwide trends as Kenyans vented on the social media platform to castigate the reception their national team received upon arrival in Lagos.
It came as Football Kenya Federation (FKF) whose failure to adequately plan for the trip led to the farcical welcome Stars were accorded confirmed Adel Amrouche’s charges had finally landed in the port city of Calabar and had been lodged into a five-star hotel.
“The Nigeria Football Federation was instructed by FIFA Security Officer assigned for the match Mr Beckles Patrick from Barbados that they have breached the hosting arrangements.
“After his intervention the team boarded the Charter flight for the one hour 5 minutes from Lagos and Calabar. The Nigeria football authorities were on hand to receive the team and usher them in to the five-star Channel View Hotel and offered a training ground,” a communiqué from FKF declared on Thursday.
That did little to quell the anger that greeted news Stars had been compelled to lodge at a boarding school and train on primary school grounds after arriving in Lagos on Wednesday as Kenyans on Twitter collectively known as #KOT went ballistic on the site.
Churning over 100 tweets a minute at the height of the activity as they took over the site with the samples underlined below some of the gems they produced.
“@Bennsly: #SomeoneTellNigeria when all this is over please tell us (defender Taye) Taiwo’s age . Hear he is 6 years younger than his twin brother”
“@JMOxQ_: #SomeoneTellNigeria It is Only in their ‘movies’ that a 35 year old Lady will play the role of a primary school girl.” “@mayore_: #SomeOneTellNigeria We can disfigure P-Square to P-Rectangle or even P-Triangle”
”@b0unte 16m #someonetellNigeria while we r busy teaching chicken how to cross the road they are busy teaching their ghosts how to not get hit by traffic”
“@saints_vj: #SomeOneTellNigeria we use P-Spuare music in our schools to warn kids of cheap accent & poor grammar.”
@binkuki: #SomeoneTellNigeria that susan wa #Tujuane can fence the whole of super eagles team alone
“@Sewe450: #SomeoneTellNigeria we can throw stones from Kenya and break that African Cup of Nation Trophy”
“@peterserem #SomeonetellNigeria A ghost is not Supposed to look Left Right Left while crossing the road.”
“@MichKatami Some of the tweets on #SomeoneTellNigeria are hilarious but hey #KOT blame Harambee Stars mistreatment on FKF and Nyamweya…”
“@Kisenyajesse #someonetellnigeria we are disappointed by the way they’re treating Harambee. Next time they come here, come with your own airport to land” “@PapitoTito #someonetellnigeria Naija Night is officially Cancelled! No Petition!”
“@mungaipaul1 #KOT is feasting on nigeria!AND our strongholds are not yet!these are just provisional results KENYA 10-0 NIGERIA #SomeoneTellNigeria”
“@KingMwal: #SomeoneTellNigeria to treat our players the way our househelps treat their movies.”
“@Tweshie Its amazing how #KOT have gone HAM on nigerians for mistreating Harambee Stars… Hehe… Am loving the #SomeOneTellNigeria TT”
“@C_Nyakundih #SomeoneTellNigeria This is just provisional , if we start a real Tweef @Twitter will ran out of capacity”
“@MwangiJosiah17m You have to be 27 to join the Naijo U17 Football Team and 33 to join U23 team. Remember Taribo West at 18? #SomeoneTellNigeria”
“@herrbo: Nigerians hv bin baptised by fire today eee u don’t mess wit Kenyans #SomeoneTellNigeria”
The match officials designated for the game hail from Botswana with Bondo Joshua, the centre official assisted by Mepudi Meshack (first) and Momedi Monakwame (second). The fourth official is Kutlano Lesso with Sey Omar from Gambia denoted as the Match Commissioner.
FKF has appealed to the Government through the Ministry of Information to screen the match live on Saturday through national broadcaster KBC.
