An experiment tough to handle

Thank God, we were not consumed in the battle of Kigali. Our Super Eagles derided by their countrymen for their recent history of non-performance have returned from Rwanda with their dignity intact.

The Rwandan Wasps eager to prove that they are not eternal underdogs, had determined to put their foot in our mouth but had faltered. From what we hear it was no easy battle for Stephen Keshi’s men. We have only their word for it as the Confederation of African Football (CAF) in an unhealthy display of greed and unreason, priced TV rights beyond the reach of both terrestrial and satellite TV stations in Nigeria and other parts of Africa.

Well, this is not about Isa Hayatou and his bungling and stuck in-the past CAF. I will address the matter in the shortest possible time. Here, we look at Keshi’s much touted ‘Home Eagles’ experiment. The former Nigerian international has been telling us that in turning around the fortunes of the Super Eagles he would be relying extensively on players playing in our national leagues.

To prove his seriousness, the former Eagles captain has had in camp for weeks players starring in the Nigeria Premier League (NPL). Two weeks ago in an international friendly game against Liberia, Keshi ‘confidently’ fielded a squad composed completely of home-based players. The players glad at being thought capable, put up a commanding performance in Monrovia, Liberia, scalping their hosts 2-0.

Nigerians applauded Keshi for his decision to field a team of players playing in Nigeria and looked forward to a repeat performance in the forthcoming (now past) 2013 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Rwanda in Kigali.

Their wish did not come true. In Kigali only three players from the NPL made the cut and from what we hear they out-performed their colleagues playing in European leagues. So, why did Keshi opt to rely more on the foreign cast than their Nigerian counterparts? The answer is simple. Like other Nigerian coaches with the exception of Adegboye Onigbinde, Keshi doesn’t want to gamble and fail. An international friendly game against Liberia where nothing is at stake is quite different from a Nations Cup match, whose outcome may well determine Keshi’s stay on the job.

From his point of view, there was too much at stake to leave everything in the hands of ‘raw recruits’. Imagine if Keshi had fielded an entire cast of Nigeria-based players and the Eagles had lost in Rwanda; would Nigerian football fans have been understanding?

As it is Keshi is between a rock and a hard place. He says he wants NPL players to spearhead the rebirth of the Eagles but circumstances including time and a fastidious Nigerian football community make that task more than daunting.

Given this scenario, we should not expect anything radically different from the first leg in Kigali or any subsequent matches either for the 2013 Nations Cup qualifiers or that of the 2014 World Cup. There is too much at stake for Keshi for him to want to gamble no matter how enterprising NPL players may become as time progresses.

This is because they have not been tested on the big stage unlike the foreign legion no matter how inconsistent and unproductive they have become in recent times. For Keshi, playing safe would be the name of the game.

I do not envy Keshi; he has taken the Eagles job at a ‘wrong’ time. Our failure to qualify for the Nations Cup, which just ended in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, has upped the ante of expectation from Keshi. Nigerians do not expect that when teams file out for the 2013 Nations Cup in South Africa that the Eagles will not be there. They also expect that one way or another, Keshi should get the Eagles to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. No excuses will suffice on these two counts.

Mindful of this expectation, Keshi is not likely, if I know him very well, to allow sentiments get the better of him. May be at a different time and place, he would take the home-based Eagles experiment more seriously but as things stand he is walking a tight rope and he will not want to take the chance of wanting to please football fans who want to call the bluff of our foreign players and get himself into trouble.

March 2012

An experiment tough to handle

Thank God, we were consumed in the battle of Kigali. Our Super Eagles derided by their countrymen for their recent history of non-performance have returned from Rwanda with their dignity intact.

The Rwandan Wasps eager to prove that they are not eternal underdogs, had determined to put their foot in our mouth but had faltered. From what we hear it was no easy battle for Stephen Keshi’s men. We have only their word for it as the Confederation of African Football (CAF) in an unhealthy display of greed and unreason, priced TV rights beyond the reach of both terrestrial and satellite TV stations in Nigeria and other parts of Africa.

Well, this is not about Isa Hayatou and his bungling and stuck in-the past CAF. I will address the matter in the shortest possible time. Here, we look at Keshi’s much touted ‘Home Eagles’ experiment. The former Nigerian international has been telling us that in turning around the fortunes of the Super Eagles he would be relying extensively on players playing in our national leagues. 

To prove his seriousness, the former Eagles captain has had in camp for weeks players starring in the Nigeria Premier League (NPL). Two weeks ago in an international friendly game against Liberia, Keshi ‘confidently’ fielded a squad composed completely of home-based players. The players glad at being thought capable, put up a commanding performance in Monrovia, Liberia, scalping their hosts 2-0.

Nigerians applauded Keshi for his decision to field a team of players playing in Nigeria and looked forward to a repeat performance in the forthcoming (now past) 2013 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Rwanda in Kigali.

Their wish did not come true. In Kigali only three players from the NPL made the cut and from what we hear they out-performed their colleagues playing in European leagues. So, why did Keshi opt to rely more on the foreign cast than their Nigerian counterparts? The answer is simple. Like other Nigerian coaches with the exception of Adegboye Onigbinde, Keshi doesn’t want to gamble and fail. An international friendly game against Liberia where nothing is at stake is quite different from a Nations Cup match, whose outcome may well determine Keshi’s stay on the job.

From his point of view, there was too much at stake to leave everything in the hands of ‘raw recruits’. Imagine if Keshi had fielded an entire cast of Nigeria-based players and the Eagles had lost in Rwanda; would Nigerian football fans have been understanding?

As it is Keshi is between a rock and a hard place. He says he wants NPL players to spearhead the rebirth of the Eagles but circumstances including time and a fastidious Nigerian football community make that task more than daunting.

Given this scenario, we should not expect anything radically different from the first leg in Kigali or any subsequent matches either for the 2013 Nations Cup qualifiers or that of the 2014 World Cup. There is too much at stake for Keshi for him to want to gamble no matter how enterprising NPL players may become as time progresses.

This is because they have not been tested on the big stage unlike the foreign legion no matter how inconsistent and unproductive they have become in recent times. For Keshi, playing safe would be the name of the game.

I do not envy Keshi; he has taken the Eagles job at a ‘wrong’ time. Our failure to qualify for the Nations Cup, which just ended in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, has upped the ante of expectation from Keshi. Nigerians do not expect that when teams file out for the 2013 Nations Cup in South Africa that the Eagles will not be there. They also expect that one way or another, Keshi should get the Eagles to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. No excuses will suffice on these two counts.

Mindful of this expectation, Keshi is not likely, if I know him very well, to allow sentiments get the better of him. May be at a different time and place, he would take the home-based Eagles experiment more seriously but as things stand he is walking a tight rope and he will not want to take the chance of wanting to please football fans who want to call the bluff of our foreign players and get himself into trouble.

 

 March 2012

One ‘racket’ Adamu couldn’t fix

He is without doubt Nigeria’s most controversial sports administrator of the last 20 years. Amos Adamu, former Director of Sports Development in the Sports Ministry and former Director General of the National Sports Commission (NSC), was the undisputed Godfather of Nigerian sports.

While he held court in Nigeria’s sports establishment, his word was law. A word from him was enough to make a career-or to mar it. Reticent and calculating, he was like Don Vito Corleone, the highly influential but dreaded Godfather in Mario Puzo’s eponymous novel, the Lord of the Manor.

The story was once told of an athlete, who days before Nigeria’s departure for a particular edition of the All Africa Games, had asked Adamu, during his visit to athletes camp, when athletes were going to get allowances owed them by the Sports Ministry. Adamu was said to have ignored the question but days later when the final list of Nigeria’s contingent to the games was released, the athletes name was missing even though she was one of those thought to be Nigeria’s hopefuls to the continental event.

As an administrator, Adamu’s methods were unabashedly Machiavellian. He was adept at playing his subordinates against each other ensuring that rather than have them plotting against him, they expended their energies fighting each other. Once, whilst Director of Sports Development, which before the return of the NSC, was the most influential office in Nigerian sports, Adamu had wanted to plant one of his cronies as head of a particular sports federation.

To get his ambition actualised, he was said to have contrived a situation whereby the incumbent head of the federation and an outspoken critic of the man who was also a member of the board, engaged each other in a media war prompting Adamu to dissolve the board of the federation on the grounds that its leadership was incompetent and unprogressive!

For such sleight of hand, he was called ‘Mr. Fix It’. Indeed, from time to time when Nigerian football found itself in ‘dire straits’, his ‘genius’ at squeezing water from stone, was relied upon by Nigeria’s hapless football administrators. With each problem ‘fixed’, his image as master strategist cum organiser blossomed.

Sadly, like the tragic hero in a classical Greek tragedy he began to succumb to the promptings of hubris when the adulation of cronies and admirers began to reach a crescendo. His entry into that exalted club of football mandarins, the FIFA executive committee, a defining moment of his career as sports administrator represented a double-edged sword of sorts. For while it enhanced his visibility and stature internationally, it effectively cast him as the goldfish in the aquarium with no place to hide.

And so it was that when some journalists working for Sunday Times of London carried out a sting operation with he and a few other members of the FIFA Executive Committee as targets, he fell, as we are wont to say in local parlance, ‘like a bag of Garri’. The alarm bells, muffled by the trapping of power and ambition, failed to alert him to approaching danger.

He forgot in his quest for power and relevance, Chinua Achebe’s timeless warning that ‘those whose palm kernels have been cracked for them by benevolent spirits should not forget to be humble’. The lure of lucre proved too attractive for the Kebbi State born administrator. At least that was the verdict of the FIFA Ethics Committee, which found him guilty of the allegation that he was willing to offer his votes to the journalists who posed as lobbyists for America in its quest to host the 2018 World Cup in return for receiving $800, 000 from them to build four artificial pitches in Nigeria. The FIFA Appeals committee to which he had turned had upheld the decision of the Ethics Committee prompting Adamu to head to sports global arbitration body, the Court of arbitration for sport.

The august body on Friday drove a stake through Adamu’s heart with its ruling that the former director general of the NSC, was indeed guilty as alleged by the Sunday Times journalists. The panel of three arbitrators did not pull punches when they said that:

” It was of crucial importance that top football officials should not only be honest but should evidently and undoubtedly be seen to be honest. With respect to the behaviour of Dr Adamu, the CAS Panel was comfortably satisfied that he was far from actively and unambiguously refusing the improper offer set forth by the alleged lobbyists. In conclusion, the CAS Arbitrators considered that the sanction imposed by FIFA was not disproportionate and was even relatively mild given the seriousness of the offence.”

Clearly, Adamu must be devastated by the CAS verdict. Even though he is said to be the mythical cat with nine lives, he had banked on a favourable verdict from the arbitration body to salve the deep gash inflicted on his reputation by the Times journalists. To get back into global football reckoning after this ‘tragedy’ would be a feat, which even for Harry Houdini, the great escape artist in his prime, would be clearly gargantuan.

Maigari should get on the phone to Bwalya

And so we find that the Ivorian ‘golden’ generation of players led by Chelsea striker, Didier Drogba are mortal after all. We realize that dash and daring are qualities, which can produce astonishing results; they worked for Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon and many swashbuckling generals of the last century.

On Sunday, February 12, 2012 in Libreville, Gabon, those qualities propelled a football team considered ordinary by football pundits, to the summit of African football. On that cold night this February, Zambia’s Chipolopolo comprising relatively unknown players, put Cote d’ Ivoire’s star-glutted Elephants to the sword. Now that Zambians are kings of Africa, the football world is treating them with respect, as well they should.

What Christopher Katongo and his men have achieved is no ordinary feat. To scalp the two top teams on the continent in quick successes suggests a measure of competence and organization. Their triumph is made sweeter by the realization that in the squad coached by Frenchman, Herve Renard, there were no superstars playing for super clubs in Europe.

They were regular ‘boys’ sold on the idea that ‘he who dares, wins’. And so it was that despite coming up against African giants parading in their fold, a former and current African Footballer of the Year, the ‘Liliputians’ from the southern region of Africa, held their nerves to record a famous victory.

As we celebrate the dexterity of the Chipolopolo and the tactical acumen of Renard, we must not forget to locate the real source of the victory. Here credit must go to the Zambian Football Federation and in particular its president, Kalusha Bwalya. Bwalya, without doubt the most famous footballer to come out of Zambia, worked assiduously to ensure the success of the team.

When last year in October Bwalya fired Dario Bonetti, the team’s Italian coach who guided them to qualify for the tournament, not a few Zambians thought he had ‘lost it’. Many called on him to resign but he rode out the storm. He held his ground because he felt that it was not enough just qualifying, the team had to make an impact at the tournament.

And quite frankly those who saw the Zambian team that the Eagles beat 2-0 last year in Kaduna will admit that a lot of transformation took place in the squad. The composition of the team with players drawn mostly from leagues in Africa is as much a tribute to Kalusha’s magnanimity in giving Renard free rein as it is of the coach’s courage. For if truth be told among us here in Nigeria, such magnanimity and courage are lacking.

No Nigerian coach since Onigbinde in 1984 and perhaps Paul Hamilton in 1988 has had the courage to take a squad composed largely of homegrown players to the Nations Cup. Of our football federation officials on this matter, the little that is said about them the better.

Aminu Maigari, Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) president has, since last year when Guinea snatched our group’s sole ticket right under our noses in Abuja, been blaming everybody but himself and his henchmen in the NFF board for the Eagles’ failure. The NFF president conveniently forgets that while he was wasting valuable time fighting real and perceived enemies, Bwalya and other football federation bosses, whose teams made it to the Nations Cup, were putting their shoulders to the wheel. With a technical committee chairman like Chris Green, who will tell us that the Eagles who failed to qualify for the tournament would have won it had they been there, you begin to understand why our national teams have become sitting ducks.

Seriously, Maigari should stop talking and get on the phone to Bwalya and take lessons in football administration from him. Why have I said so? Kalusha, like Maigari, faced challenge to his authority from individuals who felt they were better suited for the job of administering Zambian football.

However, unlike Maigari who frittered away valuable time hounding his ‘enemies’ and detractors, Bwalya kept his eyes focused on the big picture. As a rule, leadership is about taking responsibility. It is about stepping forward to accept blame for failure. A general given to passing the buck will never command the respect of his troops. Harry S. Truman, former American president, understood this clearly, a reason he placed squarely on his desk in the Oval office, a plaque which read: ‘The buck stops here’.

What did Truman mean? Simply, he was telling Americans that whether the American dream was realized or failed to materialize, he was willing to take full responsibility.

Here Maigari is sorely deficient. He is the general who would take potshots at his men and would gleefully hang them out to dry if doing so would save his skin. After Guinea beat us to our group’s Nation’s Cup ticket, Maigari lashed out at Eagles players and coach Samson Siasia, accusing them of lack of commitment; a fact, which he said cost us a place in Gabon/Equatorial Guinea. Last week after the Zambian triumph he would revisit the theme.

Really, it is becoming embarrassing hearing him go on and on about how our boys failed. Let him simply enter a Mea Culpa and then get on the phone to Bwalya. Enough is enough.

 

February 20, 2012

YOU MUST PLUCK THE COURAGE TO ACT, MR. PRESIDENT

 

Mr. President, I appreciate the fact that a Nigerian leader has deemed it necessary to engage his people on a social networking site. If nothing, it will afford you opportunity to distil the views of Nigerians as well as feel their pain and frustration.

That said, I really do hope that your decision to go on Facebook is not a publicity stunt. It would be a big shame really because Nigerians really need some action coming from your end after the harrowing decades of misrule.

In this country today there is a crying need for change; for government to get responsible and responsive.Generations of leaders have abused, betrayed and assaulted Nigerians both physically and emotionally. The time for restitution has come.

 

I do not know whether you fully grasp the enormity of the challenge before you. You are standing as it were atthe intersection of history. You can choose to lead Nigeria forward into aglorious future or you can herd your countrymen backward into the abyss.

Looked from a spiritual perspective, your life, at least the little that we know of it, reads like afairy tale. Your meteoric rise to power parallels that of the shepherd boy,David in our holy book, the Bible who God graciously lifted from the grazing fields into the magnificence and opulence of royalty.

 

Do not for one moment think your ascension to power was by accident or by stroke of fortune. On the contrary. It was God who preserved you for a time like this. Without his intervention, the vendors of death with calloused hearts who have turned our country into a vast killing field through their mindless looting and pillaging of national resources would have gotten to you.

You must act now. This is not the time for equivocation. Nigerians expect action beyond the promise daily offered here on your page. Step out into the streets, Mr. President and witness the human misery that defines the Nigerian landscape. You cannot fail to be aware of them.

 

In 2001 when I and some of my colleagues paid you a visit at the Bayelsa State Government House whilst you were Deputy Governor of the State, I was struck by your simplicity and candour.Perhaps because you were not a product of Nigeria’s decaying political establishment, you spoke of the frustrations of your people and the vision you had for them in a way that struck a chord deep within the hearts of you rlisteners. I went away from that encounter with a deep respect of you.

 

I still retain a huge measure of that respect. But now, Mr. President is not time for pleasantries. It is a moment to speak truth to power. And the truth sir is that you must stand up and be counted. Nigeria, despite its history of broken promises and aborted dreams; despite its landscape being dotted with the carcasses of criminals who held high public office, still has its hallowed chamber of heroes. You can become one ofthe few in this august assembly if you step up to the plate Mr. President.

 

One of the stark truths about ourcountry today sir is that Nigeria is held together by the sheer will to surviveof its people and not by any acts of genius from its leadership. It is trite to state that leadership has failed to deliver on the compact with the people; that rather than leaders what we actually have are brigands in power; mutants whose pastime is to pauperize the citizenry through the denudation of the nationa ltreasury.

I know you may be hamstrung by the fact surrounding you are wolves eager to protect their ‘territory’, yet you must pluck the courage to act. Lead and Nigerians will follow you.

 

 

Lagos, August 2010

The blood of the innocent call us to action

 

In the early 1980s when as a teenager, I watched that classic Western-the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, I was struck by one phrase scrolled on the screen moments before the movie commenced.

 

That phrase read: “where life has no value, death sometimes has its pride.” It really exercised my young mind as I tried to figure out the meaning of those words. Today, nearly 30 years later, the full meaning of the words have come home to me as I contemplate the situation in Plateau State.

 

That once peaceful place, where as a teenager I dreamt of settling down some day with my family, has become a cauldron of death. There, life to put it bluntly, is cheap, very cheap. In the last few weeks, lives, innocent lives, have been brutally terminated; dreams aborted and hopes fractured.

 

For many, who lived in that state, who despite the paroxysms of violence in 2003/2004, had clung on to the hope that the camaraderie that once bound the peoples in a bond of brotherhood would return, the blinkers have been brutally removed from their eyes.

 

Today, Jos, the city of many dreams, the object of a million aspirations, lies prostrate at the feet of the vendors of death, a testament to the numbing power of hate.

How people who have shared the same physical space for decades and who freely intermingle in business and marriage can without qualms turn on one another, remains one of the mysteries of the unfolding tragedy.

 

Tragic as the situation is in Plateau, what is even more heart rending than the brutal termination of lives is the mindless acquiescence and indifference of our leaders. For all they care, the murdered in Jos could well be chickens killed at the onset of the Christmas season.

 

For many who had long suspected that the Nigerian leadership had more important things to do than worry about the wellbeing of its people, their attitude to the carnage in Jos is eloquent confirmation.

 

For others who reposed full confidence in their elected representatives, their indifference hurts deeply.

Not that all these matter to our leaders anyway. Are we not presently witness to their buffoonery, their debauchery and their bigotry? With the plateau drenched with the blood of innocents, our leaders cold-bloodedly plot their return to office.

With money, which if spent on strengthening security structures in Plateau would have forestalled the bloodletting of the last few weeks, our leaders buy advertisement spaces in print and electronic media and thrust their offensive presence into our faces.

 

I have always believed that Nigeria will be great some day. For now, it is hard to convince anyone to buy into this belief. But it is possible. Out of the ashes of the inferno in Jos; out of the ruins of decadent leadership and a rapacious ruling class can come a new dawn.

 

I dare to believe that Nigeria will someday be an abode of decent and God-fearing people who look out for one another.

That Nigeria will have to come on our terms, by our own efforts. We must get up and seize the moment. Our leaders may well have all the money in the world; they may wield all the influence they can, yet it is within our province to determine what we want, who we want, how we want it and when we want it.

 

The French took that decision in 1789. Two hundred years later at the Tian Anmen Square, valiant Chinese students reaffirmed the right of citizens to express themselves in ways that are legal. The blood of those students crushed by communist tanks watered the seeds of China’s economic growth and development.

 

A history of China’s emergence as a global economic and political power certainly will not be complete without mention of the heroism of the Chinese lads and lasses who willing went to their deaths just so their country would leave the backwaters of underdevelopment and step into modernity.

 

We can do it in Nigeria but it cannot be by maudlin hand wringing and wallowing in self-pity. We must be ready to sacrifice whatever it is that is required. If we will do not do it for ourselves, then let’s do it for our children. We cannot condemn them to a lifetime of suffering and hopelessness. God will not forgive us for that.

 

By Nnamdi Okosieme

Lagos,

 

Jan 13, 2011

Just before we vote

The elections are finally here. Now we must decide whether we move forward or remain stuck in the mire. The decisions we make tomorrow will live with us and more than that will affect the lives of our children and may be even their own offspring.

 

For me, there is clarity in my head, my heart and mind on who will and will not be getting my vote. The issues at stake are far too important to be trifled with. As a parent I care about the future of my children.

 

I could drop dead right after writing this note or may be immediately after casting my vote; the question then is what next for my family-my wife and children. Would I through carelessness, stupidity or outright chicanery have condemned them to a lifetime of suffering and pain simply because I wanted to give vent to base instincts that lie deep within?

 

Now is the time for clear thinking; for steadfastness to the demands of reason and conscience. We must do what is right, shunning familial and ethnic sentiments when they stand in the way of a better future for our children. That politician who just so happens to be your uncle or cousin and who comes to you pulling familial strings, exhorting you to cast your lot with him; pause for a moment and reflect on his stewardship in the years gone bye.

 

Did his being your uncle or cousin translate to better access to public utilities for you and every other member of your community? Or did his tour of duty in government increase his waist line and midriff while helping to diminish your chances of a better life? We must stop and think!

 

We have witnessed in the last thirteen years in this country a steady decline in the value of human life. Life in Nigeria has become quite simply cheap. For the individuals in government the people on whose behalf they are in power, have not only become chattel under their watch but equally prey to be hounded at will. Their disdain for the mass of the people with whom they have a compact, is quite simply, horrendous.

 

Now, we have a voice; we must use it. Despite the preponderance of charlatans in government and society, there are still a few good men out there. We must empower them and stand by them. It cannot be that at one of those rare moments when we can bring about a change, we fritter away the opportunity on the altar of familial or percuniary considerations.

 

Despite the enervating clouds of pessimism and despondency, there have been spurts of hope. Nigerian youth, long indifferent and carefree about political matters are finally cottoning to the idea that they may, by their continued lassitude, be condemning themselves and their offspring to come, to certain misery. And so we have had them engaging the system on  intellectual and moral levels.

 

Today, we find that what is high on the agenda of our youth are not parties or fashion but issues germane to their survival. And so we find them on social networking sites not only railing at the system but strategising on how to wrest their country from the predators who have scarred the economic, social and political landscape of their motherland through perfidy and thievry.

 

I am encouraged by this development. It portends hope and indicates that the pervading cloud of gloom can be rolled back to usher in the bright light of progress. I dare say that all of us must meet our youth halfway. We may not always agree with their assessment of the problem or what needs to be done but we cannot fault their zeal and intelligence.

And so at this point, I say thank you to Chude Jideonwno, Tolu Ogunlesi and Cheta Nwanze for putting their intellectual and moral resources at the service of the struggle.

 

To my other friends-Gbenga Olorunponmi, Omena Abenabe, Idris Akinbajo and Elor Nkereuwem, who have yearned for a better Nigeria and have despite the odds, rolled up their sleeves to effect change, I say to you-even though we have often fought over methods of reaching that goal, hang in there.

 

Nnamdi Okosieme

 

Lagos,

April 1, 2011

 

Siasia and the Sword of Damocles

 

 

Once again we find ourselves in a bind. It’s the story of our lives really; to move around in circles and engage in Sisyphean toil.

When the Super Eagles found themselves trailing Guinea in the Nations Cup qualifiers, I told a friend that we were embarked on another journey to nowhere; that we were going to end up the way we did in 2006 when we missed out on that year’s World Cup in Germany.

My friend said I was being overly pessimistic and that the Eagles were going to land safely in Equatorial Guinea/Gabon. Well, we all know how the whole thing has ended.

We have once again proved incapable of accomplishing simple tasks. More importantly, from the reactions and attitudes of everyone-Siasia, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), the media and Nigerian football fans, it is clear that we still have a long way to go in reaching the point where preparing and qualifying an team for a major international tournament will not be rocket science for those concerned.

Restoring sanity

There have been arguments and counter arguments regarding whether or not Siasia should continue as coach of the Eagles. One of the most compelling arguments for Siasia’s retention,  I have read is the one presented by Colin Udoh, Super Eagles’ Media officer. Udoh argues  inter alia that:

 

“Agreed the team failed to qualify for the Nations Cup but a lot of work has gone into bringing the team around, and it would be quite a shame to let all that work go to waste…At the World Cup, the Super Eagles scored three goals in three games, drawing on and losing two games. Under Siasia, the Super Eagles have played nine games, won five, drawn three and lost just once. In that time they scored 20 goals letting in just nine.”

 

Those who insist that Siasia be fired, hinge their argument on the fact that the terms of the contract he signed with the NFF stipulate that certain conditions be fulfilled, which unfortunately Siasia failed to fulfill.

 

Paying the price

Tijani Babangida, a former member of the Super Eagles is among those who hold this view. Said Babangida:

 

“You expect a coach of Siasia’s calibre to not only qualify the Super Eagles for the Nations Cup but at least to make it to the semi-finals of the tournament. That was the simple task that he was given by the NFF when he signed his contract. Not only was that he also told to make sure Nigeria qualified for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. But I think he went too far on the issue of discipline in the team as well as the invitation of players. He took the decision to leave out those players and he must take responsibility for his actions. If he does well, we congratulate him but if he performs poorly like he has done, we have no reason to retain him”.

 

Both Udoh and Babangida have advanced strong arguments for their positions, which are in the main, valid. Indeed, before the Guinea mishap, the Eagles appeared to have spurted back to life, doing away with their lethargic and phlegmatic style under Amodu Shuaibu. The players seemed to have woken up to the fact national team assignment is not something to be treated with levity. One way this has reflected as Udoh observed in his article is the arrival of players to camp on time. It was clear that Siasia’s reputation as a disciplinarian and his stern warning to players that there would be zero tolerance for infractions of the rule had played a key role.

 

That said, it must be noted like Babangida said that Siasia contributed in no small measure to his present predicament in the way he sometimes when about inviting players who either were clearly spent forces or without football skills or intelligence. That he had worked with certain players in the past and they helped him achieve his objectives didn’t mean that they would prove useful several years later under a more challenging and complex assignment that coaching the Super Eagles entails. He clearly got sentimental in this regard and has no one to blame but himself.

 

One other area his critics have faulted him is in the area of discipline in the team. This has proved to be a double- edged sword. While his tough stance has helped rein in players who otherwise would have engaged in acts inimical to team cohesion, it has also become a sticking point with some key players of the team. His man-management skills have so far proved quite inadequate in dealing with the demands of coaching a senior national team.

It is clear that one-way or another this issue has impinged on our now botched campaign for a place in next year’s Nations Cup.

 

Points to ponder

On the issue of the terms of Siasia’s contract and whether or not it should be enforced, I believe that it is not something to be sentimental about. It is in the nature of coaches to be hired and fired. Siasia himself ought to understand that. If he is finally axed by the football federation, then he and his army of supporters should see it as a condign outcome for breach of agreement.

 

That said, there is something to be said about the manner the NFF has gone about the whole matter. It is clear from their body language and comments from some of their friends in the media that they intend firing the man. Why they have wasted so much time since he bungled the Nations Cup assignment simply boggles the mind.

If the terms of the contract are as clear and straightforward as we have been made to believe, why didn’t the NFF fire him within days of the Guinea faux pas? From a strategic standpoint, it would have cost them less in terms of pressure to have taken that decision particularly as there was anger in the land over the loss of the Nations Cup ticket. Now, their delay has led to a polarization of Nigeria’s football community.

 

As the argument rages over whether or not Siasia should be axed, the real challenge before the NFF now that they have prolonged the matter is really to critically assess all the variables and put their money where their mouth is. The questions they should chew over are:

a)      Whether Siasia’s tenure has witnessed an improvement in the fortunes of the Eagles in terms of players’ commitment to the national cause, greater urgency in the field of play; greater output  in terms of goal scoring, or whether his superintendence of team has either witnessed stagnation or regression in the team’s fortunes.

b)     Whether his continued stay or exit would negatively or positively affect our aspirations for the 2014 World Cup.

Firing him or retaining him on the basis of sentiments such as that he has performed well in the past with our youth teams or that coaches before him have been booted out would amount to a serious waste of time and may prove costly in the end.

 

October 2011

Musical chairs and Nigerian football

 

Once again, it is the game of musical chairs at the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF). Samson Siasia, coach of Nigeria’s senior national football team, the Super Eagles, has lost his place in the game. We await the next occupant of the revolving seat.

Once again, it is the game of musical chairs at the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF). Samson Siasia, coach of Nigeria’s senior national football team, the Super Eagles, has lost his place in the game. We await the next occupant of the revolving seat.

To the uninitiated, it may appear that with the ouster of Siasia, the problems of Nigerian football will ease if not altogether disappear. That will not only be a misreading of the situation but will equally amount to a denial of the objective reality, which put simply is that rather than being the cause of the problem, Siasia and other sacked Nigerian coaches before him, are merely victims of it.

 

The problems of Nigerian football are as variegated as its history. No one man can be held responsible for it. That is not however, to excuse Siasia from culpability in the fate that has befallen him. Like the tragic hero in a classical Greek tragedy, he succumbed to the promptings of hubris. Like Achebe reminds us in that African classic of his, Things Fall Apart, ‘those whose palm kernels have been cracked for them by benevolent spirits, should not forget to be humble’.

 

While it must be acknowledged that humility is not an ingredient necessarily required for success as a coach, it helps not to be too standoffish in a country where premium is placed on patronage rather than on merit and competence.

Siasia mounted the saddle as Eagles coach on the back of the overwhelming support of millions of Nigerian football fans who appreciated his past contributions to Nigerian football success. It is a well known fact that if Nigeria’s football mandarins had their way, the former Super Eagles striker would not have been given the job. His appointment was an atonement of sorts for what many believe is their illegal occupation of the Glass House in Abuja.

 

They had provided him with all that he needed and I believe that there were some members of the federation, particularly a few petty individuals in the NFF’s technical committee, who silently prayed for him to fail on account of what they perceived to be ‘his arrogant attitude’. In Abuja in the match against Guinea, he willfully put his neck on the Guillotine for them to sever.

Now that he is out of the equation, will it be smooth sailing for Nigerian football? The answer quite clearly is no, and this, for a number of reasons some of which I proffer here.

In the first place, the managers of Nigerian football, I mean the men who superintend the game, have neither the inclination nor the competence to see the game flourish.

 

Technical ineptitude

How in this modern time, a football federation can exist without a well structured and staffed technical department or a technical committee that is composed of sound football minds simply boggles the mind. The Aminu Maigari administration has spent fifteen months in office and there is no indication that they either understand the importance of a technical department or committee or that if they do, are willing to do something about it. All over the world, serious minded football administrators who know that a game is won or lost not on the pitch but on the drawing boards, have since been busy providing technical support to its national team coaches.

 

What if I may ask, were the contributions of the NFF technical committee to Siasia and his crew? What exactly, in technical terms, is Chris Green as Chairman of the NFF technical committee, able to offer our national team coaches? What are his antecedents? Did he play the game to a reasonable level or acquire some knowledge of it at any institution that qualifies him to be entrusted with such sacred responsibility?

He may have a brilliant legal mind but that does not in any way mean that in football matters he would be a genius. The truth of the matter is that no football federation that handles crucial issues in this manner can ever hope to have its football grow and develop. At best, it can only boast flitting successes.

 

The influence of government

Aside the issue of the absence of a fitting technical department and committee, the very structure of Nigerian football itself creates conditions for the kind of stasis we are witnessing. Its relations or if you like, unwholesome dependence on government for sustenance not only breeds laziness, it also throws up all manner of characters whose only claim to relevance is their relationship with people in power.

 

In Nigeria where government is the biggest business and where we have a thriving patronage system, which defies all logic and commonsense, it definitely pays to have someone in power behind you. This has been one of the biggest undoing of Nigerian football-to have fraudsters, nitwits, journeymen and comedians appropriating its commanding heights simply because they boast godfathers in government.

 

One of the effects of this malfeasance is the paralysis witnessed in the administration of Nigerian football and the inability of its superintendents to see the woods for the forests in key issues.

It is trite to remark that governmental control of football given teeth by first, Decree 101 and with the coming into being of democratic governance, the NFA Act of 2004, has proved to be an albatross for Nigerian football in very much the same way the discovery of oil has been for this country.

 

The reluctance of key players like the NFF, the National Sports Commission (NSC) as well as by members of both the Senate and House Committees on Sports, to see the NFA Act repealed stems principally from their fear that in letting the Act go they would be relinquishing a veritable source of ‘easy’ money.

Discerning minds know that for all their protestations and blackmail about governmental interference in football, the men in the NFF do not really want government to hands-off funding of football. This is because owing to the fact that most of them lack the requisite mental and moral resources to go out sourcing for funds, government’s withdrawal from bankrolling of the game will expose their ineptitude they way a gusty wind exposes a hen’s hind.

 

Lip service to grassroots football development

And it is not only in the area of funds sourcing that the managers of Nigerian football have been remiss. One key sector where they have proved incapable of finding strategies for its development and transformation is grassroots football. From my time as a youngster in high school thirty three years ago till now, there has remained a ferment of football activity at the grassroots. The passion for football remains as strong today as it was then. It was my privilege to watch players like Austin Eguavoen, Ndubuisi Okosieme, Roland Ewere, Augustine Igbinobaru, Osaro Obobaifo, Ikponmwonsa Omoregie, Austin Igbinadolor, Taju (whom everyone knew as Ebo Geisha) and Oliver Ndigwe.

All these players mentioned and many more that space will not permit me to include, who set Benin City alight with their skills and went on to play for our national teams, were products of youth football teams like Samco Stars, Unueru Bombers, Rock Agingingbi Stars and so on.

 

There are many more like them today; players eager to do Nigeria proud when they grow up. The problem is that our football superintendents whether at the NFF or at state FA level, are simply not bothered about them. They easy money that flows from government coupled with the flitting successes we have attained over the years have foisted upon our football administrators, a cargo cult mentality, which leads them to think that without any effort on their part, Nigeria will arrive at its football El Dorado.

But as everyone well knows, you cannot make an Omelet without first breaking the egg. The route to football glory is long and winding.  You cannot get there by squatting on your haunches. Our football managers simply have failed to realize this. They have become so enamoured of shortcuts that they have simply refused to exert the mental energy required to fashion a blueprint that would help in identifying young talent at the various communities across the country and grooming them until they get to the point where they are able to don Nigeria’s colours at age-grade and senior football competitions.

 

A dying football league

One issue that makes the neglect of grassroots football so stark and tragic is the decaying football league system in Nigeria. Both the Amateur and Premier Leagues are to say the least, shoddy. With clubs unable to fund their activities even though owned by government, players often go without salaries and allowances for months.

 

One of the effects of this development is that those players who possess even a modicum of talent quickly find their way out of this country courtesy of unscrupulous football agents who capitalize on their ignorance and ambition to enslave them in countries without even the slight football tradition. With the talented ones leaving, the Premier League, a good number of those left behind are those who but for the depressed Nigerian economy would have become carpenters, painters or welders.

Today as things stand, the Nigerian Premier League, the flagship of the Nigerian league system is riven by greed, corruption and animosity. Its key actors rather than close ranks and forge a path forward for the league, have elected to given vent to primordial sentiments, which have in the main left the league in a backward state.

 

Going forward

With a league system that is almost moribund and a non-existent youth football development programme at all levels, it is no wonder Nigerian football is in a quagmire. When you add graft, ineptitude and indifference of our football superintendents, then you have a recipe for disaster.

We cannot continue to be in denial. Nigerian football is in its death throes. Everyone except those who administer the game at the moment admit this. Acceptance of this reality is the first step in pulling our game up by its bootstraps. Thereafter, we begin by cleansing the system of the deadweights, by which I mean those individuals who constitute a millstone on its fragile neck.

 

The relationship between football and government needs to be redefined. In a complex society like ours where government has an overarching presence and dispenses favours at its discretion, it is understandable that it would have some form of involvement with the game.

However, it has become clear from the benefit of hindsight that this involvement has done more harm than good to the game. This is seen in the way individuals who clearly have no business coming near the game have ridden on government ticket to become leaders of the football federation. Government support, which also comes in the form of funding of the football federation’s activities, has bred laziness among our football leaders who instead of seeking ways of generating funds for the administration of the game, wait on handouts from government. 

 

We need to remedy this anomaly and one clear way to do this is by repealing the NFA Act and allowing individuals interested in the game to run it as business. That is the way it is done in most parts of the globe. We cannot be different.

With government gone, a lot of the journeymen and misfits who presently run the game aground will simply take their caper elsewhere because there’ll be no more free lunch for them.

 

 

November 2011

Our basketball federation and the bungled world championships

Why do our sports administrators somehow manage to make very simple matters difficult. How is it that the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) cannot raise funds to carry out its activities? What are officials of the federation in office for if they cannot get young ladies eager to do Nigeria proud to compete for her?  Last year, Nigeria qualified for the Under-19 World Championships in basketball, which ended in Chile last month. Expectedly the lasses who pulled off the feat looked forward to performing even better at the worlds. That expectation turned out to be forlorn as the NBBF, failed to secure funds needed to take the girls to the championships. It was as disappointing as it was annoying and embarrassing. As the story goes, the NBBF, had about two weeks before the championship, hinted that Nigeria would be pulling out of the championships because it had not, being able to secure funds. Eventually, at the very last minute, the NSC made some money available to the federation upon which it took the girls to Chile. Now, to the annoying part – the basketball federation in its frustration at not been able to raise money had either neglected to or deliberately refused to apply for visas for the team. So, upon getting to the airport in Santiago, Chile, they were denied entry into the country by immigration officials because they did not have valid entry permits. Attempts by the federation to get the Nigerian government intercede on its behalf with the Chilean government, failed as the Chileans insisted the Nigerian contingent returned home. Once again, Nigeria was exposed to ridicule by the incompetence of its sports administrators. My observation of the way some of our public officials and it’s not those involved in sports, behave abroad is that they expect that people in public employment elsewhere to bend the rules the way a good number of us do here in Nigeria. If Umar and his associates did not have this mindset, they would not have bothered to embark on the trip knowing they had made no attempt to secure visas for team. All this just go to show the lack of foresight, planning and organisation that has made it impossible for sports to develop in this country. A failure of leadership Now, what happens to the money wasted on travelling to Chile? Would it be refunded by officials of the NBBF knowing that they had been remiss in doing their job? The embarrassment in Chile certainly raises critical questions. If as the story goes the NSC made money available at the last minute because of the delay in the signing of the appropriation bill into law, what were the NBBF’s fall back options? What had Tijjani Umar and his men at the NBBF doing in the run up to the championships? How hard did they try to raise funds for the trip to Chile or where they just waiting on the National Sports Commission (NSC) for hand outs? Anyone who has been in this country for the last ten years would have known that the appropriation bill takes quite a while to get signed into law. I doubt and I stand to be corrected that the budget in this country has been passed before June during this our democratic dispensation. Didn’t Umar and his men know this and put a Plan B in place? For me, I think what has happened is a failure to be both proactive and progressive on the part of the NBBF. They quite simply proved incapable of accomplishing a simple task, pure and simple. They may argue as some have done, that the real culprits are the NSC that did not come to the aid of the federation but that would as far as I am concerned amount to looking for scapegoats. Before anyone blames the NSC, let them find out from Kwesi Sagoe how he and his team at the Nigerian Cricket Federation (NCF) have been running cricket in Nigeria. Since the present leadership of the NCF took charge, Nigerian cricket has been gaining both visibility and respectability on the international scene and they have done this without getting a kobo from the NSC. Between 2009 and now, Nigerian cricket teams, senior and juniors have been holding their own against the rest of the world. After failing to secure promotion to World Cricket League (WCL) Division Six in Guernsey in 2009, our team finally made it this year in Botswana. This year alone Nigerian cricket teams have been engaged in competitions in Botswana, South Africa and Uganda. Next month they are off to Singapore to play in the WCL. If the NCF can secure funds for a sport, which does not command the kind of following and support that basketball enjoys, then why is it proving difficult for the NBBF to raise funds to administer the game in Nigeria especially given that unlike cricket, there is an army of former Nigerian basketball stars abroad that it can turn to for assistance?   August 2011