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