Nigeria turned 48 Wednesday. Ours has been an interesting story. Interesting in relative terms, anyway.The reviews in most of our dailies have painted a picture of gloom and doom in a country that showed promise many years back.
Yar' Adua
How did we get this bad when others are progressing? Singapore, Malaysia, Korea are among the countries experts say were not better than Nigeria in the 60s. A visit to any of these countries now would make the younger generation think such talks are fairy tales. It is unimaginable.
There are lamentations here and there about our economy, infrastructure, public utility services, etc. Sports is not different. What is happening in our sports is a reflection of the state of the nation. Interestingly, it is even only in sports that we raise our heads and beat our chest in some instances. It is only in sports that we, sometimes, come out tops in the world.
So, why can’t we do more for sports? Why can’t our leaders take sports seriously and make it the industry that it is in Europe, America and now Asia?
The problem of Nigerian sports is the same as that reflected in all the reviews on our 48th anniversary. It is about leadership. And leadership starts from the Presidency. For eight years that Chief Obasanjo ruled Nigeria, he had eight sports ministers, each worst than his predecessor. President Yar’Adua came on board, promised to change sports by respecting expertise in his appointments. But today, we know that Obasanjo was even better.
So, the retrogression has remained tremendous. We all know this and I do not want to be repeating myself or the clamour of millions of Nigerians.
What has continued to amuse me is why the Nigeria Football Federation chiefs cannot try to prove their critics wrong. Just after the Senate of the country submitted, in their report on sports, that the chairman of NFA, Alhaji Sani Lulu, was “incompetent, timid and lacks the skills to drive our football forward”, the leadership of the NFA has continued to prove them right. After admitting that Alphonsus Dike and Jossy Lad failed the country, they sacked Dike and left Lad to continue. Dike had no godfather in NFF and had to go.
After Ben Iroha worked with late Yomi Tella to win the Under 17 World Cup, the proper thing would have been to ask him to take over. The reason they gave for not doing so was that Iroha was not a disciplinarian. But they acknowledged his technical brilliance.
If what they said was true, they should have assigned him a disciplinarian as assistant. But the knowledge of the game they govern has always fallen short of our expectations and they never try to prove Nigerians wrong. They appointed Ladan Bosso head coach of Under 20 because he is an in-law to the minister and asked Ben Iroha to go and help him produce another winning team.
They can’t fool Nigerians all the time. But, from the bottom of my heart, I wish Bosso well and I pray he excels. The only thing is that I will always not celebrate our victories in youth football wholeheartedly. We all know why. Why do we always excel in youth tourneys and fail at the senior level? We know why.
I keep wondering why they have never considered a worthy coach of ex international status for our girls. Van Dyssen, a sound Dutch coach, once told Kojo Williams that Nigeria’s greatest potential of winning a senior world cup lied with our girls but regretted that poor coaching has always haunted them in major outings.
If you watched our girls in the last two Olympics and World Cups, you would have noticed that they dissipated more energy than their opponents, put up greater efforts and ran more than their opponents. But they ended up conceding cheap goals, either through poor positioning or minor technical problems. Just poor coaching.
The other day, I raised the matter with Lulu the second time. My question being why they have continued to rule out ex internationals from coaching our female teams? His answer was that he feared a situation where the coaches could end up dating the girls. Fan Ndubuoke, our former SWAN President, heard this and was scandalised. “What makes you think that the ones coaching them now are not dating some of them? That can’t be the reason for denying them a good coach. It’s nuts to give that as reason,” Ndubuoke said. I need not add more.
As you read this, Lulu has led some members of the football federation to England. A press release by their spokesman, Demola Olajire, my friend and colleague, said that they were visiting to hold talks with Nigerian players and facilitate their release for Nigeria’s match against Sierra Leone in Abuja later this month. The release also said that they would be in Germany to meet with kit sponsors, Adidas.
Such visits were common many years ago until Clemence Westerhof stopped them when he became Nigeria’s coach. Officials even went to Europe about three times before a match, the first being to apply for players’ release, the second to negotiate for it and the third to secure it and possibly fly in with some of them. “We don’t need to go to Europe to get our players for a match,” Westerhof maintained. “We make a fax to their clubs and if they are not coming, we make a fax to FIFA and the clubs are in trouble if they use the players for their matches.” That fiat ended such trips although officials were not happy with Westerhof.
Many years on, a Sani Lulu would embark on a trip to Europe to facilitate release of players for a match that is not even crucial as Nigeria has already qualified for the next stage of World Cup/Nations Cup qualifiers. What meeting do they have with Adidas that cannot be done by one person or their representative, especially their marketer? Why are we retrogressing rather than progressing?
This is the story of Nigeria. 20 years ago, we had better motor-able roads and Lagos to Benin, for example, was a two and half hours journey. My mother slept on that road while returning to Enugu from Lagos two years ago. It was my longest night. 20 years ago, our hospitals appeared more efficient than they are now; at least, they had the drugs that they now lack. 20 years ago, education showed more promise than it is now.
20 years ago, we had better power supply than we have now. 20 years ago taps, ran where we now have wells. 20 years ago, our local league thrived more than what we have now. Many years ago, Westerhof ensured our players struggled, fought and begged for Eagles jerseys. Now, we have resorted to begging players and traveling to Europe for the same thing we did through communication.
Lulu and his men are not alone in this backwardness that has become the Nigerian story. It only pains because of the passion we have for sports, especially football. Should I still say Happy Independence? I’m sorry I rested this column for a while. It’s good to be back. Reactions are welcome.
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