By Tony Ubani

Civil right activist and eminent lawyer Festus Keyamo has strongly spoken against the engagement of any foreign assistant for Stephen Keshi if the Super Eagles coach was not comfortable with that.

The Nigeria Football Federation, we gathered, asked Keshi to engage an assistant who would help add value to the bench of the national team in the Brazil World Cup. We gathered that Keshi bluntly rejected the offer and asked for the recall of Sylvanus Okpalla who the federation disengaged after the Nations Cup, citing poor funding at the time.

“I totally disagree with the idea to engage a foreign assistant for Keshi,” Keyamo said on phone, adding “the practice all over the world is that a head coach appoints his assistants and other staff. If Keshi says that he wants Okpalla back, “let them give him what he wants.”

The federation, we gathered, insists that for Nigeria to do well in the World Cup, Keshi would need help and that they hope to make Keshi see reason to accept help for the interest of Nigeria even if they were to grant his request for Okpalla.