Our forefathers ha¬d ways of passing messages to their children way back in history. An African Proverb says, “Look for a dark (black) goat in the day time because you may not (easily ) find it in the night”. Meaning, “You should always order your goals and follow them before it is too late to accomplish them”.

This saying today suits the present Nigeria Football Federation, NFF board headed by Alhaji Ibrahim Musa Gusau who seem lost about getting a substantive coach for the national team, the Super Eagles. It is about five months and two weeks, precisely 168 days since Finidi George threw in the towel as Chief Coach of the Super Eagles following the decision of the NFF to hire a foreign coach to boss him.

After the surprise resignation which shook the NFF, they found it difficult to react promptly. When they found their voice, they told Nigerians that they had found a foreign coach in one Bruno Labbadia,who as usual had no solid pedigree. This was to satisfy the yearnings of some Nigerians who always have deep appetite for any coach with a white skin. In a popular Nigerian parlance, at all, at all, naim bad. Meaning better than nothing.

The NFF is like the proverbial tortoise with unending tales. Again their deal for the coach was never concretised before the announcement was made and the deal crashed like a pack of cards. When the just ended 2025 AFCON qualifiers approached and the Super Eagles had no substantive coach, the NFF once again ran to their employee they always use for rescue missions, Augustine Eguavoen. As always, both the NFF who never wants to give Eguavoen a substantive contract and Nigerian fans with high appetite for foreign coaches were waiting for Eguavoen to flounder.

The target given to him however, was to qualify the team for the 2025 AFCON. And he delivered with a match to spare. The match against Rwanda in Uyo became the banana peel put on his way and Eguavoen never knew this, otherwise he wouldn’t have fielded his fringe players. To him, he wanted to give them the opportunity to prove that they were equally deserving of the invitation to be part of the team.

Yours sincerely however, warned that despite the qualification, the NFF and Eguavoen should consider the form of every player to be invited or used for any match rather than their names or clubs they play for as they begin preparation for the remaining 2026 World Cup qualifiers. It is exactly 107 days to the matchday 5 of the World Cup qualifier against Rwanda in Kigali, the same team that humiliated the team in Uyo last month.

Seven days after the Rwanda match, they will play host to Zimbabwe in Uyo for the matchday 6. And yet the NFF is mute on whether they are still going to hire a foreign coach for the team or Eguavoen was going to continue. If by now they haven’t started talking to the possible choices, one wonders how much time is left for them to begin the process, finally agree with the chosen one and then sign a contract with hm.

If they eventually get a foreign coach say in January, what time will the coach have to know the strength and weaknesses of the players he would be working with to be able to plot strategies for the remaining must-win matches, six in all, without which they would kiss the 2026 World Cup goodbye? It is either the NFF has no money to engage a foreign coach at the moment or are just hanging unto Eguavoen and praying that he succeeds in qualifying the Super Eagles for the World Cup, the way he did with the 2025 AFCON.

The debate is however, on among Nigerians, fans and football stakeholders alike, whether Eguavoen should be asked to continue on a permanent basis with a valid contract or a foreign technical adviser should be employed. Some who are against a foreign coach, as it is a drain on the country’s resources, however, feel that Eguavoen should give way for either Samson Siasia or Emmanuel Amuneke.

One man who has never hidden his disdain for foreign coaches whom he described as ‘nobodies’ before coming to handle the Super Eagles is Chief Segun Odegbami (MON), a member of the first AFCON winning team in 1980. He has repeatedly said that following his careful study of the indigenous coaches, that after late Stephen Keshi, who Clemens Westerhof rated as a born leader and most suitable as coach among his peers, the next person is Samson Siasia.

In March this year, Odegbami was emphatic on the issue of coaches that he wrote “No more foreign coaches in Nigeria, let us sink or swim with Nigerians.” Again in September, he wrote that Siasia is the most qualified Nigerian for the Super Eagles because after equipping himself for the job, he has risen from the ranks, from club football through the junior national teams with FIFA ranking him among the best young coaches in the world after his exploits with the U-23 team at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

With the NFF unable to afford expensive foreign coaches which they always crave for, Odegbami has suggested that the search for a Nigerian coach should end today. He wants Siasia to be drafted as a tag-team partner of Eguavoen in the present arrangement. Another former Super Eagles player, Victor Ikpeba and current member of the NFF technical committee wants the football body to take a decision on a substantive coach for the team urgently as he wouldn’t want Eguavoen “to be a scapegoat when he does the World Cup qualifiers and we still don’t qualify even though he did not start the qualifiers”. Over to you NFF. Nigerians are waiting