Siasia is as good as sacked – Ikpeme, Ojidoh
By Tony Ubani
ASSISTANT Secretary-General of the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, Dr Emmanuel Ikpeme has dropped the hardest hint on the futile efforts by embattled coach of the Super Eagles, Samson Siasia to retain his job after the calamity of not qualifying Nigeria to the Nations Cup next year in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.

But unfazed by the pain of Nigerians, Samson Siasia is putting up a spirited fight to feign off the deluge of calls for his sack. He said that those who wanted him sacked were jealous of his N5 million per a month pay.

“This is not not the time to think of bringing back those old foreign expatriate coaches. They have nothing to offer. Some of them who are voicing for my sack are only jealous of my pay and they want to come back.

Siasia after the match in Abuja

Nigeria is 51 years old and we should be moving forward. If they have identified mistakes that I made, they should point them out for me to learn and correct. Not to be paving the way for them to come back”, Siasia said on Brila FM.

But the Assistant Secretary-

General(Technical), Ikpeme, speaking on the same station laughed off talks of a Siasia come-back after Guinea poured sand on his contract.

“By the terms and clauses in his contract, Samson Siasia is as good as sacked. The contract is explicit on what happens if he fails to qualify Nigeria for the Nations Cup”, Ikpeme, one of the few independent minds in the glass house, said.

Retired astute sports administrator, Pa John Ojidoh also voiced out his position, saying that “honouring contracts is part of rule of law and going by the contract of Siasia his job ended the moment the match with Guinea ended and we failed to qualify for the Nations Cup.”

The Executive Committee of the NFF had put off judgment day for the Bayelsa-born coach after the Technical Committee had recommended for his sack to allow for concentration for the London Olympic soccer qualifier between Cameroun and the Super Falcons.

That match had also gone the way of the Super Eagles as Cameroun’s Indomitable Lionesses edged Nigeria out of the Olympics in a penalty shoot-out at the weekend.