By now, my ardent readers would have known one thing peculiar about this space: the fact that it is not the typical Nigerian column dwelling so much on the topical and criticism of public officials. Not that doing the topical or criticizing poor governance is not good, they are necessary if governance is to be positive and very rewarding. The oxygen of poor leadership is silence or even nonchallance of the people.
Yet, there is the bigger truth wherein lies the far bigger challenge, and this has to do with limitations posed by talking without offering something worthwhile; plenty noise everywhere with no solution. Those in public offices always like what they call «constructive criticism.» They dislike hard hitting truth, and if it were possible they won’t want the people to have a say. I have repeatedly said on this space that any leader, president or governor who doesn’t have the benefit of deep formal education can offer excellent leadership and receive widespread acclaim if he or she can find time to read daily newspapers and watch early morning television programmes everyday. Don’t tell me it can’t be done. I have been in the commanding heights of power, I do know it can be done if there is conscious allocation of time.
No leader who intends to create a record should sleep more than four hours in a day. It is for this reason I like committing my outings to issues of development. We have imitated the white world and ended up turning out terrible imitators. Today’s discourse wouldn’t have been on sports or football in particular having written on football shortly before our national team traveled for the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) football tournament still holding in Cameroon.
There is this syndrome or bug that holds leaders hostage when suddenly it dawns on them that their tenure in public office will soon end. After God it is power; it is a sweet thing to be in power. Vain minds never contemplate it will end, so they act and in fact want to be God, but when it becomes clear what has a beginning must have an end they feel it. Next thing is to act funny, they act frantic and some go berserk. People in developed countries call it Midnight Syndrome.
This phenomenon has complicated matters for us, yet we have not recognized the trend for what it is, not to talk of the huge danger it continues to pose to our quest for sound transformation of our space. About two years ago, I examined this matter and thought it very useful to revisit it this period, but I am leaving it for the one you are reading, for the reason that our Super Eagles failed to reach the mark expected of them in a competition as huge and significant as the one they crashed out from last weekend. Someone would say it doesn’t it matter after all in sports you win some, you lose some. This is a position of weaklings who just live life without targets. For those who know that sports is another axis to build a great nation full of life and abundance won’t subscribe to such a philosophy.
They take this aspect of life very seriously, invest in it and mandate participants to go and set marks, break records and bring back the laurels. We seem not to know that here. I have said it here severally and am repeating myself that benefits drivable from sports are multiple, some of them intangible but very verifiable, we can see and touch them. Sports is a strong tool for knocking a country into nation-state, it can be deployed to accelerate the vital question of unity and sense of bonding among diverse people in a shaky union. Ours is one of such.
As our national football team played we all forgot our tribes and religion, none took notice of the big fact that the players were a kind of rainbow coalition with players picked from diverse backgrounds, tribe and beliefs. The players and officials are not foreigners but our sons and daughters while the players did the playing and others worked from the background to ensure things went very well, they earned big money which trickle down to local communities via relations. Before they crashed out the name Nigeria was on top; our fame spread at least across Africa and those who disrespected and resented us in recent times suddenly began to fear and hold us in great awe. We stayed high and for once we all felt very proud to be Nigerian before the bubble burst. Then as it is usual the blame game began.
The first salvo was the one angle bordering on superstition. Voices began to rise that President Mohammadu Buhari’s greetings and motivation for the national team was responsible for their early ouster from the tournament. Some tried to find out how this came to be, we got no sensible answer. All we had were positions resting on the illogic and drawing from a mix of formal beliefs and cultural values. Many mentioned back luck and negative energy, some of us heard that and laughed, our amusement came from the knowledge that it is difficult to say when those facilitors if they are real became decisive factors in success.
When did this substitute for vision, planning, hard work and determination? If truth be told President Buhari has nothing whatsoever to do with the below par performance of the team. He did all he needed to do. He deserves high commendation. I give it to him. Coach Augustine Eguavoen, goalkeeper Okoye or Alex Iwobi, none was responsible for early exit rather the failure should be laid where it rightly belongs: systemic disorder. Eguavoen may have been bereft of ideas at crucial moments yet tardiness associated with organization here ensured we brought him very late for rescue operation, the players were not his choice they were choices already made by Gernot Rohr. He had no time.
Eagles floundering is foundational. Success at such major meets should start from sound policy outlay detailing very clearly how we view sports and what we intend to make out it. If we have one we won’t do what we do with our the few sporting facilities government manage to put together. We build and allow stadiums to decay. Sporting meets are a rarity. We gather athletes on the eve of major competitions. With reference to football the academies are not there except few ill-equipped ones established and run by individuals. Private school initiative has killed off school sports. Our football leagues are in shambles.
The consequence is very visible for all to see. People who represent us these days are sporting persons raised by or in foreign lands. They return to us acting like super stars who have been constrained to return to help a rudderless clan. There is hardly the kind of commitment seen from athletes and footballers elsewhere. See how players from Comoros, Sierra Leone, Malawi, Gambia Cote D Voire or even Egypt we out played in our first match at AFCON played as if their lives were dependent on the outcome of each match. Tunisia was struck by Coronavirus, consequently missed the services of some key players yet the remaining footballers who marshaled out to confront our Eagles wanted to die if it comes to that to get a victory. You could see the win or die mentality in their level of determination and output.
The Eagles fell to tactics and superior technique. One didn›t need to be a coach to understand that anybody who has seen Eagles play in the tournament and was to square against them then and even afterwards would close the wings, make it difficult for the team to enact her wing play. Tunisia did that very excellently. The embarrassment is the fact that our handlers couldn›t anticipate that it will be that way and when it turned out to be so the coach and players seemed lost. Our wingers remained glued to their positions as if they were condemned to remain there. Robust football gave Egypt into our hands; why then play European kind of slow pace football suitable to North Africans. Wasn’t it embarrassing a team like the Eagles couldn›t hit target for the duration of the first half?
What is to be done? After such a competition where teams underperform key officials should resign. I demand they do. Sports Minister and Football Federation Chairman should go immediately. The new foreign coach, Augustine Eguavoen and Emmanuel Amunike should handle same boys perhaps with few additions for World Cup African qualifier against Ghana. They would need to work on the attack, look out for strikers who can contribute to team play and score using head, legs and making use of half chances. Not Awoniyi and Iheanacho. We need two strong creative midfielders to add to Joe Aribo; Aribo is good. We need defenders in the class of Uche Okechukwu and of course goalkeepers. The goalkeepers there are shadows of the real thing. Everyone knows this much .
Most teams that are doing well have their foundation in home based players. Check again. It is difficult to raise a championship team gathering players for two weeks and pushing them into tough competitions where near perfection in the art is big advantage. Our boys lack determination and the energy level required to overwhelm tough opposition. If we don›t correct these we will continue to hover around the «also participated» group. It will not matter the tournament. Getting a place in Africa should not be the ambition. We should be among the world’s best.