AFCON 2015 QUALIFIERS; NIGERIA 2 CONGO 3, JUNK IN, JUNK OUT!

  I don´t know why some people are surprised that the Congolese national team beat the super Eagles today in Calabar in the first leg, fist match of the 2015 nations cup qualifiers. My question is, why are we a nation that rather than manage our abundant resources very well and depend on out great potentials, we lie on our oars and solely depend on goodluck to sail through in everything we do?

  To start with, our football governing body the NFF with the so called Shehu Maigari at the helm of affairs can never add quality to the game of football in our country, you don´t give in what you don´t have. And the continuous instability in the NFF with the arrival of Mr Chris Giwa who the world football governing body is failing to recognize as NFF chairman is not helping the game of football in Nigeria, I remember writing an article on my blog recently questioning the refusal to make a football expert and a onetime national team player like Segun Odegbami the NFF president. As long as we continue to have the wrong people in key positions in Nigeria we should not expect progress, miracle can happen sometimes but not all the time.

  In the last world cup, some of us exaggerated what really was a lack luster performance of the super eagles who only managed a win and a draw in four games as if they had won the world cup and we began to celebrate a coaching crew whose technical reactions in the world cup at vital moments in the competition were absolutely absent. And after the world cup so many football nations whose performance in the last world cup was not too convincing, began to restructure their teams, some changed a handful of their players, others changed their coaching crew to inject a new lease of life and a renewed ambition into their teams but we stood adamant as we are wont to do, insisting in a group with many over rated but mediocre players instead of overhauling the team and making way for new talented and hungry players as we did in the last nations cup that we won.

  For heaven sake, I thought that players like Mikel Obi, Shola Ameobi, Ahmed Musa, Odewingie, Yobo, Obasi, Uche etc, have given this nation all they have as footballers and that boys like Kelechi Iheanachor and his generation should begin to be introduced into the team alongside other new discoveries, but no, the recycling activities in all level of our government and all national policies must continue. Mikel Obi whose performance at the last world cup was below what any JSS student in Lagos or any part of the country could have done if given the same chance must be in the team even if heaven will fall, he is the Dangote of the super eagles, the only one permitted to manage the midfield.

  Let me tell you what I have decided, those who know me know that I am a fanatic of the Nigerian national team, but from henceforth, I have decided never to support the super eagles again until Mikel Obi is booted out of that team, we are a nation of over 160 million for God sake, we cannot afford to make anybody the sole stakeholder of our collective resources and business as a nation…. Na im papa farm? Enough is enough, our coaches should stop being lazy and depending only on readymade, big headed players, they should travel to all the local government areas in the country and scout for new talents, not even necessarily the ones who play in our local leagues, there are some good players who are not playing in any club, I refuse to accept that Mikel Obi is the best Midfielder that we have in Nigeria. We should desist from celebrating mediocrity and raise the bar high, let those who want to represent us in any capacity know that we won´t accept just anything but the very best from them.

  I know that some people will say that it is just the first match, but I am not even talking about this match or whether or not they will eventually qualify for the next nations cup, I am saying that we should do the right thing for once as regards football and other issues in this country but especially sporting issues which undoubtedly is the only remaining unifying factor in this each time more devastated and bastardized nation with all the calamitous events all around us.    

 Above all, let us make football the business of footballers and football experts, a football nation like Nigeria cannot afford to have a football novice or football ignorant persons at the helm of its football governing body.