Nelson Ekujimi
Nigeria, April 1, 2016 – Unfortunately, Nigeria’s senior national football team, the Super Eagles will be missing in action when Africa’s most glamorous football fiesta, the African Nations Cup holds in Gabon next year courtesy of the group’s standing in which Egypt has already clinched the group’s only ticket.
Like the Bible asserts in (Psalm 11:3), “If the foundation be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” The exit of the Super Eagles cannot be attributed to the loss to the Egyptians on Tuesday in Alexandria, but rather, the foundation for the Super Eagles painful and embarrassing ouster from Africa’s greatest football event was laid by Mr. Amaju Pinnick led Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) board calamitous hiring of an undertaker as the Super Eagles chief coach.
Mr. Sunday Oliseh tenure as Super Eagles coach while it lasted if the truth be told, was characterized by rancor and strife with his employers, players, the press and the Nigerian football faithful, because of his attitude in which he felt and believed that he had a larger than life image which makes him to be above reprimand from any quarter for any noted shortcomings in the discharge of his duties.
True to his character, as the nation’s cup qualifier against Egypt drew near, Mr. Sunday Oliseh unceremoniously but to the delight of all Nigerians and lovers of peace and progress of our senior national who had become exasperated with his rancorous disposition, threw in the towel and thus put a spanner in the clog of Nigeria’s march for qualification to the 2017 nation’s cup which was already shaky.
And as a stop gap, the Football body hurriedly drafted Mr. Samson Siasia to temporarily fill the gap for the remaining qualifiers and salvage the nation’s chances of qualification and pride which had already been jeopardized by his predecessor and the result was what played out in Egypt on March 29th, 2016 when we crashed out.
Looking back at the two matches that the Super Eagles played under Coach Samson Siasia, one can confidently say that the performance of the team was encouraging and a radical departure from the lackadaisical play under his immediate predecessor. Thus, we are very grateful to coach Samson Siasia and his crew for rekindling our confidence in the Super Eagles and one hopes that his successor will take it up from there.
As we brood over the ouster of the Super Eagles, it is important to remind the Amaju Pinnick led NFF board and Mr. Sunday Oliseh, that when the story is written of how Nigeria failed to qualify for the 2017 African Nations cup, their names will be written in black for posterity sake.
However, as a way forward, the next assignment before the senior national team now is qualification for the 2018 world cup in Russia, thus it now becomes imperative for the football authorities to stop crying over split and put in place machinery for the immediate employment of a competent and quality foreign technical adviser to oversee the qualification of the Super Eagles for the 2018 world cup which is a must do affair as well as draft a programme for the development of our football at all levels.
The qualification for the 2018 world cup in Russia will be the most appropriate compensation and soothing balm to our bruised ego for missing out of AFCON 2017 by the NFF and here’s hoping they will do the needful.
Nelson Ekujumi is a public affairs analysts.
