For many Nigerians, football makes the world go round. That is why whatever touches football touches most of us. When that particular thing touches football and touches our beloved fatherland, then that thing has us all to contend with. That is why, one German with a name that sounds like the measure of electromotive force is on many Nigerian lips. And what they have singing to him, and about him, is closer to dirges than ballads.
Bertie Vogts, that is his name, and his qualification for the current infamy is simple: He led Nigeria to her most disastrous African Nations Cup championship ever! Yet he came as the answer to many soccer lovers’ clamour for “a world-class coach!” Yet he led possibly the best prepared and highest motivated Nigerian squad in recent times! Yet his was the very first coach in recent memory to have his salary and wages guaranteed through the good offices of a corporate sponsor.
To hear the Nigerian soccer buff, fan and aficionado alike, tell it, Vogts was a high voltage disaster! He was wrong, wrong-headed; wrong-footed; wrong on all and every count(s). His scorecard would read like this: team selection – zero; match formation - zero; technical input – zero; decisions from the bench – zero. Not even Fanny Amun who sought African continental honour at a lower level through a certain strategy known as “wobbling and fumbling” would have been rated that abysmally.
So, if you want an explanation for why the Super Eagles were anything but super at CAN 2008, look no further. Hang it all on the not-so-fragile neck of the German and proceed to hang him by the neck or by whatever other means are you chose.
To be fair, some analysts also see some of the players as contributing their quota to the failure of the Super Eagles to fly. They had little or no commitment, some have said. Others think some of the players had reasons other than the good of fatherland for going to Ghana. One or two newspaper reports even fingered a mafia within the squad for the problems.
Let me state categorically that Nigerian football fans cannot be wrong! Possibly, no other nation in the world has as many coaches, managers or technical advisers as we do. Every home has a potential “world class coach.” Makes you wonder why we needed a foreigner in the first place!
However, on this occasion, I wish to align myself, not with these super specialists, but with the opinion of a one-time vice-chairman of the Nigeria Football Association, NFA, Mr Richard Nwabufor Obienu.
According to a Daily Sun report sensationally headlined “Cursed!”, this Enugu-based lawyer told the newspaper’s Joe Apu that the NFA, is under an unseen spell and therefore there must be total purgation and spiritual cleansing of members of the board because of their litany of sins against Ibrahim Galadima, Sunday Oliseh and George Finidi.
According to the report, Obienu said: "That’s the only way Nigeria can win back her lost football glory…Their sins at the NFA need thorough cleansing. They sinned against Ibrahim Galadima by their grand conspiracy that eventually led to his removal as chairman of the body. They sinned against Shaibu Amodu and Stephen Keshi. They also sinned against Finidi and Oliseh…I dare to say that the problems of our football today are spiritual, and this dates back to 2002 in Mali. Unless these spiritual issues are attended to, our problems would only continue to haunt us."
Expatiating on what he described as moral issues, the report quoted him as saying: “…the first moral issue was that coaches Amodu, Keshi and Erico were unjustly treated. These coaches were the first set of indigenous coaches to qualify Nigeria for the World Cup. Their allowances and even mine, as Team Manager, till date have not been paid. It was very unfair.
“The second moral issue is that Sunday Oliseh, Finidi George, Tijani Babangida, as well as Dr. Tijani Yussuf, were poorly treated and deserved compensation. Okocha and Kanu betrayed Oliseh and the rest of the team and that is why they cannot win anything for Nigeria since then. Both Okocha and Kanu have done well for Nigeria and no one can take away their contributions. Dr. Yussuf, for all his efforts as Secretary General of the NFA, was dragged to the ICPC for no good reason. If he had been convicted, he would have gone to jail for qualifying Nigeria for the 2002 World Cup, after all the risks he took.
"The third moral issue is the coup against Alhaji Ibrahim Galadima. He was wrongfully removed by those who called themselves stakeholders, for no just cause. The traitors that saw him off have their hands stained with innocent blood, and that is why the NFA is not making any progress…”
I have quoted extensively from the report in order to make the point that most of us seem to be missing: namely that the days of “business as usual” are over forever in our nation. The Spiritual state of our nation has, through the prayer of the saints, gone up to heaven. God has heard the cry of the people and nothing will ever be the same again; not in our politics and governance; not in business and economic management; not even in sports!
That is why a team which played the highest number of friendly matches; was promised the highest match and other bonuses with the highest number of players in some of best leagues in the world, and handled by “a world class coach could not go beyond the second round of African Nations Cup, Ghana 2007. That is why palliatives such as the sack of Vogts will not solve the problems of Nigerian football whilst the spiritual issues, some of which Obienu spoke about remain unresolved. That is why men and women who rig themselves into office at any level, or manipulate the system to their benefit will never again leave office in anything but disgrace.
I hear it clearly in my spirit, the prophetic words of American preacher, T.D Jakes to men in his book, “Loose That Man and Let Him Go” echoes what God is saying about Nigeria today. I have recast it like this: God is not going to let Nigeria get by with all the little things He used to overlook; we are running out of time. He used to let us make excuses for all the little things in the early hours of the fight. Now He is saying “excuses don’t work anymore; you’re running out of time. I must do a quick work to get you to your reserved seat. The enemy is chasing you; you’re on the hit list of hell, but I am determined to get you first.”
I have said this before in this column and I am going to repeat what I said last October. Nigerian sports, especially football is in “the vice-grip of a small, ruthless cabal. The interest of the cabal is money; money to purchase consciences in order to acquire power and use the power to make more money in a vicious devil-may-care cycle”. In that piece titled “Football and the Impending Flood”, which discussed the as yet unresolved matter of who controls the Nigerian Football League, I also stated: “…that what is currently playing out is the result of the evil that has been perpetrated over time in this very important area of our national life…” That is what Obienu is saying even if we differ in some of material particulars.
My warning then can bear repetition today: “the end is nigh for evil in our sport, particularly football. And the (then) on-going “civil war” is only the early warning signs that a flood that will sweep away the Nigerian football world as we know it in “Noahic” manner is imminent. It is also an assurance to the righteous that when it all over, they would be the ones standing”. Time is up for evil and its perpetrators.
First published in a Nigerian Daily, the Sunday Independent, published in Lagos Nigeria.
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