We Need a White President
By
Phil Tam-Al Alalibo
Two weeks ago, the Nigerian Football Association announced the hiring of a white German coach, Berti Vogt, signed at a sizzling sum of 50,00 Euros per month (amounting to $800,000 a year) to handle the nation’s national team, the Super Eagles, whose football fortunes, since 2001 when its management went to indigenous coaches had been dwindling to no end. During this time, it had a most horrifying run at the 2002 Japan/Korea World Cup returning home without winning a single game and scoring only one goal against
Sweden
. In a spiraling wave of disappointments, two years later, it crashed out of the African Nation’s Cup in Tunisia against the host at the semi-final stage and repeated the same feat in Egypt only last year losing 0-1 to the less fancied Elephants of Ivory Coast. All these were happening against the painful backdrop of losing 1-2 to lowly
Senegal
, also at the semi-final stage in the 2002 edition in
Mali
. In spite of its 9th position in the world, according to FIFA’s latest ranking, the Super Eagles, like the nation it represents, have been perennial underachievers in the grand scheme of things and this has not pleased its teaming fans in
Nigeria
and around the world.
It is noteworthy that the Super Eagles (then Green Eagles) won its first ever continental honors in 1980 under the tutelage of
Brazil
’s Otto Gloria and fourteen years later, in 1994, won the same African Nation’s Cup under
Holland
’s Clemens Westerholf. That same year, with Westerholf still at the helm, the team dazzled the soccer world in the USA World Cup, topping its group and advancing to the second round before the ill-fated game against the Azzuries of Italy. In 1996, under the auspices of another Dutch coach, Jo Bonfere, the team (U-23) won the Atlanta Olympic Gold beating the big South American combo of
Brazil
and
Argentina
in the process. What is intriguing in all these is the solemn and provoking fact that the team has never won any major trophies under the direction of a local coach. Since 2001, when Jo Bonfere, the last white coach left and Amado Shaibu took control, it has been one unforgivable gaffe after the other. It would be recalled that during the 2002 World Cup, then coach, old man Adegboyega Onigbinde, was dosing on the bench while his team played on the field.
Perhaps, Christian Chukwu’s tenure spelt the worst disaster for the team in the domain of tactical errors when he took only thirteen players (this included two goalkeepers, leaving only eleven field players) to play a World Cup qualifying match in Angola, losing 0-1. If Nigerians are willing to forgive him for this atrocity, they would not forgive so easily when they remember the decision to play a most crucial match against the same Angolans in the arid and punishing sun of Kano, a condition our cold-weather playing players were no longer used to, but most favorable to the Angolans most of whom plied their trade in the aridity of the Middle East and Africa. This condition, most pundits agreed, was responsible for the shocking outcome of 1-1, emboldening the Angolans to eventually sweep aside the Swaps of Rwanda in
Kigali
to pick up the group’s only ticket on a head-to-head basis. The decision to play in
Kano
in a stadium named after the evil Sani Abacha, has since foreclosed any thoughts of Chukwu returning to the national team.
With this belief that only a white coach can save Nigerian football, predicated on the fact that a white coach is more knowledgeable than an indigenous coach, we ought to extend that same thought to the national leadership level since the white man knows more about democracy than we, as a nation, can ever phantom. Therefore,
Nigeria
, as a country needs a white president to set it on the path of progress under a democratic dispensation. We need a white president to tell us what to do, to direct our affairs and set our priorities as a country. We need a white president to send meaningful bills to the National Assembly aimed at improving the lot of the people. We need a white president to compile our budget, we need a white president to represent us at the United Nations and other international organizations, we need a white president to fight corruption and clear our name of this disease that is eating deep into the fabric of the nation, even 419.
Indeed, we need a white president to provide leadership which has been lacking in our eight years of democracy. We need a white president to tell us what it means to practice democracy. We need a white president to put to good use our petroleum dollars and advice us of which sectors to invest in. We need a white president to build roads, improve our aviation, and reduce the erratic power supply we are still experiencing 46 years after independence. We need a white president to build hospitals for us, to equip our universities and secondary schools and pay teachers and civil servants on time. We need a white president to build bridges, ensure their continued maintenance and oversee the contracts that are given. We need a white president to ensure that we conduct free and fair elections and stem the tide of armed robbery and insecurity that is unnerving the country.
As we speak of investment, foreigners are most likely to invest in
Nigeria
when they see a white president at the helm of affairs. They are more likely to trust one of their own. With a white president,
Nigeria
, like the Super Eagles, is poised to win hearts and major recognition as a bastion of hope and prosperity. With a white president,
Nigeria
is likely to see more investment monies from the West, monies most needed to resuscitate a sagged economy. With a white president,
Nigeria
will join the ranks of the G8 and will win a seat in the United Nations' Security Council. The
United States
, being the main dominant player in the UN, will be more favorable to a white president than it would to an indigenous president. With a white president, just like the white coaches have done for the national team, it will ascend to the mountain top and dwarf its competitors on it way to victory.
Since the Nigerian nation believes that the deliverables reside with the white man in the realm of football, so should we believe that only a white man can save the Nigerian nation. We have had eight years of an indigenous president and our performance as a nation has been damningly disappointing in the same manner six years of indigenous coaches have bastardized our football. What we have is a president more interested in exchanging salvos with his vice than providing leadership. What we have is a vice president who wants to be president at all cost remaining in his position as VP instead of resigning even when it is apparent that he is no longer useful to the polity. But let us note well that a white president and an equally white vice president would never sling mud at each other knowing fully well their responsibilities and the meaning of leadership. We have a good example in President Clinton and Al Gore both of whom demonstrated exceptional leadership while in office for eight years. Even when
Clinton
was having an affair with a school girl, Gore remained loyal and never criticized his boss in public. This is the type of leadership needed in
Nigeria
.
A white president would never accuse his vice in public and deny him of the use of the presidential jet bought with public funds. Similarly, a white vice president would not seek to use his official plane to jet out to the
US
for a personal vacation in a mansion bought for millions of dollars while in office. If we have a white president in power, he would not seek to extend his term by seeking to amend the constitution. He would not send troops to Odi to kill innocent citizens. He would treat the people of the Niger Delta, the bread basket of the nation, well and take actions to improve the standard of living in that part of the country. A white president, my friends, would never steal money to fund his farm in Otta in the same manner a white vice president would not build a university while in office and attribute it to the multiplication of rent investment.
It is thus, a foregone conclusion that the future of
Nigeria
, just like the future of Nigerian football, lies in the hands of a white president. Nigerians are wasting their time with the present rotten crop of presidential candidates who have nothing to say but “We want to move the country forward.” Nigerians should know that a white president will not need to say such words as his actions will determine his intentions. Nigerians should and must follow the wise example of the football handlers in hiring a white coach to clean up the mess that is Nigerian football and vote in a white president in the April elections, shaming the imbeciles who rather than providing true leadership and advancing the course of democracy have resorted to exchanging abuses and insults in the full glare of the international community.
I'm telling you, folks, we need a white president.
_______________________________________________
Author can be reached at alalibo@gmail.com
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