Where Are The Super Eagles?
By Reuben Abati
While we were celebrating the success of the Super Falcons as fifth consecutive winner of the finals of the African Women's Championships, and clearly Africa's most accomplished female football team, something else happened to remind us of the crisis in Nigeria's Football House, the reign of mediocrity there, the failure of the NFA and the country's inability to make the best use of its human resources. I had argued last week that the Super Falcons won the AWC cup for 2006, and for the fifth time, in spite of Nigeria and the NFA.
Compare for example what happened on Wednesday, November 15 to the country's national team, the Super Eagles of Nigeria. November 15 was FIFA's match-free day. On that day, various countries had arranged to play international friendly matches as part of preliminary steps at getting their national teams together ahead of future competitions including the 2008 European Championships, the 2008 African Cup of Nations and the 2010 World Cup. And so around the world on that day, 30 international matches were played. African countries: Ghana, Cameroun, Egypt etc were also involved. But not Nigeria. We were nowhere to be seen, we were totally unprepared.
Incidentally, the Terenga Lions of Senegal had approached Nigeria for a friendly match. Senegal was ready. France was proposed as the neutral venue for the match. But the salary-collecting, allowances-guzzling, Messrs do-nothings at the Nigerian Football Association messed it all up. First, they didn't make up their mind in time whether the Super Eagles should play or not.
When eventually they decided that it would be a good thing for a national team to play international friendly matches, they ran into other hitches bordering on incompetence. European clubs where many of our stars play football; require at least two weeks notice before they can release their players for national assignments in their original countries. They also expect to be sent a formal letter of request, if only for courtesy and record purposes. Would you believe, and please do, that Austin Eguavon, the embattled coach of the Super Eagles started making phone calls to individual players only two days to the proposed match? And no letters of request were sent to the employer-clubs!
One of the players who was contacted, and asked to report in France in two days, was quoted in the ThisDay newspaper as saying: "he did not say how I was to get there, who was paying for the flight or how I was going to be reimbursed. Of course, it's a pleasure playing for my country but unfortunately when I notified my manager, I was flatly told that I could not go because they (club) had not received any formal request from the NFA. So, I was forced to tell the coach that he should count me out."
The inane excuse that was offered by the NFA is that the body has no money! This is what happens all the time. When the Super Falcons won their 4th title in the AWC in South Africa, they refused to surrender the cup to the Nigerian authorities, they refused to check out of their hotel rooms in Johannesburg, and they staged an ugly scene for the whole world to see, for no reason other than that their managers had refused to pay their match allowances and bonuses. The NFA is like PHCN, the Railways Corporation, the Police and all other public institutions which have failed before our very eyes. Football is the most popular sports in Nigeria. It is also I dare say, a major source of national unity.
It is only when Nigeria is involved in a football match that Nigerians become most patriotic; they want their country to succeed; they want the country's football stars to shine, feelings of ethnic and religious differences are suspended. A serious government would have capitalised on this social value of football to further cement relationships among the populace and generate positive attitudes towards government. But NIgeria doesn't even have a competitive national league that can attract public interest. When we were younger, we watched, talked about and heard of vibrant local teams such as Stationery Stores, Leventis United, Abiola Babes, Iwuayanwu Nationale, Mighty Jets of Jos, Enugu Rangers, Bendel Insurance, IICC Shooting Stars of Ibadan...but today the average young Nigerian who is interested in football can only talk about European Championships and the English Premier League and football clubs.
Because the Super Eagles do not play international friendly matches, they always go to tournaments not knowing each other, not having enough opportunity to blend together as a team. The USA '94 team that won the Olympics gold medal in soccer for Nigeria was the product of talent and careful preparation. But these days, the players arrive in camp a day or a week to the first match. Some players don't even come to Nigeria before the team travels out; they join the others wherever the tournament is taking place. There is no systematic method of identifying new talents or nurturing the ones that we have. We go to every tournament with the illusion that we are "hot favourites". The Super Eagles have become "hot favourites" in every situation but being hot like small pox takes nobody anywhere, it is actual performance that counts.
And we can't blame poor Austin Eguavoen. He wants to coach the Super Eagles. He wants to serve his country. But the characters in the NFA board who are more interested in position rather than results will not offer him the facilities or the enabling circumstances to enable him perform or learn. Eguavoen cannot give what he does not have. And he is under enormous pressure. He is called the Coach of the Super Eagles, but right before him, the NFA Board is busy looking for a Foreign Coach. Only God knows when they will find this Super Coach who will be ready to do business with the NFA. Football has become a global business, with defined standards.
To attract a good foreign coach - not a carpenter, coaching football as a dilettante - we must be ready to adhere by those standards. When you recall that the Super Eagles used to bring us all so much joy, you will be saddened by the present lack of direction in Nigerian football. And other sports as well. But that is another matter for another day.
What's Happening At The Port Harcourt Airport?
About five months ago, Nigerians were told that the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) had decided to close down the Port Harcourt Airport for repairs. Not a bad idea. After all, this is the same airport where a Sosoliso aircraft crashed in December 2005 killing over 100 persons on board including school children. This is the same airport where a few months earlier, cows had suddenly showed up on the runway, forcing an aircraft to crash-land. Some of the cows were injured, others knocked dead.
What became the fate of the raw meat that was made available on the runway is one of the best kept secrets of that incident. There were insinuations though that, airport officials shared out the beef and that their families ate meat for days with the silent prayer that more cows should run onto the runway! Anyhow, if the only thing the repair of the Port Harcourt airport would produce is a strong perimeter fence around the airport to keep cows at bay, a smoother runway that is pot-hole free, better facilities both within and around the airport, better guarantees of safety, new weather equipment, Nigerians would be pleased.
But it now appears that the renovation of the airport is shrouded in mystery. Five months later, no work is being done, the renovation has not started. If FAAN had wanted to build a brand new airport and work had started since, by now, that new airport should be nearing completion. So what is going on? Is it true that somebody, somewhere in government is sitting on the N3 billion that was meant for the renovation? Or that the Due Process Office and Julius Berger, the chosen construction company, have not been able to agree on the contract sum in the past five months? Why begin negotiations with the contractor after shutting down the airport, why not before? For how much longer would the renovation go on? When would it start?
FAAN owes the users of that airport an explanation, because the diversion of flights to the Owerri airport and the additional pressure that travellers in that part of the country have to go through is beginning to create much anxiety. Persons are compelled to endure the ordeal of travelling on the-not-so-good Port Harcourt-Owerri road with all the attendant risks. Armed robbers have taken over that road, which let us not mince words, is in a very bad state. Some of the airlines now provide transportation and security for travellers between the two cities, but then that is at extra cost to helpless citizens (about N5, 000 extra). And the Owerri airport is useless; it is being stretched beyond its capacity.
Since Port Harcourt-bound passengers were diverted to this airport no attempt has been made to add any new facility there. Nobody is thinking about that. The airport has become congested; and its officials are overwhelmed. The runway in that airport is worse than that of the Port Harcourt airport that is supposed to be under repairs. Should we wait until an untoward incident occurs at the Owerri airport before we begin to sound wise after the fact? All of this point to three things: gross incompetence in official corridors, a crisis of integrity and disregard for human lives.
The Minister of Aviation should look into these complaints. The Presidency should also take up the matter. The Nigerian people deserve to know what is going on, lest the Port Harcourt airport becomes another abandoned project, and a waste of public funds, especially now that persons living in the neighbouring Ikwerre villages now go onto the abandoned tarmac to play football, or learn driving!
The CJN's Protest
The Chief Justice of Nigeria, Hon. Justice Modibbo Alfa Belgore, like Muhammed Uwais (CJN as he then was) before him, has had cause to protest at the biennial conference of All Nigerian Judges in Asaba that the scant regard which the executive arm of government has for judicial rulings is inimical to democracy and the objectives of good governance. He is right. This is the second time that His Lordship, the CJN would be offering an opinion on the conduct of other arms of government. In the course of the impeachment proceedings in Ekiti he had written a letter hoping to discourage an imposed and over-enthusiastic Chief Justice of Ekiti from being used as an instrument in a game of legislative tyranny and recklessness.
To be sure, it is not only the Executive arm of government that treats the courts shabbily, even the legislature too and the entire political establishment. One of the biggest victims in the last seven years of democracy has been the doctrine of the separation of powers. The pith of this doctrine, this check and balance framework, is the need to prevent any form of recklessness at any level of government, and to protect the rule of law against the rule of tyrants. Each time the military seized power in the past, the first thing they did was to suppress all sections of the Constitution that would make them answerable to any form of check.
It is this culture of absolutism that has now been carried forward into Nigerian democracy creating a civilian dictatorship of which the Executive and legislative arms of government are the chief architects. Daily, the judiciary is being ridiculed. Contempt of court has become routine. In various instances, in Anambra, Oyo, Ekiti, and Lagos states, the Federal Government, political leaders, and the President especially, have all publicly ignored judicial pronouncements. The Chairman of the PDP, Ahmadu Ali, in the Anambra case involving Chris Ngige practically overruled a court of law.
The other week, a Governor also declared that a court ruling has nothing to do with the politics in his state. In another case, the Supreme Court had ruled that money belonging to local councils in Lagos state should be released by the Federal Government because it has no powers to withhold such funds, but the Presidency ignored the Supreme Court. In election matters also, the courts are allowed to have a say only when it is convenient for the powers-that-be. In Ondo state, one Yekini Olanipekun has been declared the rightful winner of the Akoko North West seat in the state House of Assembly but the PDP members of the House will not allow the Alliance for Democracy candidate to sit with them. They have given his seat to a PDP member even with a court ruling declaring this illegal.
The Constitution is also trampled upon with impunity, and this is done with the support of those who are supposed to offer advise on matters of the law. To be considered a loyal Minister of Justice and Attorney General, you must be ready to help bend the law to suit the whims of your boss. And if you are an Inspector-general of Police and you don't want to fall out of favour, your best bet is to support any illegality that the President encourages! The President of Nigeria wields more power under the cover of democracy than the American President and the British Prime Minister.
The judges are not helping matters. There is so much corruption in the judiciary; the law is failing in its role as a social modulator. The Executive and the lawmakers may be behaving badly but the judiciary must also put its house in order, and enforce discipline within its ranks. That is the task before the CJN and the National Judicial Council.
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