Nigeria and the Nations Cup

But Senegal fumbled badly; it won none of the matches played so far and had to go home early. Guinea, which sent Nigeria out of the competition at the qualifying stage was a real disappointment, it could not go beyond the early stages. It now looks as if all the grit and creativity of play […]

But Senegal fumbled badly; it won none of the matches played so far and had to go home early. Guinea, which sent Nigeria out of the competition at the qualifying stage was a real disappointment, it could not go beyond the early stages. It now looks as if all the grit and creativity of play it had displayed worked for it only at the qualifying stage and particularly targeted at keeping Nigeria out of the final in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. Guinea now joins the likes of Angola, Botswana and Morocco as teams to exit early from the tournament.

Back home in Nigeria, the interest in the tournament has been understandably low keyed with little passionate intensity that usually attends such events when Nigeria is participating. You do not hear the sudden loud exclamations that tell of a missed scoring opportunity nor the deafening and earth-shaking hollering that greets a well taken shot that sends the ball to the back of the net. It is as if Nigerians are not watching this year’s tournament at all. They apparently could not be bothered because their country is not participating. This should be of great concern to everyone, especially the government.

Except for a few strange individuals who claim that they don’t watch the game, soccer has assumed a certain fascination for most people in the world. It arrests attention in such a trance-like manner as no other event has succeeded to do. While a football match lasts, housewives have had cause to complain that they no longer are able to draw the attention of their husbands when the need arises, and I am not talking about bedroom attention–and at the other end of the spectrum, it has been noted that governments—discerning one for that matter, wait until an important football match is in progress to institute unpopular policies.

One of the terrible mistakes made by President Goodluck Jonathan on the fuel subsidy issue was the wrong timing of its implementation. To choose the first day of the first month of a new year to execute a policy which no one wanted anyway, incensed everyone and fuelled the fury that attended the demonstrations. Had the president been a little street-wise and conversant with the psychology of his people, he would have waited until the Nations Cup had commenced before putting in place the fuel subsidy removal policy. Had that been done, the bitterness that characterized the demonstrations would have been mellowed as Nigerians would have faced the dilemma of watching the games or harkening to calls of demonstrations. All this is by way of saying how Nigerians and indeed other people, have become so  sold on football, a point that advertisers have become aware of as they battle to place their products at prime soccer periods and this has been demonstrated exquisitely in the English premiership.

Not participating in this year’s African Nations Cup did not come as a surprise—it is the watershed of years of dwindling fortunes of the nation’s soccer outfit. There was a time when the Super Eagles dominated the soccer scene on the African continent. Last year alone, Nigeria’s squads crashed out of a number of global soccer tournaments, including the Under-23 male team in the qualification for the forthcoming Olympics Games in London, so also both the male and female soccer teams for the All African Games billed for Namibia. The reasons are not difficult to discern –but chiefly however bad administration is the main cause.

The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), the elected body that administers football in Nigeria has been embroiled in self -negating battle with itself. It is riddled with factions bent on taking the nation’s football to the lowest level, if we let them. The squabbling factions have caused a court to order that the body be dissolved immediately and none of these factions should parade itself as the bona fide one. All this is bound to affect the performances of the various soccer teams as the competitions come along, including the 2013 Nations Cup qualifying rounds and that of the World Mundial. The implication is that unless desperate measures are taken urgently, Nigerians may be watching both the next Nations Cup and the 2014 World Cup as we doing now, with studied disinterest because our teams may not be participating in them.

To arrest this, drift the government must find a way to circumvent many of FIFA rules that say it cannot interfere in the running of football. The reason for this is simple. Football remains about the only thing that excites Nigerians patriotic fervor, when Nigeria teams are on show the genuine nationalistic passion displayed is palpable, edifying and gratifying. This good display of national love must not be allowed to go to waste in a country like ours in dire need of inculcation of such intrinsic values; but this would entail ensuring that the depressing performances of Nigeria’s soccer and other sporting-life are arrested and rejuvenated. With global competition fast on the heels of one another, delay to act could be costly. Act now!