Football falls victim to Maigari’s dog-whistle

Unique timing for our football

I cheered when Jarret Tenebe and his team came up to announce what I have seen but no one will listen to me because they in the NFF have a clear thinking that borders on “Fashikun is an extremist”. I got it. i had predicted this some six weeks back. Mike Enahoro also predicted it in his piece somewhere. It was coded, yes, for only those who can discern it. 

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS:

Political correctness being what it is, made the President, Goodluck Jonathan, whose government prides itself as one that respects Rule of Law, to insist that the Federal High Court order as delivered by Justice Okon Abang be followed with all respects to the last letter. This is one sift move that will win it applause in months to come. QED.

With so much new football water under the bridge of the Glass House, I’ve had time to reflect on what happened back there and the only conclusion I’ve reached so far is that I heard a dog-whistle long time ago from a far distance and that makes me a dog.

WHERE WE GOT IT WRONG:

The guiding principle for football is straightforward — passionate fans belong to their clubs, not hanging around the game’s wheelhouse trying look after their club. Ask those who followed the IICC, Raccah Rovers, Stationery Stores, Jettimo of Uyo, Leventis United, NEPA, Water Corporations etc

Real Nigerians wanted club officials and their lapdogs kept well away from the wheel, and that  solution is to make football’s governors directly accountable to football’s registered participants: the players, coaches and referees – not clubs.

Tenebe came out with both barrels (probably as a former soldier) describing the structure of football governance in Nigeria as “disjointed, discredited and corrupt." I wholesomely agree with him that without significant change the sport will continue to suffer from the factionalism, infighting and poor management that has bedevilled it in the past leading to the present.

WAYS OUT OF THE WOOD:

1.    Dismantle a voting system that is tarnished by deal-making and selfish interests and replace it with a streamlined electoral process free of vested interests at both national and state level.

2.      Organise a fresh election;

3.      I mean, the big fault with the current system is that people sit there, and there’s nothing wrong with the people or the personalities, but I’m sitting there representing the national league clubs, or I’m sitting there representing a zone or region, so I’m going to make my decision on who the people are who put me there.

4.      Set up an independent commission that would run the game for some time. That will mean both the NFF and NFA (as they are now all have to go). You know that these decisions we have to make are what’s best for the game. That will also mean that the current board of the NFF must all resign enmass.

5.      Who pays the piper calls the tune. By the existing law governing football in Nigeria, NFA Act 1999 as amended 2004.

6.      The Government, and most people inside the game, clearly believe and know that the true stakeholders are the players, coaches, journalists, volunteers, and families of the vast majority of its over 1, 500,000 participants. These are the people Nigeria football should aim to connect withand who the administrators passionately should want to represent at all times;

7.      The stakeholders they [the NFF board] represent are the handful of voters from state federations and clubs (amateur, women, national league and professional league) who vote them into office while the vast majority of the football electorate is either not allowed inside the room, or is looking the other way. It is this culture of vested interest that has created generations of mediocre administrator.

8.      The governors of our football as in the NFF are not legitimate representatives of the football community, and the federations’ staff are appointed by those illegitimate governors, there is a strong argument to turf them out and start again from scratch.

9.      Bigotry and ignorance are no friends of modern soccer management. This crisis is one opportunity we must maximize and correct the fundamental structural errors of our football.

10.  If the entire NFF board is made to resign (as it was done in 2003 in Australia) FIFA will not complain. Then, the independent committee goes ahead to reform the game with earnest zeal delivering specific details and institutionalization processes, we can get it right and find our way back to football greatness.

11.  Option is to set up a National Sports Resolution Chambers. Here, it is the Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC) that has the powers to so do, house it and make all sports in Nigeria to plug into it. All sports matters goes there. It becomes a special sports court. This chambers will adopt all matters in court that has to do with sports and adjudicate. Its decisions shall be final. This is visible because it will be tailored after the processes of the Court of Arbitration in Sports (CAS) in Lousanne-Switzerland.

Our soccer was an unaccountable, earless leadership that runs its own race while the football community eats its heart out. Our league was killed on the anvil of selfishness of some goons hiding behind the masquerade.

That the Nigerian football community, of all communities, couldn’t tell the difference between ethnicity and constitutional insanity is our biggest cross to bear. We’re the victims of our own pretty prejudices. Goof.