Dear Coach, Congratulations to you on your appointment as Nigeria’s latest national team technical adviser. That statement, though, is sarcastic and not from the bottom of my heart, because I don’t support whatever decisions informed your appointment by top shots of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).
It baffles me that they thought it wise to hire you instead of giving the job to an indigenous Nigerian coach. For me, if an African tactician is to be appointed as Super Eagles’ gaffer, it MUST be a Nigerian. Of recent, I even prefer a Nigerian gaffer to any European, as far as handling the Super Eagles goes.
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You and your backers would label my verdict discriminatory and use words like bigot, myopic, prejudiced, jaundiced or xenophobic to describe me, but my view is based on the longstanding conviction that Nigeria is ‘the giant of Africa.’
Our gigantic status not only resonates in terms of our massive population, land mass, global impact, oil reserves and market strength, it includes the fact that we hold a much stronger football pedigree than many other African countries … among them being your noble nation, Mali.
Someone will barge in here with a declaration that you also have French citizenship. But, for me, the fact that you played for Mali makes you more of an indigenous African than a French-born former football star. In effect, your rating should not be based on French standards, but valued on African qualities and comparisons.
The fact that your substantive job before agreeing to seal a contract with the NFF was with a clubside in Algeria also does not speak well of your pedigree in the gaffers’ garb.
For me, it’s so demeaning that the NFF thought it best for themselves to hire someone who was coaching a club on the African continent and whose only other previous national team duty post had been with his own country.
Another counter-argument would be: Why can’t Nigerians accept a Malian the way people in that country welcomed Stephen Keshi? Or why can’t we follow suit with the love Kenyans gave Christian Chukwu, how Gambians adored Kashimawo Laloko and Tanzanians so much trusted in Emmanuel Amuneke?
My simple answer is: because our football pedigree is much higher than what those other countries can flaunt! In essence, we should be praised for exporting our expertise to their teams, and they should be happy to have our heroes directing the helm of affairs in their squads. Theoretically, though, the same status does not apply to you, Mr Chelle, vis-a-vis our dear Super Eagles.
Unlike Emmanuel Amuneke, for instance, your pedigree as a player (with all due respect) is nothing to shout about on the mountain top. Unlike Stephen Keshi, you don’t have a strong profile or achievement chart to back whatever indices the NFF will try to unfold in support of their decision to hire you. For be, if indeed they want to look inwards to Africa, they should consider our home bred tacticians.
Ironically, you failed to realise that even the NFF moguls also apparently know that your status falls way below the quality of our Super Eagles. That’s why they have ostentatiously compelled you to handle our B-squad at the upcoming CHAN.
As the story goes, you have inadvertently tacitly agreed with my conviction that you are not good enough for our star-studded A-squad; because no foreign technical adviser has ever accepted to handle our home-based team! As it were, even our recent interim coach, Augustine Eguavoen recently stylishly shied away from the CHAN Eagles’ debacle, opting instead to proceed to Germany for medical surgery than take the team through a banana peel decisive qualifier against Ghana.
God bless Daniel Ogunmodede and Fidelis Ilechukwu for helping us break the Ghana jinx and taking us back to CHAN, after six years of absence. But trust NFF to come up with another misnomer – depriving Ogunmodede and Ilechukwu of the opportunity to savour their success in taking the team to CHAN proper. Robbing Peter to pay Paul (as usual).
In respect of this latest ‘betrayal of trust’ by the NFF, me thinks it would have been appropriate for the Ladan Bosso-led Nigerian Coaches Association to speak out in condemnation of another instance of foreign mentality that has seen our indigenous brains discarded on the alter of whatever comes from outside Nigeria is better.
On the other hand, as we keep clamouring for home-based players in the main Eagles, why can’t we sing the same song for ‘home-based coaches’ at the helm of technical duties, at least for the CHAN squad … if not for the main team.
Well, Mr Chelle, the joke is on you; because you have unwittingly become the guinea pig that the NFF will use to test run our ambitious return to the Championship of African Nations (CHAN). You would also most likely end up as the fall guy, nay scapegoat, in the instance of our likely inability to qualify for the 2026 World Cup.
Probably the top shots at Sunday Dankaro House also feel that the World Cup ticket is beyond us. Maybe that’s why they gave you a contract that will end when the qualifiers are over. They might have reasoned among themselves, ‘Let’s take our chances on this small fry, so that we wouldn’t spend heavily on a lost cause.’ In fact, someone confided in me that no Nigerian coach agreed to take this job because they feel it’s a booby trap that would lead them to ignominy.
That being the case, I say thank you, Mr Chelle, for agreeing to take up his thankless job. Thanks for holding enough courage (or foolery) to take up the mantle of our shaky ship. Thanks also for being so humble and magnanimous in agreeing to take charge of our B-squad at a competition we have never won.
In my final analysis, Mr Chelle, as you step out to try your luck, I agree that one thing going for you is the refrain, ‘he that is low need fear no fall.’ Which simply means you have nothing to lose on this job, but everything to gain. If you fail, no one will whimper, but you SHALL become a hero if you succeed.
So, since luck plays a huge part in football and bolts of surprises fill the game with variety that spices our lives with excitement, you could be the unwanted stone that becomes head of the corner. Time shall tell.
