HON. MINISTER JOHN ENOH PUT YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER: NIGERIA CANNOT AFFORD A FOREIGN COACH.
It’s completely absurd and insensitive to talk about hiring a foreign coach in today’s Nigeria, where the Federal government is currently locked in negotiating a 62,000 Naira minimum wage with labour. Any move to mount undue pressure on the Federal government to pick the bill of a foreign coach would be strongly resisted. In fact, Nigeria Football Stakeholders would soon hit the streets in a peaceful protest against the purported move to hire a foreign coach.
No coach, foreign or indigenous, can succeed under the current governing structure of Nigeria Football. The Hon. Minister of Sports, Senator John Enoh, should not feign ignorance of this fact and should up his game from the “siddon look” stance. It’s foolhardy to see the Hon. Minister watching from the sidelines while Nigeria Football crumbles. His predecessor, Chief Sunday Dare, took a bold step by scrapping the League Management Company (LMC). That action is the sanity and progress we see today in the NPFL.
The situation Hon. Senator John Enoh met on assumption of office, having been properly briefed, was to have ensured swift reforms of the NFF governing structure and promptly arrested the imbalance in the governing structure for qualified and the right stakeholders to take control of Nigeria Football. The Federal government under President Buhari, in his eight years in office, did everything to support the NFF. They failed the former president, even with his physical presence at the MKO Abiola stadium to qualify for the 2022 World Cup. The Ibrahim Gusau led Board is an offshoot of a gang of 10 years of consistent failure from 2014-2024.
Hon. Minister, the Gusau led illegal Board is in breach of two subsisting court orders and is not in office in the eyes of the law. The proposed cosmetic amendment of the NFF you just ordered cannot even be effected by the Gusau Board because the matter is subjudice. There are many upcoming nations and World Cups in the near future. The Minister’s concentration and focus should be to put his house in order by sacking the illegal NFF Board now, initiating reforms, and ordering fresh elections. That was what the Spanish government did recently, and the heavens did not fall.
No level of support from the Federal government can turn the fortunes of Nigeria Football around, especially with these same gang of administrators who skewed and hijacked the NFF electoral process in charge. They are all fraudulent, full of lies, and deceit to hang on to power. No system shuts out its best hand and expects to excel. Some of those in charge of Nigeria’s golden era are still alive. Alhaji Sanni Toro, Ambassador Fanny Amun, and Christian Chukwu were in management and technical departments as administrators and coaches. These current failure-personified administrators of 2014-2024 should ask them how they achieved the feat that ranked Nigeria 5th in the world.
If coach Finidi George is not good enough, hire another indigenous coach.
HARRISON JALLA.
