Since Nigeria’s Super Eagles failed to secure a ticket to play at the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea after the team were held to a 2-2 draw by South Africa’s Bafana Bafana in their last match of the qualifying series in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State on Tuesday, 18 November, 2014, the country’s senior national team have been in quandary without a Chief Coach.
Out of contract Stephen Keshi was employed by Nigeria Football Federation, NFF in 2011. He led Nigeria to qualify for the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations, which they went ahead to win. At the heigh of the euphoria that greeted the victory in South Africa, Keshi threatened to resign but was begged to keep the job. He acquiesced and went on to qualify Nigeria for the 2014 World Cup which was hosted by Brazil. On 30 June 2014, the Super Eagles lost to France in a round of 16 match at the World Cup. After the match, Keshi announced his resignation as the Eagles coach but later reversed the decision after the NFF said it had renewed his contract.
There have been a lot of intrigues from the NFF since the World Cup ended in July when the Nigeria’s football governing body said it would renew Keshi’s deal. At a time, the former coach of Hawks of Togo was said to have been recalled by President Goodluck Jonathan to help prosecute Eagles’ qualifying matches for the 2015 Nations Cup, the ticket which the team failed to secure.
The failure of the team to defend the cup they won at the Nations Cup drew the anger of some section of Nigerians who thought that their coach, Keshi, has nothing to offer Nigeria anymore. The anti-Keshi Nigerians posited that an abysmal record of two wins from 12 games was enough justification for his sack.
The post-World Cup crisis of the NFF, when the body was split in two, leading to a FIFA ban that was later lifted, was initially thought to have been responsible for the delay in giving Keshi back his job. But that was not the case as the contract saga has dragged for so long that Nigerians can no longer fathom the real issues that are responsible for the delay. This is happening at the detriment of the nation’s senior national team. Between January and April this year, the NFF has announced it would sign a new deal with the ‘Big Boss’on several occasions. Last week, Secretary General of the NFF, Dr. Mohammed Sanusi announced that Keshi’s contract would be signed by Friday, 17 April, but nothing happened and the latest news is that the NFF will sign a two-year contract with Keshi by today (Tuesday) or latest tomorrow (Wednesday), an information which Nigerians would take with a pinch of salt, judging from the series of postponements in the past.
The Eagles have been without a chief coach since November, 2014 and the qualifiers for the Gabon 2017 Africa Cup of Nations will get underway from June this year with the first matches played in the FIFA international dates of 8–16 June. We believe that if Nigeria are to get it right and not allow the mistakes of the last Nations Cup qualifiers repeat themselves, a substantive coach has to be appointed for the Eagles before it will be too late.
African football has come of age where there are no minnows anymore. Big teams are now finding it very difficult to beat the so-called smaller teams. Nigeria cannot afford to begin the qualifying series for Gabon 2017 on shaky note. So a coach must be hired immediately for the senior national team. The board of NFF-led by Amaju Pinnick must put its act together to either give Keshi back his job as announced early this week or get another coach for the Eagles. Enough of this rigmarole.
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