Nigeria will not be the first country in Africa to have a Normalization Committee from FIFA. The World Football Governing Body had before now set up or approved Normalization committees for several African countries over the years with governance issues . Some of the countries to have gone through this route over the years include Chad, Guinea, DR Congo and Sierra Leone. Nigeria however joined the unenviable list in October.
The Holy Writ in Proverb 29: 18 says where there is no vision, the people perish. Another interpretation says Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint’and, of course, the result is disaster waiting to happen.Nigerian fans for long have watched helplessly the degeneracy of the beautiful game they love so much with no consequence for the administrators of this malaise.But it is an overt truism that whatever has a beginning must certainly have an end.There is always an expiry date for any problem, challenge or even sickness, and so it was with the sickening state of Nigeria’s football.
In the last 12 years dating back to 2014, Nigeria’s football has been on the downward trajectory with no concrete, credible result-oriented approach to halt the slide.What we have witnessed had been celebration of individuals at the detriment of the game.Those elected to manage the game had shown other interests but effectively managing the round leather game better than they met it.The result has been from one heartbreak to another with no consequence for the managers who supervised this ruination.
For the records, Nigeria won the AFCON in 2013 but failed to qualify to defend it in 2015 and failed again to make it in 2017.As if that was not enough, in 2022 before our very eyes at the MKO Abiola National Stadium, Abuja the Super Eagles failed to fly over the Black Stars of Ghana, and consequently failed to qualify for the World Cup in Qatar.Nigerians at the stadium went crazy destroying facilities to show their anger and disappointment.While Nigerians mourned over the loss, the managers never felt any guilt but went about as if nothing happened and were even scheming for a continuation, but the failure marked an end to that dream.
As usual, promises were made and assurances given that never again will the country fail to hoist its flag at the greatest football showpiece in the world,but how times flies.Four years later, we failed again, even with the cheap group Nigeria found itself(Benin Republic, Rwanda, Lesotho and South Africa),Not even the three points ducked for South Africa or the play off route against DR Congo could help .What a shame. But the shame did not belong to the administrators, who went about brazenly plotting a return, instead of resigning en masse to keep to their words that the World Cup was now our birth right.While they, the NFF board, had always gotten away with failure in the past, this time around, Nigerians said enough is enough,something must give way.
Shamelessly, while Nigerians were mourning and bemoaning the parlous state of the game in the country, the vampires and bucaneers were busy endorsing across the zones a continuation of ineptitude and mediocrity.But as late literary icon, Chinua Achebe posited in Things Fall Apart His central character, Okonkwo lived in a changing society without a change in him, and the consequence was suicide,when the people of Umuofia rejected his seeming bravery that had worked in the past.But the community had moved on with the coming of the whiteman.
Thank God for the new helmsmen at the National Sports Commission, Shehu Dikko and Bukola Olopade, who realised that times have changed, Nigerians have lost patience with repeated failures, they could no longer tolerate obvious arrogance in the face of incessant failures.They were left with no choice but to reason with the wailing and weeping fans and decided to console them with embracing their call for a breath of fresh air at the football house.After what looks like eternity when the occupants of the NFF were fighting the battle of their lives and consulting their ‘gods’, who had stood with them in the past, but could not be convinced to appease the‘principalities’this time around, they caved in.
On August 27, 2026 at a world press conference, Ibrahim Gusau led NFF board resigned en masse to the delight of Nigerians, who could not accept any other thing but the head of ‘John The Baptist’.This was the turning point to the present quaqmire we have found ourselves. The question on every lip was What happens next? What will FIFA say or do? But again, since the NSC bigwigs have had breakfast and lunch with FIFA in the past, eating dinner with same people was like a piece of cake.They swung into action and before we woke up from sleep they had met with FIFA in Zurich and also convinced FIFA to visit for an on the spot assessment. This arrangement, turned out to be a perfect plot designed to make FIFA hear from different stakeholders their position on the development. From the federation staff, who were not happy with the past managers to other stakeholders, who shared same sentiment. Expectedly, only their men Friday, the state FA Chairmen, who were wining and dining with them as the greatest beneficiaries of the maladministration of our football since 2014 had a different story to tell.
The FA Chairmen, who have had the greatest grip on our football had quickly suggested a Caretaker Committee, and even nominated some of their own to be in charge of our football following the resignation of the board.This proposal was also put before the FIFA delegation to Nigeria.Sadly for them and to the joy of many, FIFA opted for the Normalization Committee with a tenure of six months not exceeding May 31, 2027.The Committee is to supervise the elections into the new NFF board, take a second look at the controversial NFF Statutes, which the players Union, the leagues, the coaches, referees and other stakeholders feel is anti equity and fairness.
It’s being weeks of speculations of who and who will make the Committee and who chairs it.This seems to have thrown the reform agenda of the game into an uncertain future again.The politics of who gets what seems to be over-riding the initial and genuine interest of the reform, which occasioned the resignation of the former board.Some of the names being touted may not lead us to the promised land because if the Committee does not engender confidence that it would do a good job, the outcome may face similar sentiment.We cannot be struggling to name a Committee if the objective is to get competent and honest men to serve us given the underlining reason for the project ab initio.There is no gainsaying that if we divorce personal and primordial sentiments from the Committee’s composition, the job becomes easy.My fear however is that we seem to be treading along the fault lines that landed us to where we are today dating back to 2005 when all the competence you needed to walk into the NFF board was to call late Ibrahim Galadima names and shout ‘qualifying for the world cup was our birthright.’Some of the persons who had managed our football since 2014 had no surnames, as we say in local parlance, in football in Nigeria.
We have come this far not to muddle it up, either with the Normalization Committee or with the new board itself.Thank God FIFA has said no member of the Committee will contest for election into the new board and hope no member of the Committee will also work surreptitiously for any potential member of the incoming board.It is as difficult as it is simply to close our eyes and serve Nigeria for once, as against serving ourselves that had benefited over and over again.The National Sports Commission has a big challenge to ensure the would be Normalization Committee commands trust of Nigerians as their failure would be seen as the failure of the Commission, ditto their success would rub off on the NSC too.
The high expectation on this Committee is anchored on our years of romancing failure and the drivers getting away with it.It is reasoned that once we get this right, subsequent managers will understand it would not be business as usual, as they would now realise there would be consequences for their actions, especially, once it bothers on failure clothed with arrogance.From the Golden Eagles through the Flying Eagles, Olympic Team, including the Super Falcons, Nigeria has lost a generation of players, who would have showcased their skills and talents to the world but ineptitude of the administrators denied them the opportunity.In the last couple of years, the Golden Eagles and the Flying Eagles even the Olympic team have not been able to qualify for the AFCON of their respective ages from where Africa’s representatives emerge.Some of these players may not have the opportunity to make it to the Super Eagles.The fastest window to marketing themselves to the world is cut off, compelling them to work through a difficult and longer route to the global stage.No thanks to bad leadership.
We cannot continue to sacrifice the talents of our youth, and the future of our sports and the massive potentials it holds for the army of youth, who have chosen football as their pathway to making it in life and better the lot of their families, communities and country at large.History beckons on us to do the right thing now and save the future of our football and youth, given the enormous potentials the country has to rub shoulders with the best in the world.Nigeria’s unenviable place among the comity of football giants is not for lack of talents but for abundance of inept, incompetent, greedy and selfish administrators, who hover around every nook and cranny of our football firmament.But now is the time to slam the door in their faces and beam the searchlight on those with vision.
Sadly, we have for long entrusted our football destiny in the hands of jokers and accidental managers who had only laundered themselves to the detriment of the game.Let’s now try to elevate the game and give it a pride of place in Africa and the world.This Normalization Committee and the incoming NFF board provide us with a perfect opportunity.We can do it, it is not rocket science.
(Victor Iroele…viroele04@gmail.com)
