One of the numerous things that have become the misfortune of Nigerians, especially in recruiting leaders, is that successors usually perform worse than their predecessors. If we enter the political arena, we will discover that when Dr Goodluck Jonathan was the President, many rated him as the worst leader until the emergence of President Muhammadu Buhari. From 2015 to 2023, Nigerians suffered so much that they missed Goodluck, whom they had loathed and called clueless.
Now, a new government is installed, and Nigerians are praying fervently that it shouldn’t be another case of from frying pan to fire. Most Nigerians believe that if the Jagaban, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT) will make them miss Buhari, it will be the nailing of Nigeria’s coffin. Many Nigerians are yet to recover from the sufferings inflicted on them by the self-acclaimed messiah and his disciples like the sacked CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele.
Back to the sports arena, a few days ago, I read a story authored by one of my colleagues who is very close to the present leadership of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF). If you know the man popularly called ‘Totori’ and how he has ‘penetrated’ the bigwigs in the Sunday Dankaro House in Abuja, you will take seriously anything he writes about the football federation. Many of us believe he has the ears of the NFF president, Alhaji Ibrahim Gusau, and other NFF board members.
Therefore, when he published the story with the title ‘Peseiro goes nowhere-NFF Official’, I took it seriously because based on what I know about the Media Officer of the Golden Eaglets, I knew he must have landed a big scoop inside the football house. And when I read through the story, I felt his confidence in the source and the information he was dishing out. As a matter of fact, he opened his story with an opinion that those of us who are eager to see the back of the Super Eagles coach, Jose Peseiro, should go and take a ‘chill pill’. Before he went on to quote an unnamed source, he said Peseiro’s sack is not going to happen anytime soon.
I may be right, or I may be wrong, but what I have deduced from the ‘Peseiro goes nowhere’ story is that for now we are stuck with the Portuguese, who has not lived up to our expectations. Although his contract is going to expire at the end of this month, he is staying till the end of next year’s AFCON in Cote d’Ivoire. Maybe that’s when the NFF might ask him to go by not renewing his contract.
It is an open secret that Peseiro’s contract was tied to the 2023 AFCON, which was scheduled to be held in January before the eventual postponement to next year January. So, most of us won’t be surprised if the NFF decides to allow the coach to lead the Super Eagles to the tournament. At least, he has managed to qualify the team for the competition with a match to spare. Secondly, the NFF is not broke but it does not have enough money to clear the backlog of his salaries and pay him off. Therefore, it is natural for the NFF to say Peseiro has met his target so there is no reason to sack him.
However, it will be deceitful for anyone to tell Nigerians that Peseiro is good enough for the Super Eagles. Although he has qualified the team for the next AFCON, the Portuguese has failure written all over him. There is no improvement in the performance of the Super Eagles. He has recorded more losses than victories with the team. Since he took over, the Super Eagles played five international friendly matches and lost all. The records are there for anyone with a contrary opinion to verify. In fact, from his physical appearance to his tactics, Peseiro does not inspire any confidence.
Let’s go back into the arena of Nigerian politics. When Jonathan was President, petrol sold for N86 a litre, a bag of rice was N7,000 and a dollar was exchanged for N225-235 yet Nigerians kicked him out in 2015. They never knew that under his successor, they would end up buying a litre of petrol for N195 (official price) and N300 in the black-market petrol stations that replaced petrol stations. Before PMB left office a few months ago, the same bag of rice that sold for N7,000 under Jonathan cost as much as N35,000 while our currency became so weak that the naira/dollar exchange rate which was about N200 to a dollar became about N800 to a dollar on the parallel market. Nigerians wept and gnashed their teeth while wishing for the good old days of the once-vilified Jonathan. From the foregoing, most of us do not wish to miss PMB but considering the hardship caused by the recent subsidy removal, it will take the grace of God for Nigerians not to miss the immediate past President.
The experience in the political arena as narrated above is like what has played out in the case of Peseiro and the Super Eagles. When the Franco-German football tactician, Gernot Rohr, a fine gentleman was here, most Nigerians called for his removal. Of course, he wasn’t the calibre of coach Nigerians wanted for the Super Eagles but the team played better football under him. Many people didn’t like him because he wasn’t enthusiastic about local players, but it wasn’t entirely his fault. His employers then preferred foreign-based players to home-based ones. Therefore, even after he qualified for the 2021 AFCON in Cameroon, he was forced out for Austin Eguavoen to take over and the rest is now history. Before our very eyes, the Super Eagles failed to qualify for the 2022 World Cup. Indeed, after Rohr, we moved from bad to worse.
It was, therefore, a huge disappointment when the Amaju Pinnick-led NFF hurriedly went for Peseiro whose record of failures in his former places of work was well-known and documented. Many had thought that after Rohr, the NFF would take its time to find a more competent coach within or outside Nigeria to handle the Super Eagles. So, when the football federation quickly settled for a serial failure, it was easy to predict the national team’s future under him. In fact, we should be grateful that the Super Eagles will be at the next AFCON. Peseiro could have taken us back to when Nigeria failed to qualify for two AFCON tournaments in succession under Pinnick.
So, personally, I am disappointed that ‘Peseiro is going nowhere’, but I am not surprised because it has become our tradition for successors to perform worse than their predecessors. If this is so, Nigerians shouldn’t expect a world-class coach even if Peseiro is axed after the delayed 2023 AFCON.
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