Recalling Ighalo is beautiful nonsense

On Monday, October 25, the President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Amaju Melvin Pinnick, took to his official Instagram account to provide updates on his ‘unofficial’ visit to some recuperating Super Eagles players in London.

Pinnick who was accompanied on the private visit by his wife and three holidaying kids said he had a swell time with Leicester City’s duo of Wilfred Ndidi and Kelechi Iheanacho, the one people love to call ‘Senior man Kel’.

He also said he had visited Super Eagles attacking midfielder, Peter Oghenekaro Etebo who recently had a surgery. Although he was lambasted for inadvertently playing the role of a physician by giving out too much update on the recovery of the injured, it was good that he played the role of a responsible leader. Maybe he shouldn’t have delved too much into when the players would return to action. That was for the medics.

Apart from updates on the recuperating players, Pinnick also spoke on efforts being made to convince Leicester City youngster, Ademola Lookman, to dump England for Nigeria. He said the player who won the FIFA U-20 World Cup with England in 2017 is enthusiastic about playing for the Super Eagles. As a matter of fact, the diminutive player had rejected Nigeria on three different occasions.

Again, critics of the NFF president wondered why he should throw caution to the winds again. Past experiences in the case of the duo of Fikayo Tomori and Tammy Abraham should have made him tread cautiously. He once announced that the two players had agreed to play for the Super Eagles but in an embarrassing twist, they settled for the Three Lions. Why not wait till the deal is signed and sealed.

Pinnick also dropped the hint that by his body language, a former Super Eagles striker, Odion Ighalo would come back to the team. This particular disclosure by the NFF president came as a rude shock to many people.

Without undermining Ighalo’s enormous contributions to the Super Eagles, one is forced to ask the rationale behind the move to bring back the former  Prime, Julius Berger, Granada, Cesena, Watford, Changchun Yatai, Shanghai Shenhua and Manchester United player to the Super Eagles. What is that new thing Ighalo will bring to the team?

Briefly, Ighalo made his debut for the Super Eagles in 2015. He was in the starting line-up when Nigeria lost 0-1 at home to Uganda in a friendly match. That team was coached by a former international, Daniel Amokachi. So from 2015 to 2019, he was capped 35 times and scored 16 goals for the Super Eagles. At the end of the 2019 AFCON, Ighalo announced his retirement from international football.

It will be recalled that he first romanced retirement in 2018 when he threatened to quit the Super Eagles on the allegation that his family had received death threats after he failed to score at the 2018 World Cup in Russia. He was eventually persuaded to rescind his quit notice.

Without a doubt, Ighalo played with determination and commitment to the Super Eagles. However, being an average striker, he was not so popular among Nigerian football fans. It wasn’t the player’s fault because he couldn’t offer them what he didn’t have. Of course, when it was possible, he delivered the goods just the way he did at the 2019 AFCON.

However, Ighalo is now in the twilight of his career and this explains why at the moment, he is busy gathering his ‘retirement’ money in the Saudi Professional League with Al Shabab. The fire in him is fading steadily yet the NFF wants him back for rigorous assignments.

In my candid opinion, if Ighalo returns, his presence would only extinguish the spirit and morale of a young striker like Victor Osimhen who rightly believes he has done enough to be trusted and allowed to lead the team’s attack. Another danger in this latest move by the NFF is that the younger strikers might interpret it to mean they’re not what they think they are.

And talking about experience, I believe it is only when strikers like Kelechi Iheanaco, Victor Osimhen, Chidera Ejuke, Taiwo Awoniyi, Paul Onuachu, Alex Iwobi and the rest are given adequate opportunities to play that they too would garner enough experience to become ‘indispensable’ like Ighalo.

Apart from that, Nigerians are perplexed over the decision to recall Ighalo when even an immensely talented player like Jay Jay Okocha was allowed to take his well-deserved rest when he opted to quit the Super Eagles. If Okocha who was so good that he was named twice (Jay Jay) was allowed to retire, what’s the big deal about Ighalo? Rohr said there is Osimhen but Ighalo is special. How special?

I think by the action of the NFF, our message to the world is that the Super Eagles are now bereft of quality such that even a striker, who ordinarily should be hurried off the stage, has been persuaded to return. Do we really need Ighalo for the 2022 AFCON and the 2022 Qatar World Cup? I answer in the negative.