BY RAYMOND NWADUBA
Too much energy has been expended or dissipated both on the social media and even the conventional media in analysing, treating the recent outburst of Super Eagles star striker and current African Footballer of the Year award winner, Victor Osimhen against the immediate past coach of the team, Finidi George, which for me is diversionary, divisional and will ultimately blow us no good.
There is no need to continue stoking up the fire as this is completely unhealthy for both the team, the country and even the brand Super Eagles.
They have always been outbursts by players even at international level and they will always be from time to time as this will not even be the last. Example: Ronaldo lashing out at Manchester United in that infamous interview with Piers Morgan.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to make a case or in support of players taking a swipe at their manager or club, but the point I’m trying to establish here is that Nigeria has a greater challenge in their hands, which is qualifying for the 2026 world cup that requires all the attention it needs rather than dwell too much on the Finidi Osimhen case.
Much as I agree that Osimhen has the right to react to what he read that alleged Finidi said: “he will not beg Osimhen to play for Nigeria and that he picks the games he plays”, I feel Osimhen should have handled it differently with more tact and gad.
That said, Osimhen should apologize to Nigerians and Finidi and let’s move on to addressing the key issues which landed us in this precarious situation in the first place.
Let’s not leave the main substance and be chasing shadows otherwise it will amount to thunder striking multiple times not even a second time as they say.
Bad as the situation may seem, it is still redeemable and achievable if all hands are on deck.
The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) which to me are the major culprits in this whole saga or imbroglio should not try to play the Pontius Pilate but genuinely shelve all manner of personal and parochial interest to restructure things before they get even worse.
Even if we miss the next world cup which I don’t pray we do, life will not cease. But we have to learn from our mistakes to forestall a re-occurrence in the foreseeable future. This is the only right thing to do rather than continue to live in self denial.
But we often fail to learn which is why we are where we are as a people. We keep doing the same thing repeatedly and we are expecting a different result or outcome.
What is happening has presented us a vista to take a dig at the NFF and purge the place of those cabals suffocating our football and would not allow it to breath.
It has also brought to the fore the case of addressing the long-standing indiscipline in the Super Eagles. The need to enforce at all times the code of conduct for the players.
Players going forward must not be seen as if they are doing Nigeria a favour, rather they must know that it’s a privilege.
That they wear the green-white-white to represent over 200 million people which they may not truly be the best amongst the lot speaks volume.
If after everything, Nigeria fails to qualify for the world cup, let it not be that we failed because we didn’t try but that may be we left it late.
