The lecturer has a tripartite mandate: teaching, research and community service. We all teach (except during the Babangida era when people like Wilmot were teaching what they were not paid to teach) and we all research (you have little choice in a ‘publish-or-perish’ environment). But the scorecard on community service is likely to be poor because, among other reasons, nobody monitors or cares for it. But thanks be to Chineke-God, I have just done it! In one of those rare aha moments, I have made a discovery that covers research and community service and I may well spend the rest of my academic life delivering papers on it. This discovery is so spectacular that the NOBEL committee is already considering a special one-off prize for it. It is a ‘gbogbonise’ (a cure-all solution) for ALL Nigeria’s problems! Before reading further, just shout Eureka and start celebrating; our problems are all over! As a background to the study, I take you back to my treatise after the Nations Cup, which we surprisingly won.
In Nigerian football, you either win or you win; there is no loss in their dictionary and that was why Siasia was sacked, barely one year in office, for failure to qualify for African Cup of Nations. And that is why we also have the highest turnover of national coaches in the world. From 1990, the year of Westerhof, to 2011 when Siasia was sacked, we had 13 coaches, an average of 18 months per coach! But for this period plus seven years (1986-2013), Ferguson was in charge at Manchester; and he did not win a single trophy for the first four years. He also lost almost 250 matches during his tenure! Segun Odegbami tells us that in the history of Nigerian football only two coaches have escaped being sacked and that was because they ran away from their job! The first was Clemens Westerhof, who abandoned the Eagles and his job in the US, and Othman Calder, who just disappeared from his hotel (Eko Hotel) without telling anybody.
And yet, those who run our football do not see anything wrong in themselves, with themselves or with their methods. They just sack coaches, employ new ones, go on endless tours and conferences and life goes on. But Tilewa Adebajo made a pertinent statement about three years ago: that if we brought in the most successful coach in the world, Guardiola of Barcelona, to Nigeria as the structure is presently, he is going to fail; the structures are just not there! You don’t build on emptiness! (ThisDay, 31/10/11, p.67).
Now, they have started again. Probably, they had thought that Keshi would not do well so that they would then bring in their favoured ‘white’ coaches and share the spoils. But Keshi performed beyond everybody’s expectation or imagination. Rather than rejoice and celebrate him, NFF is hitting him below the belt! Giving him official car was an issue until Globacom came in to help. In South Africa, his crew and team were almost sent home before the end of the competition because nobody believed they could go beyond certain stages. His colleagues in the team were sacked without consulting or informing him. The NFF told him that there was no money and that there was no need to discuss it with him because he was just an employee like those fellows. And now, the NFF that did not and does not have money to pay Nigerians to support Keshi is forcing, coercing and begging Keshi to accept a foreign assistant! What else is there to say? These are ‘signs and wonders’ walking on four legs! (Nigeria, their football and their coaches: Ik Muo, 18/2/14).
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That was eight months ago. Well, on 16/10/14, the NFF ended up sacking Keshi, or rather, sent him on any course of his choice, together with his assistants (the Ribadu-Kuru strategy). This was to enable them employ a FOREIGN (not a better) coach because he lost two matches, drew one and won one en route AFCON 2015. They forgot that in the past few months, he was working without any terms and that they had actually begged him to start working on while they tidied up the contract; an unpardonable breach of understanding.
The same day, an analyst at Channels Business-Morning lamented that the Nigerian Stock Exchange figures had become anaemic because the market was controlled by foreign portfolio investors who had withdrawn N482.91 billion from the market in the first eight months of 2014. He wished that Nigerians were in control! Foreign investors, foreign coaches: all hired hands; they cannot risk their lives for the sheep like the owner-shepherd! (John, 10:11). This is another unfortunate evidence of inferiority complex, import dependency and confusing expatriates with expertise.
But that is not the issue and that is where my ingenuous discovery lies. The ‘gbogbonise’, cure-all talisman is to sack everybody who does not ‘perform’ and Nigerian problems would be over. $240,000 disappeared from the Glass House; they have set that house of fire, both literally and figuratively; they destroy instead of nurture our football and they have subjected us to global obloquy and opprobrium. So, we sack the NFF. For allowing Boko Haram to fester for two years, especially keeping our girls for 200 days and failed peace deal, we sack the entire security apparatus. Because the poor is increasing while our economy is growing with worsening inequality and 60 percent of houses in Dubai owned by Nigerians, we sack the entire federal executive structure. Because of constituency allowances turning oversight into instrument of blackmail, shameless cross-carpeting and turning the NASS into a boxing arena, we sack the federal legislature. Because of the avalanche of black-market injunctions and the fact that it is easier for the camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for the poor to obtain justice, we sack the judiciary. Because the governors misused the security votes, approve sinful pensions for themselves, use their riotous convoys to slaughter innocent citizens and castrate the state assemblies, we sack the state executives and legislatures. Because the LGs are only seen during month-ends and that they are farther from the people than Abuja, we dissolve the LG system. And because the private sector has also become corrupt, failed to obey federal character, cook their books, and a mixture of other sundry crimes, we sack all the C-Suite of all quoted and non-quotable companies in Nigeria. Of course, because the VCs are behaving like governors and dictatorial village chiefs, lecturers are becoming too chummy with their students and the students want to pass (first class) but are not interested in reading, we sack all the higher institutions.
After this historical task of holistic cleansing, we now summon all the Independence-era ‘trouble makers’ – people like Edwin Clark, Mbazulike Amaechi, Maitama Sule and Rotimi Williams – to go and apologise to the British, in particular, do penance in the graveyard of Lord Lugard and earnestly beg his great-grandson to come and continue the unusual transformation where his progenitor left over. IT is finished. Please, give me a STANDING ovation!
NB: I heard a rumour that they have recalled Keshi. But nothing will deny me of the pride and joy of this monumental discovery and the resulting accolades!
Ik Muo