Ernest Osogbue.
The recent visit by Fifa and Caf officials to Nigeria, to hold discussions on how to resolve the challenges surrounding Nigerian football, has opened my eyes to the reasons why our country Nigeria, will forever remain divided, and why it is unlikely to ever be truly united.
For the first time in our recent history, stakeholders involved in and with football, met with the Fifa and Caf delegation, and held meaningful discussions. This was historic, in the sense that since the advent of modern Nigerian football, stakeholders have never been able to see eye to eye, or come together to amicably resolve issues. Greed and selfishness have been the order, and as a result, factions have developed across most organizations connected with football.
Take for instance the players association; there are multiple factions. In the supporters club; multiple divisions. Even in sports journalism; there are different groups, supporting different factions. As a result, football stakeholders have never spoken with one voice. The problem becomes compounded when the management of the Nff, chooses which faction to deal with per time, depending on what is at stake. The Fifa engagement was therefore historic, in the sense that for first time in a long time, all stakeholders were able to present their positions without being coerced.
Having said that, it also makes you wonder why Nigerians can not agree to disagree. One wonders why Nigerians can not come together and discuss issues of mutual interest, and find a workable solution. We value foreign interventions more than us sitting together as one people, giving and taking, and then arriving at a suitable compromise.
For decades, the challenges facing Nigerian football, had stifled football development, and as a result, compelled those administring the game to achieve superficial results, in order to whitewash the inherent foundational challenges that exist. For years, results built on false foundations, helped to prop up the make-believe scenario that Nigerian football was doing well. It wasn’t until Gusau failed, after Amaju Pinnick, had also disappointed us, that the alarm bells started ringing, alerting all those concerned that urgent surgery was required to bring Nigerian football back to the basics.
The visit of Fifa has come and gone, and I can report to Nigerians that Fifa and Caf officials, were in Abuja, and met with football stakeholders on the 14th and 15th of September 2026. Those they met include, former Nff presidents; Sani Lulu Abdulahi, and Aminu Maigari, former Nff general secretaries; Sani Toro, Fanny Amun, Bolaji Ojo-Oba, and Musa Ahmadu, former Nff vice president; Senator Obinna Ogba, members of the club owners association; the management teams of the three tiers of the Nigerian league, and the women’s league. Others who met them, include former Green Eagles and Super Eagles players, representing the different generations of the team, and players associations; Segun Odegbami, Patrick Pascal, Harrison Jala, Tijani Babangida, Chikelue Iloenyosi, and other ex-internationals; representatives of the Nigerian football coaches, and Nigerian referees associations; representatives of the various football supporters clubs; sports marketers; Chichi Nwoko and Kunle Soname, Napher-Sd; the sports writers association Swan, was represented by its president, Isaiah Benjamin, with veteran sports journalists Mumuni Alao, and Mitchel Obi, the former president of AIPS. Not forgetting the engagements with the NSC, and the management of the Nff.
A careful look at the above list, would reveal that these are the groups involved in either the success or failure of Nigerian football. They know all the secrets of Nigerian football, and could decide whether it moves forward or remains stagnant. You begin to wonder why, if these groups really have the interest of Nigerian football at heart, why they have not buried their individual egos over the years, come together and resolved the issues. The answer is greed and selfishness; most members of the different groups, pander to ethnic or religious bigotry, others pander to sectional and political interests. For some, it would be better for Nigerian football to die, than for them to give an inch to a rival group. And that is why the problems refused to go away.
As I write, every group that attended the Fifa meeting, presented a memo on what it believes are the problems, and the likely solutions. Fifa officials have taken those memos with them back to Zurich, where they will sit and discuss Nigerian football in the absence of Nigerians, and will come up with the way forward, which our people will readily accept without questions. This greatly calls to question our nationhood. We have become so divided and can not see eye to eye, to the extent that we prefer strangers to meddle in a matter that concerns our country, than compromise with each other.
At about the same time Nigerian football was experiencing challenges, Italian football was also going through similar hiccups. Italy a four time Fifa world cup winner, has failed to qualify for the world cup in the last three editions. This led the entire leadership of Italian football to resign a few months ago, just like their Nigerian counterparts; from the coach Genaro Gattuso, to the team manager, Gianluigi Buffon. The president of the Italian football association, Gabriele Gravina, also threw in the towel in April this year. As I write, Italy has since resolved all the issues concerning its football, appointed new persons into the different vacancies, and moved on, without Fifa getting involved. According to them, the challenges of Italian football is the problem of the Italian people, and only the Italian people can find solutions to the problems.
In Nigeria, it is not so, we need Fifa to tell us what is best for Nigeria. Also, we are abhorrent of Nigerian solutions; after all, imported fuel is better than Dangote fuel, Japanese and German cars, are better than Innoson vehicles, we prefer Fifa voices to Nigerian voices. America, Canada, Mexico and England are also better countries than Nigeria, so why should we listen to each other, when the white people in Fifa are better than us. This is the paradox of our country.
Almost every Nigerian is driven by ethnic and religious biases, anchored on selfish, sectional, and primordial considerations. An Igbo man is angry when a Yoruba man is in position, the Yoruba man does not want an Hausa man to rise, while the Hausa man hates to see an Igbo man at the top. In all of these, the minority tribes are being played around like pieces on a chessboard, and at the end of the day, Nigeria remains the loser. This is why I believe, that the much vaunted Nigerian unity, is only at the level of lip service, vocalized by those seeking opportunities to loot and empty the public treasury.
As of now, all documents pertaining to Nigerian football as presented by the various groups, are in foreign hands. It means that Fifa knows more about Nigerian football than Nigerians do. The secrets we had kept from each other over the years, have been willingly and happily handed over to a foreign institution, to do with as it pleases. This is where colonial mentality and colonial stupidity have brought us. In reading ‘The Godfather,’ a novel by the late American writer Mario Puzo, I learnt the lesson, that one must never allow strangers into family secrets. No matter how much you disagree with your brother or your family, you must never let strangers into the secrets of the disagreements, because they could use it against you. As of now, Fifa has the entire secrets of Nigerian football, it is now left to Fifa how to use those secrets now or in the future.
In his lifetime, the great American civil rights campaigner, Malcolm X, constantly admonished black people to beware of the liberal white man, who always pretended to love black people. According to him, these types of white people were more dangerous than those who let you know that they hated you. This is because in pretending they loved you, they gained your confidence, you trusted them, you left your secrets with them, but in the end, they would turn around and use those secrets against you.
As a student of literature, who had studied the relationship between the white man and the black over the years, I sometimes find it tough to believe, when Nigerians, especially educated ones, still retain the impression that the white man has the interests of the black man at heart. How do our people believe that an institution run by white people, has Nigeria’s best interests at heart? When you study the writings of Phyllis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, Harriet Jacobs, Solomon Northup, William Wells Brown, and many others, and read books like Twelve Years a Slave, Tell me How Long the Train is Been Gone, Homegoing, The Underground Railroad, and most importantly, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, a white liberal, you will begin to understand, that all interactions between the black man and the white man, have never favored the black man. The white man is happy to exploit the black man, while pretending to help him. It is unfortunate that even to date, most Africans are yet to see through the white man’s deception. From studying the above texts and others, and also by having lived in the white man’s land, I know exactly how white people feel about Africans, irrespective of their pretenses. I am not racist, I do not hate white people, but I feel very comfortable relating first with my own kind before anyone else. It therefore, bothers me when Nigerians would rather settle for the white man’s opinion than for a Nigerian opinion.
I have struggled with this matter for many years, until the Nigerian football saga opened my eyes. The average Nigerian would rather have a white man make a decision for him, than have a Nigerian from a rival ethnic group, rival religion, or rival tribe, make that decision. We see our diversity as an opportunity to be adversarial, rather than an opportunity for healthy competition. We would rather have our country destroyed, than have a citizen from a rival ethnic or religious group at the top. These are the dynamics inherent in our country, and which unfortunately, have carried over into the administration of football. There is no longer any need for Nigerians to continue pretending; we hate ourselves. When a citizen of one tribe or religion is in power, citizens of rival tribes or religion, gang up to bring him down. Christians disdain Islam, just as Muslims abhor Christianity. Religion is no longer about living a life that pleases Almighty God our creator, it is now more about killing, destroying, and condemning anyone who does not believe what you believe.
This is the reason why, a matter that we could have settled by ourselves, was left to fester for so many years without a solution, until a foreign institution led by white people stepped in. It was then I concluded that if in a matter concerning football, the most uniting factor in our country, we could not find a common ground, and come to an agreement, it follows therefore, that we will never come to an agreement on anything. That is why I said that Nigeria will never grow, move forward, or prosper, until all Nigerians learn to set aside religion, ethnicity, tribe, nepotism, and other forms of biases against each other. If we can not do that, then it is better for us to start rethinking our nationhood. If we can not tolerate each other, it is then better to plan how to go our separate ways. A people who can not stay together, should peacefully stay apart.
