Former Super Eagles chief coach, Chief Adegboye Onigbinde, is convinced that the decision of the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, to employ a foreign technical adviser as assistant to Sunday Oliseh is nothing but a trap. He also told DGossip247 in this interview that he told Stephen Keshi to quit before the hammer fell on him but he turned a deaf ear
What do you think about the sacking of Stephen Keshi as chief coach of the Super Eagles?
Unfortunately I don’t know the content of his contract with the NFF, so I wouldn’t know the section of the contract that he went against, it won’t be easy for me to make a categorical statement of the NFF’s action. But looking at it as an ordinary citizen, I don’t think there is any section of the Nigerian constitution that says if you are on a job you cannot look for another one.
Which is very common that is popularly called looking for greener pastures. I don’t really know, maybe it was included in his contract that while as Super Eagles chief coach, he doesn’t have to look for another better job for himself. If this is not contained in Keshi’s contract then NFF’s action is absurd, because looking for greener pastures is in all spheres of life, not only in coaching job.
If I ask those in the NFF how many jobs they have applied for while serving in the football federation and how many times did they resign from one before securing another job, I am sure they will stutter in their reply, that is if they answer me at all.
The truth is that if this has happened in the lives of the generality of Nigerians why can’t it happen in the life of Keshi? I am not sure that Keshi would be stupid enough to apply for another job while serving the Eagles if that was contained in his contract, then he has himself to blame selling himself into slavery.
How will you rate Keshi’s reign as Super Eagles chief coach?
Well, in sports we say you win some, you lose some. Whether he was good or bad he won the Africa Cup of Nations title for Nigeria. At the 2014 World Cup he couldn’t go beyond the second round and he failed to qualify for the last edition of the Nations Cup.
But if you go into the history of Nigerian football, you will find out that after winning the Cup of Nations it is either we fail woefully at the next edition of the competition or failed to qualify for the event. Check the records after the 1980, 1994 and the 2013 victories.
This is an indication that there is something basically wrong with our football. But it is our pattern in Nigeria that when something happens we always look for a scape goat and never bothered to look inwards to find out why things happen. I always say it that, in solving a public issue or a personal problem the first thing is to introspect.
Look into yourself, unfortunately that is not our pattern in Nigeria, instead we want to look for a scapegoat. I have not said that Keshi is a good coach, neither have I said that he is a bad coach because unfortunately in this country we don’t have a system of assessing the performance of any coach, not even players, not even football teams. There is no assessment process.
In your private life, it is not always when you work hard that you achieve the desired goal, so there is a difference between performance and result. We just jump to conclusion. Each time our national teams fail, it is unfair to blame or criticize these coaches and the players as they are victims of our societal ills.
Some believed that Keshi saw the handwriting on the wall and he should have taken a walk instead of waiting to get the hammer.
Honestly, Keshi saw it and I also saw it coming too and I sent a warning and advice to him when our former president, Goodluck Jonathan, said he should be allowed to continue as coach of the Eagles. The morning the news broke I sent a text message to him on his mobile phone.
I said in my message: “Steve, if I were you I would thank the president profusely and bow out, because the president was not going to come down to work with you, you are going to work with some people and if these people don’t want you, what do you do? Keshi acknowledged the receipt of my text message. He saw the hammer coming and many Nigerians also saw it coming too. Having been part of the system for a very long time, I know why all these things are happening. It is part of the Nigerian social ills. I knew how Keshi came to the top.
How do you see Sunday Oliseh as Eagles new coach?
Oliseh is a fine nice gentleman, hardworking as a player but I don’t know what his record is as a coach. I understand he coached one club briefly in the Belgium lower league, I can’t really say anything about Oliseh as a coach. I have seen him several times on television making analysis on football games.
We have some people administering Nigerian football now, we must respect their choice of national team chief coach, let us leave them to do their job the way they want to do it. They are there and there is nothing you and I can do about that. So, they have to do it to the limit of their knowledge and experience.
They have their standards, however they reach that standard is another thing. The issue is this, football is a team game and you have to be very careful as a coach has been sacked, how we know that he doesn’t have some friendly players in the team. And how do do you identify them.
That was one of the biggest things that affected Samson Siasia during his reign as Super Eagles chief coach in the match against Guinea some years ago. He was not in good terms with the best of his players and he was also not in good
terms with his best goalkeeper. For one reason or the other he had problem with his best midfielder, Mikel Obi. He fined him $5000 and that one said he was not going to pay a penny. He had problems with Osaze Odemwingie one of his best strikers. Do you see what I am saying? We really have to be very careful the way we handle these situations.
Looking at Oliseh’s antecedents, do you think he would have attitude problems with his employers, the Nigeria Football Federation?
Smiles… I said something a little while ago that the administrators know what they want before they went for it, so who are we to query them. You remember in 2002, the Eagles went down under Oliseh’s captainship at the Africa Cup of Nations in Mali in January/February.
The team was disbanded, the coaches were sent packing and I was invited to take over the team in the interim while I was holidaying in Europe. It was the World Cup year.
The moment my name was mentioned as the coach in charge, people started calling me and threatening that if I call any member of the Mali 2002 Eagles team into the new Eagles they will deal with me. On one occasion, Oliseh called me from wherever he was and I was discussing with him in a friendly manner and advised him that he should come to Nigeria and apologise to the nation over what happened in Mali. We spoke for about 30 minutes on phone. I had an open mind. He didn’t eventually apologise. Dosu Joseph was the one acting as a proxy for the Mali 2002 players. He called some press conferences and made some clarifications.
There was one major member of the Mali 2002 team who mounted pressure on me that he wanted to be a member of my team to the Japan/Korea World Cup. And that was the most stupid thing I did as I brought him into the team and eventually I knew what happened. Before I played my first friendly match, I was with the then Sports Minister, Ishaya Mark Aku, may his soul rest in peace. Somebody brought a security report written on a paper to him, he read it and gave it to me to also read.
The content was that, all the players agreed that if all of them were not invited back into the team, any of them invited would not come. In about 10 minutes there was another security paper given to the minister, he handed it over to me to read and the content of that one was that; “if anyone of them was invited to the team, and decided to come he was coming to sabotage the team.” So that put me in a dilemma, if you remember I had to start the selection of players right from Nigeria with homebased players.
And when I was going for my first friendly game against Paraguay in England, I made a list of 32 players. The NFA people were angry saying how can I go to one match with 32 players and I replied that if they remove one player out of the list I would not go for the match.
And it paid off somehow. When I got to England and the old players saw that I had come with a full market of players the old players started trickling in, in their numbers so as not to lose their positions. But that particular one I spoke about initially did not come but at a point he started sending people to me including Dosu Joseph to make a case for him that he would work with me. What happened in Korea/Japan is now history.
That should be Taribo West.
Okay are you saying that, anyway
What would be your advice to Oliseh as he resumes as Eagles’ chief coach?
While reading some stories on the internet I was getting more confused as the NFF president was reported that they were going to get a consortium of coaches to handle the national team, so I don’t really know what is happening. I think we must get the final confirmation before we start to advice.
The news that Oliseh would be assisted by a foreign coach is not good enough and it is suspicious. Any right thinking Nigerian would know that such arrangement is a ruse and a definite trap set for Oliseh to falter. It is a ruse. I said it is a ruse because what is Oliseh’s pedigree and experience as a coach that he would now have a foreign coach as an assistant.
This does not sound well. It’s a ruse and that is exactly what they are doing, this thing has been happening for some time now. There are Nigerians who have been negotiating with some foreign coaches and giving them assurances that they would get a job in Nigeria. I don’t want to go too far, I know what I am talking about. I can also confirm to you that some foreign coaches have been speaking with me lately about sending their curriculum vitae to Nigeria as they have been contacted to do so. Some of them have been sending their CVs to me, saying that they have been contacted that I should help them compile their CVs for the Nigeria national team job. I have them on my email message box.
The truth is that these coaches wouldn’t have acted if they had not been asked to do so. Let just leave it at it is. The problem is not football or sports problem, it is a national problem.
We are running the system of who you know and not what you know. And what percentages of Nigerians are thinking of national interest before personal interest? It is very low we cannot get up to five percent that is why the country is upside down. When you do things in the reverse you will get result in the reverse. Which one should you put first is it who you know or what you know.
Amodu Shauib is heading the NFF Technical department, what do you think about this?
The whole thing is very confusing. I have made several suggestions to the Technical Department. I was the one who suggested that, it should not just be a department, it should be a division, because it must have some other departments under it. The so called technical department is there in need as they are not functional. If it is functional it should have a section that would be analysing our football.
From the paper I wrote, they are now picking some things but they are doing it wrongly. The NFF sent some people to England for what they tagged capacity building and these were the people they wanted to use for the analysis of our football.
When I looked through the list I saw responsible people, but when it comes to football, what is their background. I even saw one or two of them who can hardly write their names correctly, and yet they come back to the country to analyse Nigerian football. They are now setting up a technical study group, technical study group made of who? When I raise all these they will answer swiftly that Onigbinde thinks he is the only one who knows, no.
If you call to say Onigbinde you are a liar, I won’t fight you instead I will come close to you to help me replace my life with the truth and if I am convinced I will prostrate to you for making me a better man. All I am after is, maybe I am now getting too much in a hurry maybe because of my age. I thank God that at age 77 years old I am still able to run up and down, but if God says I am going to live up to 80 years and even 90 years, am I going to be fit forever, the answer is no. I am eager to see certain things done the right way in Nigerian football.
The present administration in the NFF should do things that would give them credit, I am not saying they should leave the place.
If they implement the advice I give them and it works it would be better for all of us. What else do I want to achieve in football. All achievements would be in their names. We have some elements in the NFF that will never see good in what people do to move the game forward in the country, that is Nigeria for you.
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