Amaju Pinnick’s golden boy has pulled off a golden coup, which could well land him golden trouble. But look closer, it is the vicious handiwork of hubris, driven by karma and history.
Sunday Oliseh, the other day in Belgium, committed the football equivalent of the tennis unforced error. He got himself a pair of scissors; and violently ripped his team in two equal halves! His was the quixotic search for a captain, when he didn’t even have a team!
Flashback 2002 and Oliseh, as national team captain, was equally guilty of the “crime” of Vincent Enyeama, his estranged and ousted captain. And boy, it is quite interesting how the careers of Oliseh, Stephen Keshi, Oliseh’s predecessor and Enyeama are panning out. Meanwhile, on Oliseh, Adegboye Onigbinde, Eagles’ former gaffer, must be having a good guffaw!
After a rather shambolic campaign at the Mali 2002 Nations Cup, the then Nigeria Football Association (NFA), precursor to the current Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), disbanded the Korea/Japan World Cup-bound Super Eagles. Oliseh was team captain. Keshi was assistant coach. Amodu Shaibu was chief coach. Onigbinde was appointed new chief coach for Korea-Japan; and with Oliseh’s refusal to play in the new team, Austin “Jay-Jay” Okocha became captain.
In the see-saw that preceded Korea-Japan, after Oliseh had led a players’ revolt over NFA’s failure to refund players’ air ticket money, a condescending Oliseh, then a Borussia Dortmund player, claimed Onigbinde was a glorious figurehead. “It’s somebody above him who is deciding for him who he should play.” In a final flourish to a BBC Sports report, Oliseh acidly declared: “The World Cup is for men”, among which he certainly counted himself — and without which Nigeria was doomed.
Compare that to Enyeama’s alleged “Cool down coach. I’ve earned 101 caps, far more than you ever had! So, give me some respect!” Karma at play?
True enough, Nigeria went nowhere at Korea/Japan, crashing out in the first round, in a tough group that had Sweden, England, Argentina and Nigeria, according to their eventual Group F placing. But out of those ashes had emerged Enyeama, who pulled off a superlative performance, in their final group match against England. His brave saves accounted for the goalless draw.
That was 13 years ago, and Enyeama never looked back, going ahead to nick 101 caps — a Super Eagles record — and would perhaps have nicked more, but for Oliseh’s shocking captainship crusade. Enyeama has, as a result, announced his retirement from the national team.
Indeed, the Oliseh-Enyeama row is a funny tale of how the most undisciplined of players come back as coaches to enforce “discipline”. That was true of Keshi, the acclaimed “big boss” in his national team days. And Oliseh, who never brooked “nonsense” from coaches, the same nonsense he expected his players to brook from him!
Certainly, Keshi and Oliseh have a lot in common. Keshi (assistant coach) and Oliseh (team captain) were at the receiving end of Eagles’ disbandment in 2002. Yet, both of them proved too good to be overlooked by Nigeria’s football authorities: the one coming back to win AFCON in South Africa in 2013; the other, trumpeted to lead a renaissance before the Belgium blowout.
But ha, Keshi is probably having a quiet but intense laugh right now! Keshi was the proverbial hen, which NFF rejected for stingy production of chicks. But, from his Belgium misadventure, NFF may soon find Oliseh the totally barren fowl, in that Yoruba proverb, that replaced the hen — the 3-0 spanking of Cameroun notwithstanding!
It appears barren times are ahead of Nigerian football, if Oliseh does not quit his self-destruct path. Right now, he has wilfully lost his best pair of hands. And with that, he created disunity, where there was none. It appears an expressway to football Golgotha!
So, let Oliseh’s employers school him in adequate management of men. Otherwise, the Super Eagles’ rebuilding process would collapse in a rubble — with Oliseh and Nigerian football, firmly buried under that rubble!
