By Ray Ekpu
The Nigerian football team, Super Eagles was gunning for a fourth AFCON title at the just concluded tournament in Morocco. It did not reach that goal. It got a bronze medal which was a consolation for many Nigerians because the team played very well. President Bola Tinubu said that the bronze was almost as good as gold. He probably said that as a way of commending the boys for their outstanding performance in the matches they played and the discipline that they displayed on and off the pitch.
But something nearly went awfully wrong when Nigeria was to face Algeria in the quarter final in Marrakesh, a distance of five hours from the team’s residence in Fez. Our players and officials said they would boycott the trip and training sessions because their bonuses for all the four matches played were not paid. This ugly scenario has happened too many times with the Super eagles and Super Falcons.
In November 2024, the Super Eagles boycotted training during the African World Cup playoff over a backlog of allowance issues. A few days later, the disgruntled team lost to an inferior Democratic Republic of Congo team and Nigeria’s dream of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup became just that: a dream. In 2022 Nigeria’s flag did not fly at Qatar. In this year’s World Cup, we will also be marked absent.
But this piece is not about our failure to appear at the two World Cups. It is about our incompetence in managing our football. This incompetence has led to boycotts, threats of boycotts, protests and sit-ins by either the Super Eagles or Super Falcons. If we managed these conflicts better, our football would have achieved a lot considering the abundance of talents we have on the pitch.
In 2004, the Super Falcons won the African Women’s Cup of Nations in South Africa. They refused to vacate their hotels because their bonuses were not paid. When the Super Falcons clinched their 8th African title by defending Cameroon, there was also money wahala. During the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France, the Super Falcons staged a sit-in protest and refused to vacate their hotel except their bonuses and allowances were paid. The girls carried their protests during Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure to the Aso Villa and to the National Assembly. The men had also brought shame to our country in several episodes of boycotts in the past. I do not want to enumerate such shameful incidents again on this page.
There is an African proverb that states that the “war that has a take-off date never kills the lame.” Why? Because the lame can always crawl out of the war zone before the guns begin to boom. But in Nigeria that war has killed the lame very many times, an indication that we are never ready for what we should be ready for. All competitions, continental or world, have scheduled take-off dates but in Nigeria we are never ready for them. Most other countries, big, medium and small, go through these competitions without disgraceful stories from their football managing authorities. Our stories of shame in this matter occur regularly like a recurring decimal.
This year at Morocco, we nearly got disgraced but for one man: Ndidi. Our country was saved from shame by a 29-year old footballer called Onyinye Wilfred Ndidi. When the players and officials threatened to boycott the trip to Marrakesh except their bonuses were paid, it was Ndidi who stood in the middle and led from the front. He was neither the chairman of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) nor the chairman of the National Sports Commission nor the minister responsible for sports. He did what those three officials failed to do. He told the players and officials that he was ready to pay their bonuses from his pocket so that the team’s spirit and unity would remain intact. This young man solved a problem that would have brought disgrace to this big country. This would have given more ammunition to those who talk derisively about our big-for-nothingness.
Every country has its merits and its imperfections. Nigeria has them but I do not think that Nigeria is a big-for-nothing country. No. It is not. It is a country in transition, a country in search of its dream, its destiny. And the fact that we have a 29-year old man who stood up for Nigeria when it mattered most means that Nigeria has the potential to be great. It is the duty of our leaders to take the country to that mountain.
Ndidi was born in Lagos. He went to Command Children’s School and later Nath Academy where he went to learn the nuts and bolts of footballing. While he was keeping his eyes on opportunities in football, he was hawking all sorts of things in the busy Lagos traffic where gridlock provides a market for sellers and buyers. In 2015, the opportunity came and he signed to play in Belgium for a club called Genk. That was a dream come true. He later joined Leicester City Club where he played as a defensive midfielder. Even though he was making tons of money as a footballer, he knew that money alone was not enough. He wanted to improve his education, something that Nigeria did not offer him at a higher level. After his training on the football pitch, he decided to go for a different type of training in a classroom. In May 2019, he started studying for a degree in Business and Management at De Montfort University in London. He decided to do something for kids in Nigeria who would like to play football as well as go to school.
He said some years ago: “Back home, many kids aren’t able to go to school because their parents can’t afford it. I want to set up a football resort where people can stay and play football while getting an education at the same time.” He was only 22 when he conceived of this giving-back idea. This resort will take kids off the streets, off crime, off cultism, off cocaine, off conflicts that arise from idleness. He is buying an umbrella for the kids so that when the rains come, they will be sheltered. He is not only buying a future for himself, he is also buying a future for young people he does not even know so that they do not become the dregs of our society.
It is obvious, very obvious, that Ndidi has a good heart, a heart of compassion. There are many people who make plenty money in their chosen professions but do not care about helping the helpless. Instead, they engage in the illusions of grandeur as a means of taking themselves into the upper crust of society. Ndidi is not one of them.
He has obviously made tons of money in football. There is no one who plays in any of the big leagues abroad that is not super rich. Instead of allowing the Super Eagles to boycott training and the trip to Marrakesh, Ndidi offered to spend his money on the team so that there will be harmony. He did not care whether the money would be refunded to him if he paid the players and officials. He was just taking a personal decision that would help the team to progress in the competition, a decision that would also save the country from disgrace. That is the spelling of leadership. Is that also the spelling of Good Samaritanism?
It was the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who said “No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he only had good intentions, he had money as well.” Yes. Ndidi had good intentions as well as money, with which to execute his good intentions. The other point is that the accumulated bonuses must have amounted to a huge sum of money and yet it was not a source of worry to Ndidi. He did not worry whether the payment, if made to the players, would become a debt whose repayment period was unknown. He did not also worry that the money, if paid to the players and officials, would create for him a powerful enemy that he could not harass for the refund of his money quickly.
There is ample hypnotism about football. That is why the stadiums are always full whether there is sunshine or rainfall. And that is why a football player and lover called Ndidi decided to take the risk of pledging to drop millions of dollars on the accounts of the players and officials so that the game goes on.
Can Nigeria manage football differently, efficiently? That is a question that we have not been able to answer satisfactorily for decades.
