The Holy Bible recounts in the book of Matthew 2:1-12 how the wise men from the East followed a star to find the infant Jesus in Bethlehem, presenting him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
While we are not told from which specific country they departed, the East is believed to correspond to a modern-day Middle Eastern nation.
These biblical wise men heard that a Messiah had been born and were guided to His location by a miraculous star.
Tomorrow, a different set of “wise men” will visit Nigeria — not to seek a Messiah, but to meet with aggrieved stakeholders who have risen against those they hold responsible for the destruction of Nigerian football.
These “wise men” are arriving from FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich, bearing not gifts but words of caution and advice in equal measure.
Their visit is not prompted by reports of a “crisis” but rather because the Nigerian government, through the National Sports Commission — which oversees the Nigeria Football Federation — requested that FIFA officials be briefed on the reasons behind the widespread demand for reform in the country’s football administration.
Over time, the administrators entrusted with organising the game in a manner that benefits the people and the nation have consistently threatened stakeholders each time they attempt to ask questions about the Federation’s finances or the officials’ administrative style.
Among the aggrieved stakeholders FIFA officials may hear from are Segun Odegbami, former Green Eagles player and captain, and Godwin Dudu-orumen, a devoted football follower, lawyer, analyst, and administrator.
Writing about the crisis that has engulfed the country’s football and necessitated the FIFA visit, Dudu-orumen poses a pertinent question: “Who Owns Nigerian Football?”
He asks this because, in his view, “the people who built the game remain outside the room where its offices are shared” by those with only tangential connections to football who have since captured it solely for their own selfish gains.
He believes those who have hijacked football are “the political jobbers, the delegate counters, the committee regulars, and the hustlers who have never built a club, discovered a player, maintained a pitch, or risked their own money in the game — yet know how to enter the room where football offices are shared.”
These men inherit value others created. Players they did not train. Supporters they did not gather. National teams they did not build. Stadia paid for from the public purse. A reputation carried by generations of footballers, many of whom left the game with little more than damaged knees and old photographs.
Then the new custodians behave like owners.”
The lawyer turned voice of sports added that the hijackers of Nigeria’s football should also know that “Independence from political control is not freedom from the law. It is not freedom from audit. It is certainly not freedom from answering questions about public money.
That leaves a harder question: What happens when an organisation sustained by the public purse invokes international autonomy to resist public scrutiny?”
He also notes another truth about Nigeria’s football that FIFA may not be aware of — the football body operates with two faces. Despite shouting autonomy, it still depends on the government for survival, going to Abuja as the Nigeria Football Association (NFA), known to Nigerian law, to collect money, while going to FIFA as the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), operating under statutes accepted by the international football system.
The NFF, Dudu-orumen argues, “cannot be NFA at the Treasury in Abuja and NFF at FIFA House in Zurich.” This discrepancy must be examined and corrected — an opinion shared by Odegbami.
He wants FIFA to be told that “when national teams travel, when bonuses go unpaid, when a competition approaches, when a stadium is required, or when the domestic game needs intervention, whose money keeps appearing? Public money.”
He opines that FIFA should be told the truth — namely, “If Nigerian law is good enough when support is required, then Nigerian institutions must be good enough when they request accounts.”
These points will form part of what Dudu-orumen would convey to the “wise men” from FIFA if he meets with them in Abuja.
Odegbami, who has been at the forefront of those calling for reforms at the NFF, wrote in his piece “Demystifying and Humanising FIFA”: “Nigeria must now hold the world record for inviting FIFA to come and meddle in its domestic affairs. Nigeria has been doing so since it discovered that ‘inviting FIFA’ is a formula that allows any form of ‘manipulation’ to be carried out without consequence.”
Odegbami, like his Green Eagles teammate Sylvanus Okpala, has told Nigerians not to fear the FIFA visit because they are not “monsters,” as NFF politicians have portrayed them in an effort to scare the government away from scrutinising their activities.
According to him, “This whole matter can be resolved completely in one month because the critical issues are very few.
We are not starting afresh to reconstruct Nigerian football.
Let us discuss the main contentious issues amongst ourselves, make reasonable compromises, arrive at reasonable decisions, and get every stakeholder to sign on to it for the good of the game and the country only.”
He believes FIFA would not interfere in the election process but will be present only to ensure that the NFF electoral process follows due process — after all stakeholders work together to implement the desired reforms that would suit everybody.
His prayer, however, is that “this will be the last time Nigerian football officials shall invite FIFA to the country for the purpose of resolving our self-inflicted domestic problems.”
