The Super Eagles in Ghana

GHANA did not prove a good hunting ground for the Eagles 30 years ago. Then known as the Green Eagles, they could not reach the final of the African Nations Cup. Nigerian teams had won the African Club Winners’ Cup in 1976 and 1977 and many people, including non-Nigerians, had expected the Eagles to do very well in Ghana. Many of the players had become household names in Africa before the 1978 competition in Ghana.

NIGERIA won the cup on home soil in 1980; two years after it failed to rise to the occasion in Ghana. It was not until 1994, 14 years after its triumph at home, that Nigeria was champion again. It won the trophy in Tunisia after beating Zambia by two goals to one.
POLITICS kept Nigeria away from two finals in the late 1990s. It was unable to defend its title in South Africa in 1996, but was back in 2000, co-hosting the competition with Ghana. It lost to Cameroun on penalties in the final played in Lagos. Nigeria has lost three finals to Cameroun.

NIGERIA has lost three semi-final matches in the Nations Cup. The Eagles looked very bad in losing to Senegal in Mali. They had fairly easily beaten Ghana, the old enemy, in the competition, but was dominated by Senegal, a new enemy. Senegal had almost beaten Nigeria in the semi-final in Lagos two years before the match in Mali. The Senegalese threatened violence after the Eagles scored a late equaliser.

IN the Mali match, the Senegalese confined the Eagles to their side of the field for the first 17 minutes! Nigeria had no shot on goal. The situation did not change even after a Senegalese player was dismissed.

SENEGAL with 10 men took the lead and held on to it till the final minutes of the match. Nigeria, forced to defend by the 10-man Senegalese team, played with only one striker. The ball was kicked in the striker’s general direction when the Eagles had it and one of such “passes” resulted in a goal.

IT was deja vu for Senegal, but a Nigerian victory would have been a huge injustice. Senegal deserved to win the match and they eventually did. The Eagles match against Senegal was their worst in the last two decades or so.

THE Eagles beat Mali, the host, in the third place match. It was awarded the bronze medal. It won another bronze two years later, in Tunisia. The Eagles played well in Tunisia; they beat Cameroun and gave Tunisia a torrid time, losing only on penalties.

THE Eagles won their third bronze medal in a row two years ago when Egypt hosted the competition. The Eagles avenged the defeat by Tunisia two years before but were stopped by the Elephants of Cote d’Ivoire. The Eagles usually have trouble beating middling teams. They were once beaten by Sierra Leone! They lost to Uganda and could not beat Angola in Nigeria. Cote d’Ivoire has won the trophy once and reached the final in Egypt two years ago. Some of its footballers play for the top teams in European leagues and its football clubs do fairly well in African competitions. But a team like the Elephants should not ordinarily trouble Nigeria. But it stopped Nigeria from progressing to the final in Egypt two years ago.

NIGERIA and Cote d’Ivoire are in the same group in the competition being hosted by Ghana from January 21. Mali and Benin complete the group. On paper, Nigeria should qualify comfortably from this group. It has more players in the top European teams than any other African country. Many of the footballers are stars and they play an important part in their teams’ successes.

BUT strangely, some of the players do not replicate their club form at national level. Players who score regularly for their European clubs are unable to do so when they turn out for the national team. Defenders who tackle hard but fairly when playing for their clubs avoid contact with their opponents. They jump over the ball instead of trying to win it.
IT appears to be the case that the players are more committed to their club than to their country. The explanation for this, according to some people, is that the clubs take very good care of the players while their country turns its back on them when they are injured. The footballers have to pay for their own treatment though they suffered the injury while playing for the country. The injuries suffered by some players in the past were career-threatening and yet the ministry of sports and the Nigeria Football Association did not want to know.

THE players should be made comfortable so that they can concentrate on winning the cup in Ghana. Though many of them are millionaires, they should be promptly given all their entitlements. Nobody should ask them to practice self-denial, to be patriotic. Some of the politicians who ask Nigerians to be patriotic steal hundreds of million of naira to show how patriotic they are.
STILL, the Eagles should be propelled more by the love of their country than by the magnet of money. They are capable of winning the cup in Ghana; something they would not do 30 years ago. The Eagles should be helped to win the cup by the country’s sports administrators and all Nigerians.

stop blackmailing E.K. clark

THE many enemies of the respected Chief Clark claim that his real initials are A.K. and not
E.K. They claim that Chief Clark’s mouth is as destructive as the muzzle of an AK-47 rifle. And some of them have even said that the cultured Chief Clark carries on like a cursing cowboy!

THESE are worse than barbarous barbs. The insults sully Chief Clark’s saintly reputation and amount to high treason. In the 1970s, a military governor of a state in the Niger Delta sent a journalist to a brutal barber for filing a factual report. Chief Clark’s enemies are lucky that though he is the leader of a large ethnic group, a position that makes him superior to a governor, civilian or military, he is too urbane to behave like the military governor who believed he was an American Indian and almost scalped a journalist.

CHIEF Clark’s broad-mindedness, his equanimity in the face of vicious insults, has emboldened his enemies. They have now launched a campaign of blackmail against Chief Clark. The senior citizen himself alerted the nation to this last week.

CHIEF Clark’s enemies have got hold of the fact that Chief James Ibori, as governor of Delta State, gave the Ijaw leader an expensive car. Chief Clark has been at the forefront of a group of so-called elders which wants Chief Ibori jailed for alleged corruption.

CHIEF Clark’s enemies say he has no moral right to call for the prosecution of Chief Ibori after accepting a car from him that was bought with “stolen” state funds. Chief Clark said his enemies’ argument was a clear attempt at blackmail. He said he was not the only leader in Delta State who accepted a car gift from the then Governor Ibori.

THE Ijaw leader — so Chief Clark calls himself — said about two years ago that he was a very wealthy man. He said his properties in Lagos alone brought in about N50 million annually. He did not need the car gift from Ibori.

BUT what is wrong with the rich getting richer? Those who are saying that Chief Clark should have told Chief Ibori to sell the car and use the money to sink boreholes in some Ijaw villages are talking nonsense. A good leader in Nigeria is one who lives in opulence while the people he claims to lead live in squalor.

THE misguided people blackmailing Great Leader Clark should stop their foolishness.