Amiesimaka, Golden Eaglets And Age Cheats

Justin Akpovi-Esade

WHEN the world football body, FIFA, introduced the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) test shortly before the start of the ongoing U-17 championship in Nigeria, the country, among all other participating countries, appeared worse hit by the news. The Nigerian Football Federation (NFF), among other countries’ football bodies, appeared the most worked up about the somewhat ‘bad news’. The nation’s football body made so much fuss about the MRI test that one began to think the scheme was targeted at Nigeria only, perhaps to hamper our chances of retaining the cup we won two years ago by the Yemi Tella-led Eaglets.

After series of MRI tests in Nigeria and Qatar conducted on the selected Eaglets in the camp, most of them were dropped and finally, the NFF announced to the nation that the players they had in camp were boys, adding that the men had been weeded out.

So, it came as a rude shock to all when Adokiye Amiesimaka, a former member of Green Eagles of Nigeria (now Super Eagles), a lawyer and former Rivers State Commissioner for Justice, claimed that the Golden Eaglets’ captain, Fortune Chukwudi, is about 25 years old.

Amiesimaka alleged that Chukwudi is at least nine years older than he says he is, saying the player has no business playing in the current FIFA Under-17 World Cup.

His argument was based on the fact that he knew the Eaglets’ captain seven years ago, when he claimed he was 18 years old.

“In the 2002/2003 season, I was chairman of Sharks Football Club of Port Harcourt. I decided to have a feeder team of fresh school leavers, not older than 20 years. As the feeder team concept was relatively new and because I had my own ideas about how a team at that level should be handled, I also doubled as its coach.

One of my key players then is the current captain of our so-called Under-17 Golden Eaglets. By his own admission at that time, that is seven years ago, he was 18 years old.

“Remember the MRI test disqualified a greater percentage of players in our previous team as over-age, thereby decimating that team. MRI or not, his football history is common knowledge,” he submitted.

Hurray, a new Gani is born in the person of Adokiye Amiesimaka!

But before one examines the motive behind Adokiye’s new found fearless disposition to ‘national issues’, let us first look at the history of the Golden Eaglets of Nigeria. There has never been a time that Nigeria fielded the right boys (age wise) in any of these cadet competitions; that was why we have been winning most of these events without breaking sweat. Look at the captain of the 1985 Eaglets, Nduka Ugbade, now and draw your conclusion if he was actually 16 or 17 years old when he lifted the trophy. Was Wilson Oruma within the age bracket when he was captain of the 1993 Eaglets? It is common knowledge in the football industry that a player has real age and ‘football age’, and Amiesimaka who has played football all his adult life cannot feign ignorance of that fact. This brings to the fore his motives for making his earth-moving ‘revelation’ at this stage of the tournament.

So, as far as I am concerned, Amiesimaka was not saying something new. If he was a major player in NFF of today or a member of the Local Organising Committee (LOC), he would not be saying all these. So, scratch him properly and find out his anger towards the system he has been part of since he left active football. Amiesimaka is pursuing an agenda. I smell a bad loser’s vendetta in all this. It is like, “now that you people did not deem it fit to invite me to come and eat (not even the LOC membership, etc), let me jolt you with this joker I have.” Like what someone said, why did he wait till now to reveal what he knows? Was the boy, Chukwudi, just appointed the captain of the Eaglets? The team was named over a month ago. Was Amiesimaka not in the country all this while? Or did he just recognise the ‘boy-man’ as the same person in his Sharks cadet team seven years ago?

Amiesimaka is a patriotic Nigerian and he deserves some commendation for his Gani-like outspokenness.

Akpovi-Esade wrote from Lagos.