Tahar Djaout was an Algerian journalist, poet and fiction writer who lived for just 39 years but his words will live forever.
He was assassinated in 1993 by the Armed Islamic Group in his country for ostensibly always speaking the truth. He once said, “silence is death. If you speak, you die. If you are silent, you (will still) die. So speak and die”.
That was exactly what the Technical Director of the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, Augustine Eguavoen did on Christmas Day which I have dubbed Eguavoen’s Clarion call.
The message is for the NFF and if the football authorities know the import and also understand the adage, ‘Procrastination is the thief of time’, they must act fast and now. Eguavoen was on a rescue mission to salvage Super Eagles in the 2025 AFCON qualification and he has delivered on that. He is however, warning the NFF that they must hurry up in appointing a substantive coach for the team.
As you read this, it is exactly 78 days to the resumption of the 2026 World Cup qualifier. On March 17, 2025, the Super Eagles will be in Kigali where they will battle Rwanda, current group leaders in Kigali, yet they have no substantive coach.
The NFF seem not to be worried but Eguavoen, their staff, is worried. He has been bottling his feelings on the procrastination of the NFF on the issue of a substantive coach for the Super Eagles. He has now challenged the NFF. If they like, let them sack him for speaking the truth.
Hear him: “All hands must be on deck, we want to try and qualify for the World Cup. March is just around the corner. If we have to do something, we need to do it quick”. And he has said he is ready to work with whoever is eventually appointed so as to plot strategies on the task ahead, advising that we stick with a local coach as head even if a foreigner will be added in the technical crew.
Will the NFF hearken to his cry? All football stakeholders are waiting on the NFF with bathed breath. One would not be surprised if the Ibrahim Gusau-led board is waiting on the planned Presidential Support Group (PSG) the federal government is planning for the last leg of the World Cup qualifiers and for which, we heard, a whooping N2 billion has been proposed in the 2025 national budget.
Sincerely the federal government is getting it wrong. No amount of money ploughed into the campaign would salvage the already bad situation if certain things are not done or put in place.
First, it is already too late to talk about hiring a foreign coach that has not even been identified 78 days to a crucial Match Day 5 and 6 of qualifiers in March.
Except the coach they are talking about has already been identified, discussions on the contract term concluded and the country is only waiting for the announcement to be made, the whole of January may just go into the search and negotiations with the choice they have made.
In reality therefore, the new coach will have only about six weeks, beginning from February, to get to work with the same set of players Eguavoen has been working with as he may not have the luxury of time to identify his own players and understand their mentality.
Even after the issue of a coach is sorted out, will the PSG and money the government is proposing for its task force change the mentality of most of the present crop of Super Eagles players who feel their shirts are guaranteed?
Will the technical crew be allowed to do their job without interference from the NFF and some powerful people in government who always push for quota system on team selection rather than merit?
That the Presidential Task Force set up by President Goodluck Jonathan to rescue the Super Eagles for the 2010 World Cup succeeded is not a guarantee that the PSG of President Bola Tinubu will equally succeed. The two scenarios are different and laymen may not understand.
In 2010, Africa was hosting its first FIFA World Cup in South Africa and it would have been sacrilegious that the most populous black nation on earth was missing.
Football and African football in particular needed Nigeria. The host, South Africa knew the power of Nigeria and needed the Super Eagles to make their hosting a grand one.
Whether it was the work of the PTF led by then Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi that helped the Super Eagles qualify at the end is a discourse for another day.
The 2026 edition of the Mundial is not Africa’s World Cup but CONCACAF (Confederation of North and Central America), jointly hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Now with South Africa in the same group with Nigeria and their son, Patrice Motsepe now president of CAF, who will save the situation for Nigeria? It boils down to the players determination and will to succeed, hoping that the three countries ahead of them, Rwanda, South Africa and Benin Republic falter along the way.
I cannot end this piece without commending the large heartedness of Super Eagles top scorer, Victor Osimhen. He thought it wise to give back to the society where he grew up, Olusosun area of Lagos.
He made some donations to the youths and mothers of the area during the Christmas. He thanked them for supporting and praying for him in his rise from grass to grace.
God has blessed him and he too wants to be a blessing unto others. That is the way it should.
To my readers, I say thanks for sticking with this Column all through 2024. Let’s do it together again in the New Year.
God bless you all.
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