African Footballer of the Year: Nigeria’s fading football fortunes

LAST week, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) announced a 10-man shortlist for the 2022 African Player of the Year, with no Nigerian on the list. The nominees are Riyad Mahrez (Manchester City & Algeria), Karl Toko Ekambi (Lyon & Cameroon), Vincent Aboubacar (Al Nassr & Cameroon), Sebastien Haller (Borussia Dortmund & Cote d’Ivoire), Mohamed Salah (Liverpool & Egypt), Naby Keita (Liverpool & Guinea), Achraf Hakimi (Paris Saint-Germain & Morocco), Edouard Mendy (Chelsea & Senegal), Kalidou Koulibaly (Chelsea & Senegal) and Sadio Mane (Bayern Munich & Senegal). Of these 10, Mahrez, Mane and Salah are all previous winners, with Salah having an edge by having picked up the prestigious gong twice. The list will be further pruned down to three, from which the eventual winner will be unveiled at a colourful ceremony later in the year.

To be sure, the nominees have worked hard to merit their place on the list. For instance, Mane, the current holder of the title, was part of the Teranga Lions team that won their first ever African Cup of Nations title earlier this year. He displaced the legendary Henri Camara as the country’s all-time leading goalscorer. Together with Salah, he helped Liverpool to win the Carabao Cup and the FA Cup last season. Of course, Salah finished as the top scorer in the Premier League. He won his third Golden Boot and emerged the Playmaker of the Year, having registered the most assists in the league. And Mahrez has been no less terrific: he helped Manchester City to their fifth Premier League title, scoring 11 times in the league and nine times as the club secured its place in the Champions League semi-finals.

Nonetheless, it is galling that with the raw talents available in the country and with its status and footballing pedigree on the continent, Nigeria has failed to produce continental rulers in African (male) football in the last 23 years. Time was when the country’s senior national side, the Super Eagles, were dreaded across the continent, and when the kind of list released last week prominently featured Eagles players. Indeed, during the 90s, arguably the golden era of Nigerian football, the Eagles were once ranked fifth in the world. No African team has come anywhere close since then. But the same Eagles are currently ranked 30th in the world, and that is even after some improvement in recent times. The players of the 90s were insanely talented, uncompromisingly committed to the game and the country, and phenomenally hardworking. Competition for places within the team was fierce. The players meant business and everyone could see it in their demeanor as they stormed the pitch, ready to cause their opponents maximum damage.

Nigerian footballers were known all over Europe. Gangling Rashidi Yekini, dubbed by the late General Sani Abacha as the Grand Commander of African football, led the way in continental conquest playing for Portuguese  side, Vitória de Setúbal. With 34 goals in the 1992/93 season, he helped the club to gain promotion to the elite division. Yekini, Nigeria’s leading goalscorer, scored crucial goals for Nigeria during the USA 1994 and Tunisia 94 qualifiers, and was Tunisia 94’s leading scorer. Nigerians will never forget the following refrain: “And Rashidi Yekini…, it’s a goal!!!” Taking a cue from Yekini, Emmanuel Amuneke, the fast-paced Super Eagles winger emerged the African Footballer of the Year following his blistering performances for Sporting CP of Portugal and El Zamalek of Egypt, and during Tunisia 1994 AFCON’s final match. He would later join Yekini, the man he had looked up to as a budding striker; Daniel Amokachi, Austin Okocha, Sunday Oliseh, Austin Eguavoen, Finidi George and others to put up a sterling performance in USA 94. Amuneke emerged runner-up for the African Footballer of the Year gong in 1995.

Enter Nwankwo Kanu, winner of the gong in 1996 and 1999. Kanu, Nigeria’s most decorated player to date, played a prominent role in Ajax’s 1995 UEFA Champions League triumph, and at the Atlanta ’96 Olympics when Nigeria’s Dream Team clinched the coveted prize. Even with the scare of a heart attack, Kanu, playing for English Premier League side Arsenal, was once ranked sixth in the world. And in a fantastic moment for Nigeria, it was Victor Ikpeba, the Prince of Monaco, who ruled the airwaves with his mesmerising displays in the French Ligue 1. He scored 13 goals to help Monaco to secure the league title during the 1996/97 season. Ikpeba, donning the colours of Monaco, was the second highest goalscorer with seven goals in the 1996/97 UEFA Cup and was crucial to Nigeria’s 1998 World Cup qualifying campaign.

It is distressing that since 1999 when Kanu secured his second win, no Nigerian player has ruled Africa. Of course, players like Mikel Obi made the last three but did not win. This sad situation is a reflection of the state of, first, Nigeria’s sports sector and second, the Nigerian polity generally or the Nigerian situation. Sports minister after sports minister has performed woefully and the current sports minister, Mr. Sunday Dare, was not even asked sporting questions during his confirmation hearing at the Senate because President Muhammadu Buhari did not attach portfolios to ministerial nominations. Patriotism and desire for excellence have waned, even among players, who are often just scrambling for whatever they can  amass for themselves.

To be sure, enthusiasm for sports in general and football in particular has not waned among Nigerians. On the contrary, it has increased. But the system in place, particularly in relation to the local leagues, is atrocious. Crowd violence, particularly in some parts of the country, has ensured for years that certain teams hardly ever lost home games. League matches are poorly managed, pitches are poor, and the working conditions of players are terrible. Worse still, the quest for individual glory has tended to circumscribe team success.  The Nigerian Football Federation (NFF), whose officials were once accused of failing to take with them the paperwork for voting during a trip to South Africa, thus denying Nigeria’s football magician, Okocha, five precious votes in the run up to the African Footballer of the Year award, are still at their game handling team issues poorly. Nigeria could not even qualify for the 2022 World Cup in  Qatar.

Given the foregoing factors and many more, the fact that no Nigerian is in the shortlist for the 2022 African Footballer of the Year award cannot be a surprise. Football is an open game and everybody can literally monitor and see whoever is dexterous in playing it on the field in the various clubs and competitions. The truth is Nigerians have not been faring well in the mastery and artistry of the game in recent years, and that is not unrelated to the growing lack of capacity that has come to be Nigeria’s lot in virtually all spheres of human endeavour. The lack of seriousness in approaching the teaching and learning of different skills is in ample evidence. Sport has become more sophisticated these days than in the past: raw talent is not enough to excel in sporting competitions. There is the need to continuously hone talents in order to attain the highest mastery, and here we find Nigeria sorely lacking in the organisation necessary to effectively hone the talents that surely abound in the country.

Gone are the days when the sports ministries and the various sporting bodies were manned by competent and inspirational figures who deployed all the available resources to help sporting talents to improve themselves and therefore be able to win laurels for themselves and for Nigeria. Now, rather than pursue the good of athletes, sports officials are more concerned with how to corner resources for themselves. The inescapable conclusion, then, is that Nigeria will continue to miss out on sporting laurels until there is a change in the way and manner sport is organised and structured in the country.

We urge stakeholders in Nigerian football to convoke solemn assemblies and return the country to winning ways. Like in the past, there are, we believe, talents that can win Nigeria continental and even global glory: what they need is the right environment to develop themselves. Finally, we urge Nigerian players, particularly those plying their trade in Europe, to get closer to their retired compatriots, learn from them, and rediscover themselves. In particular, players like Victor Osimhen, who we have celebrated on this page, must learn to take criticism, particularly constructive criticism, in their stride and not give the impression that they have “arrived” already and cannot be taken to the woodshed. We want to see Nigerian players ruling Africa once again. We hope this will be very soon.