THIS week would have been for questions on the perplexing claim by President Muhammadu Buhari that his administration has made Nigeria better than he met it in 2015. Our dear president made that claim in a recent orchestrated interview with Bloomberg. Many Nigerians thought President Buhari sat with journalists from the global leader in business and financial data news. He didn’t, going by the synopsis of the interview which says it published “the full, un-edited text of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s written responses to questions posed by Bloomberg News.”
We should have appraised and evaluated President Buhari’s contentions in that interview vis a vis the reality on ground in Nigeria. Today, there is epileptic supply of petrol in parts of the country. The spiral effect of the high cost of diesel and aviation fuel has nearly grounded all small businesses in the country. ‘Epileptic’ was how we described electricity supply in the country; but today electricity is no longer epileptic, it has degenerated beyond that to becoming non-existent. Thus, generally looking at the country’s economy from the prism of inflation, public power supply, fuel supply, security, harmonious relationship between the various tribes and regions, would you agree that Nigeria is better than it was before President Buhari came? I leave you to your answers so as to take a plunge into the more annoying river of hooliganism that has refused to go from the Nigerian local football league.
Again, the professional league game between Kano Pillars of Kano and Dakadda of Uyo (Akwa Ibom) played at the Sani Abacha Stadium in Kano on Thursday was marred by violence. Again, it was the same Sani Abacha Stadium! Again, it was Kano Pillars! And this time round, no less an official of the club than its chairman, Alhaji Surajo Yahaya (Jambul), was directly involved. Videos showed Alhaji Surajo Yahaya walking up to one of the Assistant Referees (AR) and landed a punch on his head during the game. The Match Commissioner allegedly wrote something else. He was said to have reported that it seemed that the Kano Pillars chairman inadvertently bumped into the AR (while the game was on)! When the wicked makes a case, it is not a wicked that would judge the matter – that should be the response to a match commissioner that didn’t query what a club chairman was doing so close to the AR during a game.
Witnesses and several other sources at the match venue said Kano Pillars were leading the Akwa Ibomites by a lone goal. But Dakadda equalised from a counter-attack in the 2nd minute of the three minutes added time. This infuriated the Pillars’ chairman, who also could not contain the turn of events went to the AR on the near side and descended on him in frustration. It was also reported that for fear of their lives, the goal by Dakadda was chalked off after the centre referee consulted the assaulted AR. Thus, the match that many had taken as a 1 – 1 ended up not being so, courtesy of the unlawful exercise of physical force and intimidation by the home team officials.
Kano Pillars does not disappoint at its home ground. Today in the NPFL, playing Pillars at the Sani Abacha Stadium is synonymous with everything ugly about our local football. Sani Abacha Stadium and Kano Pillars reflect the ugly times in Nigerian local football. There is the current home of impunity in the NPFL. Pillars are playing in Kano without the fans who were banned from the stadium because of violence. They had attacked players and officials of Katsina United and the match was disrupted. The team bus of the Katsina side was vandalised and the players and officials ran for dear life. Pillars were banished to Abuja indefinitely for that offense, and a fine of N9million was imposed on them. The team was also given a suspended three-point deduction.
Until Thursday’s bout of violence, Pillars were known to be playing in the MKO Abiola National Stadium in Abuja where the League Management Company (LMC) banished them to. But when the new national team coach of Nigeria, Jose Passeiro complained about the condition of the Abuja stadium’s pitch, the Minister of Sports, Sunday Dare ordered that no league game should be played on the pitch. Following that, the LMC secretly returned Pillars to Kano. Now they have resumed with their violence at the ‘empty stadium’. The leader of the war against fair football game is the chairman of Kano Pillars.
The Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) is more like Nigerian Perpetually Fledgling League (NPFL). It has never grown beyond its infancy, and teams like Kano Pillars are the cause of this assessment. Would it be wrong to hold that our local league has not grown reasonably since the advent of Amaju Pinnick? Since the advent of Pinnick, the League has not produced any club that can create the kind of hype we had in Africa in the early part of this millennium.
There are several reasons to expect the kind of step the federal government took on basketball on our local football league. The NPFL is simply a mess and a shame to proper football management. There are compelling reasons to suspend the NPFL and recalibrate the local league. This is a league with no title sponsor for many years running. What is the league worth? How much does winners get and what does the NPFL actually contribute to football development in Nigeria? Are there truly professional clubs in the country? At best, what we have are clubs state governments use as political tools and sometimes, inordinate patronage. One of the terms in the contract of the Super Eagles coach, Jose Passeiro is to watch at least 50 percent of the NPFL games (that should be 19) in one season. When things as we see often in Kano and at other venues keep happening, how would Passeiro not return the same verdict on the league as Gernot Rhor?
DSTV was showing NPFL games from various venues in the country. Violence was the major reason DSTV left the Nigerian football scene, regardless of whatever façade that was posted. Now, Ethiopian, Kenyan and Zambian leagues are beamed to Africa and the world. For a huge country that needs all the image laundering it could get, tales like we always have from the NPFL are not just good.
Shouldn’t Alhaji Surajo Yahaya Jambul be charged for assault? With the recurring violence in Kano, what would the LMC do to show itself as a body that should be taken seriously? Why is Kano Pillars not playing behind closed doors? When did they return to Sani Abacha Stadium? Unlike some other banished clubs why are they not retained at the Goal Project pitch in Abuja? Football stakeholders in the country are watching and are waiting for what the LMC would do to a club chairman that physically attacked and assaulted a match official while a game was still on.