Mr. Sunday Oliseh, thank you for quitting as super eagles coach
Nelson Ekujumi
The Nigerian football fraternity and indeed all lovers of football were thrown into a state of shock but happy only recently following the abrupt resignation of Mr. Sunday Oliseh as the Super Eagles chief coach barely some few weeks to a crucial African nation’s cup qualifier against the pharaohs of Egypt.
Like it was, right from the day he took up the appointment as the Super Eagles chief coach and all through his stay on the job and even after he resigned, Nigeria football will not remain the same again as the Sunday Oliseh saga will haunt us for a long time to come.
One indisputable lesson which one hopes our football authorities and indeed the entire Nigerian people will learn from the Sunday Oliseh saga in our football for as long as it last is that, he who sows the wind, will reap the whirlwind and that is a fact of life.
When Mr. Sunday Oliseh was appointed by the Nigeria football federation (NFF) as the Super Eagles gaffer just like that without going through an interview or competence test to determine his suitability for the job as it is done in civilized clime, some Nigerians cried foul, but the NFF would have none of it, as it went to town propagating that they have secured the services of Africa’s version of Europe’s Pep Guardiola to take our football to greater heights even when it was very glaring to all and sundry that there was no basis for the comparison.
To substantiate their opposition, these Nigerians pointed to the poor disciplinary record of Mr. Sunday Oliseh as a player and captain of the Super Eagles which led to his untimely exit from the national team and that he has no coaching record at whatever level to qualify him for the herculean task of managing the senior national team of the most populous black country on mother earth, but again the NFF waved it aside and brandished the information that Mr. Sunday Oliseh has a European coaching licence which makes him appropriately qualified for the job.
Thus began Mr. Sunday Oliseh’s journey into our football annals as Nigeria’s Super Eagles coach with some critics sheathing their sword for patriotic sake by giving him the benefit of doubt to succeed, while some others as expected, stuck to their guns and always drew out the daggers against the national team uninspiring display under the new manager.
However, the truth which must be told is that, the tenure of coach Sunday Oliseh as the Super Eagles coach will forever be remembered for the acrimonious relationship that pervaded it and which contributed to a large extent to his abrupt exit just like in his playing days from the Super Eagles.
Before we go further, while we recognize that Mr. Sunday Oliseh as the Super Eagles coach was a disaster waiting to happen which was inevitable in view of his indiscipline, arrogance, immaturity, lack of coaching skills and experience, psychiatric and psychological deficiency which reflected throughout his tenure, it is important to examine the reasons which he gave as necessitating his resignation.
In the first place, Mr. Sunday Oliseh complained of not enjoying the right support from the NFF due to, in his words, several breaches to his contract such as being owed four months’ salary and lack of accommodation in Abuja as promised. He was unhappy with the dismissal of his personal assistant, Mr. Tijani Babangida and the rumoured approach of Mr. Herve Renard by the NFF to take over his job.
Looking at some of the allegations which Mr. Oliseh stated as reasons which forced him to quit the job, one can see without doubt that he has legitimate grounds for being aggrieved if the accusations are true, while others can be dismissed as lacking in merit.
One, the NFF must be an unserious and irresponsible employer to owe an employee four months’ salary and not fulfilling the agreement to provide him an accommodation in Abuja. It’s totally unacceptable because even the Holy book admonishes that a worker deserves his wages and if the NFF is in default in fulfilling this agreement, then Mr. Oliseh’s grudge is valid. On the issue of dismissal of his personal assistant, one should hold the NFF responsible for this also because if it is permitted in his contract that the NFF will be responsible for maintaining his personal assistant for him, then they have flouted the terms of the contract by dismissing him, except if the power to hire and fire such a staff is vested in NFF without recourse to Oliseh, according to the terms of the contract.
On the issue of begrudging the NFF over the rumoured approach of Mr. Herve Renard, Mr. Oliseh is totally at fault here because what should be of paramount concern to him should have been, the fulfillment of the terms of his existing contract rather than looking for distractions as a smokescreen to cover up for his frustrations on the job.
The icing on the cake of Mr. Sunday Oliseh’s frustration on the job and when he really called it a day, cannot be better explained than by his rant of insanity on YouTube to his critics following the avalanche of criticisms that trailed the ouster of the home based Super Eagles from the nations cup in Rwanda and the gathering storm over his continued stay on the job. In case, some people don’t know, that was the day Sunday Oliseh quit as Super Eagles coach in spirit because he couldn’t take it anymore and was now looking for the right opportunity to express it and he found the appropriate alibi in his grudges against his employer, the NFF.
Trust Nigerians, they were aghast that as in his character, Mr. Sunday Oliseh, even after calling it quits on his football career well over a decade, seemed not to have learnt any lesson about discipline, maturity, responsibility and humility with his insult on our collective intelligence and they gave it back to him in torrents which in a way forced his over pampering employers, who, fed up with his antics and ready to do away with him, extracting a public apology just to save face, but unfortunately, the relationship had completely broken down and Oliseh was only kept on the job by the intervention of the sports minister who waded in.
The truth of the matter which is not in doubt is that Mr. Sunday Oliseh took the easy way out of the job which was having a heavy toll on his health and mental state by resigning because he lacked the capacity, maturity, discipline, mental toughness and capability for such an herculean task and only used his stated grudges against the NFF as an escape route and we can’t but thank him profusely for saving us the continued heartache from a mediocre national team display under his stewardship and the resultant insults, abuses and acrimony which is like a second nature to him.
To Mr. Sunday Oliseh, we say thank you.
Thanks.
Ekujumi writes from Lagos
