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So, our four musketeers facing charges of misappropriation of funds are not Nigerians after all?

So, Sani Lulu, Amanze Uchegbulam, Taiwo Ogunjobi and Bolaji Ojo-Oba have become citizens of the Federal Republic of FIFA?

It is really
interesting to discover that these individuals who have risen from
obscurity to prominence of the back of NIGERIAN football, will begin in
their old age, to exhibit symptoms of senility in midlife.

It was amusing to
hear them last week tell an Abuja High Court that they were beholden to
no one but FIFA in the matter of funds belonging to the Nigeria
Football Federation allegedly misappropriated by them.

In their view it is
only FIFA’s Court of Arbitration in Switzerland that can question them
on how football federation funds were spent.

It would have been
a different matter if they were protesting their innocence. Then, it
would have been a case of whether we believe them or not. As it is,
they are repudiating the authority of the laws of the land, which is
quite a serious issue.

Anyway, this cast
of mind is not surprising. It is in keeping with the tradition of their
godfather who habitually threatened Nigeria with FIFA ban until the
earth caved in under his feet in October.

Personally, I am
not surprised that this is coming from these men even though I seethe
with anger at their temerity. Their stewardship at the NFF is well
known. That Nigerian football is in crises today derives substantially
from their poor management of the game.

Many recall that it
was Lulu’s blind ambition to return to office that sent Nigerian
football hurtling into the cauldron of conflict from which it has yet
to recover nearly one year after he was forced out of office.

It is matter for
serious regret that men fed and nourished by Nigerian footbal; men, who
outside the game cannot lay claims to any outstanding achievement in
society, will turn round and poke their fingers in the eyes of the same
game that has provided them with a platform for relevance.

No pedigree

For if truth be
told, besides being officials of the NFF, what other images do the
names Sani Lulu, Amanze Uchegbulam, Taiwo Ogunjobi and Bolaji Ojo-Oba
conjure in the minds of the global football community.

At least when
people within and outside Nigeria hear the names Austin Okocha, Segun
Odegbami, Adokiye Amiesimaka and Patrick Ekeji, they will know that
these are individuals with bona fide claim to relevance having played
football at the highest level.

The African U-17
Championships ends in Rwanda today and Nigeria has not been part of it.
The implication is that the country, which won the U-17 World Cup four
years ago and finished in second place two years later, will not be at
the tournament this year. And there is no prize for guessing who should
be held responsible.

Had Lulu and his
henchmen presently disowning their fatherland had the decency to put
structures and programmes in place to facilitate the discovery and
nurturing of young football talent, we would have been spared the
embarrassment of missing out on a tournament in which we have an
impressive pedigree.

Instead, they elected to carve out fiefdoms and empires, strutting around the Nigerian football landscape like colossuses.

Their latest caper,
vexing as it is, should provide Nigerians some comic relief. It is one
of the mysteries of the legal profession that lawyers take on even the
most ridiculous of briefs.

Sometimes you
wonder why a counsel will not advise his client on the futility of a
particular course of action. Well, I guess they are in the business of
making money and so are not concerned with such trifles.

We wait to see
where this latest faux pas will get Lulu and his associates. We will
see whether the emperor who presides over affairs at the glass house in
Zurich will give them a pat on the back for their affirmation of his
supremacy over the Nigerian state.

In the interim, I weep for Nigerian football and the hordes of young
men and women whose livelihood depend on it. They have been serially
betrayed by these four musketeers and their successors, men who are
incapable of dealing straight and thinking deep. In their hands the
game has been brought to its knees and there doesn’t seem any hope for
the moment of its getting back on its feet.