So, what will a 17-year old do with N2m?

I know many of my sports writer col-leagues would be laughing at me for the apparent naivety of the headline above. They would be amazed that I don’t know that many 17-year-olds (and even younger) all over the world blow more than two million naira in just one night of clubbing but that I am actually gullible enough to believe that these boys were really under 17.

But, irrespective of how right or wrong my colleagues might be, I have maintained that this current U-17 team is the youngest we have had since the competition started in 1985. For one, this would be the rest team to be subjected to the dreaded MRI test. Have we forgotten how many of the original team members were dropped by the test?

Yes, MRI may not be 100 per cent efficient but this team must be the closest we have ever come to the required age ceiling.I don’t have all the facts on the other teams (and I also know we have stumbled on a few really young talents in the past, like Peter Ogaba and others) but I always look out for what becomes of our boys after their brilliant outings at the U-17 tournaments.

Of all, it was probably only from the Kanu Nwankwo set (which had Celestine Babayaro, his brother, Emmannuel, Captain Wilson Oruma and others) that we could pick about four or have players, who actually came to anything after shinning at the age group tournament. I know bad management may have been partly responsible for our boys not making the big league after but I also know that part of the problem could be that we picked smallish men, who were at the peak of their playing days, shaved their jaws and legs and threw them in with the boys.

After that epoch, the only other way for them to go was down, because they had peaked.Let’s even leave Philip ‘Zanza’ Osondu out of the picture for now, whatever happened to the small man, whom I can swear was older than the Argentine prodigy Lionel Messi, but whom our sports writers chose to describe as Little Messi during the U-17 finals that Nigeria hosted a few years back? Where is a certain Chrisantus, who was scoring goals from every angle?


And, going further back, where are Eddy Dombraye, Furo Iyenemi, Olumide Harris, etc., who played with Ronaldinho at the 1995 tournament? How many of the boys that performed the ‘Daman Miracle’ against USSR went anywhere after crashing to Portugal in the finals? Was that not the same Portuguese team that paraded the likes of Louis Figo, Rui Costa and so many lads, who would later make big marks on world football stage?But today’s piece is not about our players’ age, hence I take shine off the only bright spot Nigeria has had in recent time. Rather, I am appalled at how we reward patriots and people who contribute positively to the development of this country.

Now, I am not opposed to President Jonathan, giving cash rewards to members of the U-17 team that just returned from UAE. In fact, I would have called for it if the president failed to do so. After all, we did it to the Super Eagles after their AFCON victory in South Africa. We also did it for the olympians from the London para-olympics and, not too long ago too, we hosted Blessing Okagbare, who saved us huge blushes (with her silver and bronze medals) at the last world Athletics Championship in Russia. So, what is sauce for the goose should also be sauce for the gander.It is only after we have given the U-17 team members their own naira rain that the tragedy of this cash reward culture comes back to haunt my conscience.

And that is why I ask: What would a 17-year old do with two million naira? And the several other millions of naira that are likely to roll in, as many of our governors and opportunistic business people seek to exploit the success that the team recorded, against all odds?So, at the weekend, as I watch the live coverage of the presidential reception for the victorious Golden Eaglets, who did all of us proud in the UAE, by winning the Under-17 World Cup for a record fourth time, I could not but wonder whether doling out cash was the best way to appreciate these children.

Some people would argue that the families of these kids would need the money more than anything else – including even national honors medals, as these kids are already their families’ breadwinners. But that is also part of the tragedy that is our country. What country would force the burden of bread-winning on the frail shoulders of a 17-year old? The answer is simple: At the root of it all is poverty and collapsed value system.

Although I was also happy that the president opted to give them cash reward, I know that should not be the case. Usually invaluable achievements, such as theirs can never be monetized or adequately rewarded but we live in a country where heroes and patriots are forgotten in a hurry and ultimately abandoned, to rue their decision to opt for patriotism and service to fatherland, when they could have used the opportunity they had to steal for them-selves and their unborn grandchildren.

Today, the only retired public officers who live in any form of comfort are those who either looted enough to serve them in their retirement age or those who got into some form of business soon after retiring.Watching the kids with President Jonathan at the weekend, I was immediately reminded of what Queen Elizabeth was said to have told members of the then rave-making schoolboys musical group, Musical Youths, way back in the ‘80s: Go back and finish school. So, a scholarship programme that would enable the boys to either play and school at the same time or abandon play to go complete school first, would have been a most appropriate reward.But I also know that those before them, who were promised scholarships and shares in blue-chip companies, never got any of those.

Yes, it is possible that many of these boys would rather pursue professional football careers than return to school but the few, who actually opted to go to school never accessed any scholar-ship fund. In fact, it was only about two years ago that I learn't that even the houses promised members of the Super Eagles team that won the 1994 Nations Cup in Tunisia (the team captained by Stephen Keshi) was never delivered; that it was only some of the players, who knew somebody that knew somebody in the corridors of power that managed to get theirs.

The others are still waiting.

Those who were promised plots of land in Abuja have got tired of waiting and moved on. If we go to the flies today, it is not unlikely that we dis-cover that some civil servant has signed off the land documents and kept them for himself.So, instead of going home on big promises that would never be fulled, it has become more advisable that the players and their handlers grab whatever is available (by way of cash) and move on. As our downtown people would say, at all at all na’im bad. But that is the tragedy of our country. And the end does not appear to be in sight.

For, as the president was hosting the victorious U-17 team in Abuja, the handlers of the senior national team, to which every speaker at the Abuja reception wanted the Eaglets to graduate into, were stranded in Calabar where they had gone to open camp for the team scheduled to play Ethiopia in this weekend’s decisive second leg of the 2014 World Cup qualifiers.If after all the scratching and scavenging, the team eventually makes it to Brazil next year, or even puts up an appreciable showing there, the politicians, both in government and at the Glass House will swoop in to take the glory.

It is then you’ll see Bamanga Tukur – bedecked in babanriga of those riotous PDP colors – standing next to the trophy (as if the victory had anything to do with any well-thought-out plan of the PDP). And talking about the PDP, does anybody think for that party at all? How come, after all these many months of fraternizing with the G-7 governors and new PDP, it is now that the PDP has remembered to suspend Sam Sam-Jaja, Kawu Baraje and Olagun-soye Oyinlola? If that suspension is a smart way of refusing to obey the Appeal Court order that Oyinlola be reinstated, as the party’s National Secretary, then nothing can posibly be more pedestrian.I might not be a lawyer but I suspect that suspending Oyinlola has not vitiated that order.

Even if Oyinlola is now officially suspended, that PDP has yet to kick out the man presently occupying that post means it has yet to comply with this judgement  – a judgement that was as declarative as the initial High Court order, which the PDP relied upon to kick out Oyinlola.Interestingly, it seems everyone was so focused on the suspension that we all took no notice of the drama that was playing out at the Supreme Court where Celestine Omehia is seeking to overturn Rotimi Amaechi’s victory at the 2011 governor-ship election in Rivers State.

Of course, Omehia, who contested the said election on the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) is perfectly in order to challenge the election of PDP’s Amaechi. The only drama is that the PDP, which backed Amaechi to get a favorable verdict in the Appeal Court, is now at the higher court backing Omehia, as he seeks to upturn PDP’s victory.
Not being a lawyer, I don’t know if it is not too late for the PDP to now sing a different tune but I am just amazed at how far the desperation to kick out Amaechi has been taken. From trying to impose the will of five lawmakers on 27 other lawmakers, the push eventually degenerated into a police coup. When that also failed, we are now being treated to judicial abracadabra. I love this country. Long live the biggest party in Africa. PDP!!!