![\"Daily](\"http:\/\/allafrica.com\/img\/static\/publishers\/minibanners\/dailychampion180.jpg\" "\\"Visit")
<\/a><\/p>\n9 December 2011<\/p>\n
\n
IN our bleak moral environment where the difference between good and evil has been so distorted that what is right becomes wrong, and vice versa, the simple act of the nation’s under-23 football team coach quitting his post for failing to qualify the team for next year’s London Olympics’ soccer competition, is a huge breath of fresh air.<\/p>\n
Coach Austin Eguavoen had, shortly after his team crashed out of the qualifiers in Morocco, forwarded his letter of resignation to the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) without waiting to be shown the door or employing the usual delay tactics familiar to Nigerians while lobbying secretly to remain on their job.<\/p>\n
Giving reasons for his decision to quit, Eguavoen had honestly stated that part of his contractual agreement with the NFF when he took the job had been to qualify the U-23 team for next year’s London Olympics football competition which Nigeria had twice won and take the team at least to the semi-finals of the Olympics proper.<\/p>\n
Apologizing to Nigerians for his failure, Eguavoen did not make any excuses for himself. Instead, he acknowledged the support that he received from the NFF and the generality of Nigerians who had hoped to see the nation’s flag hoisted among others at the Olympics’ football grounds next year, more so after the senior men and women teams failed to qualify for any major continental and global competition recently.<\/p>\n
Eguavoen’s action is simply a class act, one that flies in the face of the sit-tight mentality of Nigerians in public or political positions who would kill, cheat, lie or blackmail to remain in their posts until death or mass rebellion pulls them out screaming and kicking.<\/p>\n
His example is worthy of emulation by the hundreds of thousands of the nation’s political, intellectual and business elite who, before taking office, would promise heaven and earth to the electorate only to get in there and foul up the air with their incompetence, moral incontinence, graft, fetishism, ritualism and even murder, and would wail to high heavens when they are outwitted by equally ferocious competitors.<\/p>\n
In a country and continent where you have to practically kill the man or woman on a job to get them out of office even in the face of glaring incompetence, Eguavoen’s act is a testimony to the fact that there may still be a few men and women of honour left in our morally bankrupt society. His humility is touching when viewed against the background that some of his peers who have been faced with similar situations have resorted to all manners of ploys to evade responsibility and have even enlisted the courts of law to cover their malfeasance.<\/p>\n
Having said all that, it is worthy of sad note that while someone like Eguavoen has owned up and accepted the logical consequence of what he could do nothing about, his employers, the NFF, have been going about nonchalantly with their hands in their pockets as though they had nothing to answer for in the whole debacle that saw all Nigerian teams under their watch crash out of all the major qualifying tournaments they participated in.<\/p>\n
Does this not point to the fact that the NFF has also failed Nigerians, some of who see football as close to religion and a major unifying force in the country? Should they not, at least, be remorseful?<\/p>\n
Our failure to qualify for any major football competition come 2012 is clearly a result of the confusion, in-fighting, back-biting, ethnic rivalry, outright mischief and corruption that have marked the nation’s football generally and the Glass House, the NFF headquarters, in particular.<\/p>\n
We, therefore, think that what is good for Eguavon should equally be good for the characters at the NFF, especially if honour means much to them and if they are patriotic enough to want football in the country to move forward.<\/p>\n
AllAfrica – All the Time<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n