It was a memorable night for Nigerian football at the 2023 edition of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) annual awards, when Nigeria won some of the most important individual accolades and a team award. It was a reflection of the abundant talents in the country. While Victor Osimhen won the Player of the Year (male), Asisat Oshoala won the Player of the Year (female) award. Also, the Super Falcons goalkeeper, Chiamaka Nnadozie, won the Women Goalkeeper of the Year. To cap it all, the national female, senior team, the Super Falcons, won the Female Team of the Year.
Victor Osimhen’s award came after a drought of twenty-four years when Kanu Nwankwo last won the Player of the Year award. Nwankwo earned the coveted title for his stellar performances for Inter Milan and the English Premiership team and the Super Eagles in the intervening period.
By the feat, Osimhen has joined an elite cast of Nigerian footballers like Rashidi Yekini (in 1993), Emmanuel Amunike (in 1994), Nwankwo Kanu (in 1996 and 1999), and Victor Ikpeba (in 1997) who won the awards. Undoubtedly, they all belonged to the golden era of Nigeria football, when Nigeria won the Nations Cup in 1994 and the Olympics Gold Medal in Atlanta in 1996.
Osimhen’s triumph was made more spectacular by the poll of African stars on the longlist and shortlist. It is heartwarming that Osimhen defeated Mohammed Sala of Egypt, a two-time winner of the award, who has emerged as one of the best African exports in the round leather game for over a decade, and the Moroccan talisman, Ashraft Hakimi, who was the cynosure of all eyes at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Quatar as the Atlas Lions of Morocco enjoyed a fairytale run to the semi-finals – the greatest feat ever achieved by an African team in the history of the World Cup.
Osimhen’s victory is an affirmation that hard work pays. In the 2022-23 season, he emerged the shining light of the Italian side, SSC Napoli, as it won its first Scudetto in 23 years since the legendary Argentinian football idol, Diego Maradona, steered the pathenopians to its last Seria A title in 1990, having won it for the first time in the 1987 season with him.
Osimhen’s award is a good advertisement for catch-them-young philosophy, having emerged through the ranks as an U-17 player in 2015, where he won the Golden Boot as Nigeria lifted the FIFA U-17 trophy; and excelling with the Super Eagles years later as it qualified for the forthcoming 2024 African Nation’s Cup tournament holding in Ivory Coast.
We also rejoice with the Barcelona and Super Falcons star, Asisat Oshoala, whose Marrakech award was her sixth in the series, making her a dominant force in African female football. Over the years, she has maintained an enviable consistency in the sport.
Like Oshoala, the Super Falcons goalkeeper and Paris FC safe hands, Chiamaka Nnadozie, distinguished herself both in her club and national team assignments. She was spectacular at the recent FIFA female World Cup in Australia, where she stood between the sticks as Nigeria made it to the round of 16 before bowing out in a penalty shootout to the English female national team, which went on to reach the finals.
While the victories of Osimhen, Oshoala, Nnadozie and the Super Falcons as the Female Team of the Year might create the impression that all is well with football in Nigeria, it needs to be highlighted that the NFF should put its house in order. Against all expectations, the Super Eagles failed to qualify for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, despite having some of the best players in Africa and world football.
NFF officials have been fingered in recruiting average coaches to head the senior national teams, especially the Super Eagles, which has seen it transit from the highland of football to the lowland of the round leather game in the world. Recall that the Super Eagles was regarded as the best team in Africa in the 1990s. Today, it is struggling to win or draw with minors in African football.
We call on NFF to end favouritism and corruption in the selection of players for the national teams. A situation where average players are imposed on the national team handlers, leading to below par performances by the teams, should be discouraged. Football is a unifying factor. When the national teams excel, every Nigerian is delighted. When it stutters, as the teams have been doing in recent years, it leads to heartbreaks and sometimes vandalism, as it happened during the last World Cup qualifying match with the Black Stars of Ghana at the MKO Stadium, Abuja.
However, efforts should be made urgently to harness the abundant talents in our secondary schools, universities and football academies in the country in order to enhance the quality of Nigerian football.