It is no longer news that Nigerian footballers plying their trade abroad are doing exceedingly well at their various club levels. From Napoli’s Victor Osimen who’s currently the highest goal scorer in Seria A; Super Eagles sensation, Samuel Chukwueze, who continued his sizzling form with two beautiful goals yesterday to help Villarreal secure an emphatic 3-2 away victory over Real Madrid; Paul Onuachu (Genk/Belgium) who netted an incredible 33 league goals in the 2020/2021 season; Taiwo Awoniyi, Nottingham Forest’s second highest goal scorer this season to Nigerian forward; Folarin Balogun, third highest goal scorer in the French Ligue 1 (with 17 goals for Reims), the list is endless.
Few minutes ago,
Attacking Midfielder, Eberechi Eze was on the scoring sheet for Crystal Palace in their 5-1 demolition of Leeds United, with a hat trick of assists from Michael Akpovie Olise.
While these Nigerian ambassadors put up masterclass performances at their club sides weekly, same cannot be said when they put on the green and white jersey in continental and intercontinental tournaments.
Back home, they are flat-footed,
clumsy, awkward and uninspiring. Recently, we have lost at home to teams like Congo Brazzaville, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Guinea Bissau etc.
Rather than replicate their club forms for our country, what we have is a bunch of individual, anonymous players, running on the pitch like pregnant women (profound apologies to our women folk).
While some football analysts blame our awful pitches for the abysmal performance of our lads back home, others attribute it to the ‘Nigerian factor’ even as some put the blame on the NFF for recruiting average coaches.
According to a 2017 data from the Migration Policy Institute, Nigerians in the United States are the most highly educated of all groups, with 61 per cent holding at least a bachelors degree compared with 31 per cent of the total foreign-born population and 32 per cent of the US-born population.
In its special report to mark Nigeria’s 60th Independence, Financial Times of London reported that
“More than half of Nigerian immigrants (54 per cent) were most likely to occupy management positions, compared with 32 per cent of the total foreign-born population and 39 per cent of the US-born population”.
It continues, “Similar Nigerian success is reflected in the UK, where many in a highly-educated diaspora work in financial services, IT, and the legal and medical professions.”
Our football experience is a microcosm of our larger Nigerian society. Our nationals perform spectacularly in diaspora but hardly replicate same feat back home. The few who attempt to come back to give back to the society are either frustrated by the Nigerian factor, lack of infrastructure, bureaucratic bottleneck or red tapism.