Super Eagles’ Job Too Big for Oliseh

Sunday Oliseh

Nigeria’s team to the U20 World Youth Championship in Mexico in 1983 was the first to represent the country at any FIFA organised tournament. But in spite of the arrays of stars the team paraded, it failed to progress from the group stages. One of the gladiators of team -Tajudeen Disu in this interview with Kunle Adewale spoke on how the football federation thwarted the team’s effort, the choice of Sunday Oliseh as Super Eagles coach, NFF’s unresponsiveness to former international, Segun Odegbami’s ambition for the FIFA’s top seat and many salient issues concerning football in the country

Football runs in the family as his father, Suraju Disu played for the defunct Railway FC that dominated the Nigerian soccer scene in the ‘40’s, ‘50’s and ‘60’s before injury cut short his football career. His eldest brother, Tunde, also got to play for the national team before travelling to America to further his education. But for Tajudeen Disu, his dad would not want him to have anything to do with football. He would rather prefer him concentrating on his education. However, it was Taju’s mum that encouraged his career in the round leather game.
“Anytime my father got home and I’m not around my mum would readily provide an alibi for me with the excuse that she was the one that sent me on an errand and that was how I escaped the wrath of my dad on many occasions,” the defunct captain of Abiola Babes FC of Abeokuta said.

Like many youths of his generation, Taju started playing football in the streets of Lagos and continued up to his secondary school at St. Timothy College before moving on to Baptist Academy, Obanikoro after catching the attention of Coach Joe Erico, who was coaching the Shepherd Hill side then.

“From then on, I joined Greater Tomorrow and I went on to play in the Gothia Cup in Sweden, which we won after defeating Royal Navy of England in the final. I again played in the Dallas Cup which we also won before I captained Lagos State in the football event of the 1981 National Sports Festival, NSF, tagged Bedel’81,” he recalled.

Perhaps, aside from the team that represented Nigeria at the U21 World Cup in Chile in 1987, no Nigerian team had much expectation placed on it than the team that represented the country at Mexico ’83. But in spite of hopes and expectations, they failed to progress beyond the group stages.

Against the insinuation that it was as a result of the bad attitude of some players, notably Tarila Okoronwanta and Chibuzor Ehilegbu that brought division into the team, which eventually caused the team’s exit from the competition, Taju said it was the Nigeria Football Association, NFA (as the federation was called then) that caused them the early exit.

According to him, “The treatment meted on us after qualifying Nigeria to her first ever FIFA organised competition was bad. Before leaving the country for Mexico, we were camped in an unfriendly hotel in Maryland full of rats, but we were not really bothered because what was topmost on our minds was just to go to Mexico and do the nation proud.

“Before jetting out of the country, the then Secretary General of the NFA, Femi Okeowo told us that our addidas boots were on the way when actually they were with him. We played our first game against the then Soviet Union and won 1-0 with the same boot we used in playing the qualifying matches.

“When we got to the hotel after our victory over Soviet Union, Coach Udemueze then came with the cheering news that “Una boot don arrive now o,” but surprising Okeowo refused to release the boots, insisting that we should go and play with the old boots and that was the beginning of the problem in camp.

It was then that some players led by Okoronwanta and Ehilegbu threatened not to travel for our next game against Brazil in Montreal, but Udemueze and his assistant, Isiaka Yakubu, persuaded us to travel and by then we were already a demoralized team and the 3-0 loss to Brazil summarized the state of the team. And in the last game against a Holland team that paraded the likes of Marco van Bastien, Frank Ridjkard and the likes ended goalless, when we indeed needed a win to progress,” Disu recalled.

“We later got to know that Okeowo planned to sell the boots that was why he failed to release them for us to use. The same NFA that was instrument to our early exit abandoned the team in Mexico and our return to Nigeria the coaches were redeployed.

“Incidentally, the same problems are still there up till today and until the management issue is addressed, the problem will still be on and they will keep sacking coaches. The federation deliberately made teams representing the country to exit early so as to ‘eat’ the fund meant for the players which they had collected upfront up to the final. Corruption in the NFF is very high and I hope new administration would beam its searchlight on the federation as quickly as possible to save Nigerian football,” an obviously furious Disu lamented.

The choice of Sunday Oliseh as Super Eagles coach has been generating a lot of heat and it would probably continue like that for a long time to come and Disu was blunt about his stand on the issue.

“Oliseh is not the right choice for the Super Eagles coaching job. The team is bigger than him. He is just a business partner of the NFF President, Amaju Pinnick, and that was why they were able to pay him five months’ salary upfront. Give a local coach half of that amount and he would die on the pitch to give Eagles victory. Shuaibu Amodu was not abroad when he qualified Nigeria to the World Cup twice and there are still many Amodu in the country today. Oliseh is not the messiah for the Eagles, Stephen Keshi is still far better than him. Eagles’ job is not about certificates but rather about the antecedent of the coach. But the present federation wanted somebody they can do business with,” the former Nigerian international said.

On the unresponsiveness to former international, Segun Odegbami’s ambition for the FIFA’s top seat by the NFF, Disu reacted thus: “Segun Odegbami is the most credible candidate we have for the position. If we have the right people running the affairs of football in this country they probably would not be taking the decision they are taking now. How can you compare Orji Uzor Kalu, because he was a former Governor to Odegbami when it comes to football management? We are not talking about how rich you are. We are talking about credible somebody that would represent this country very well at FIFA. It is the NFF that is doing all these politics, coming up with what is not in the constitution. Just the way they have been manipulating the constitution of Nigerian football to favour themselves.

“Look at those backing Uzor Kalu; somebody like Amos Adamu that disgraced Nigeria at FIFA because of his corruptive attitude. They are all birds of the same feather. Nigerians should rally round Odegbami. It is the same people who have been there all these years and have been blocking him from realising his dream of becoming the NFF President that are now telling him to start with NFF.”

Continuing, he said, “Because they know if Odegbami makes it to the seat they won’t have the opportunity to be stealing the way they have been doing. He would eradicate the corruption that is going on in NFF. All they wanted are people of like minds that will be stealing together. Odegbami has no world outside football since quitting active football. This was somebody that has devoted all his life to football. But unfortunately, Nigeria is not about what you can do but who you know.

“As far as I’m concerned, this is about the worst NFF we’ve had in the country. Look at the man that is heading the technical department. He was formerly a spare part seller, but because he gambled his way to the top, he is now head of the technical department. The system is only good for corrupt people, once you have money you buy your way.

“The technical department should be reserved for coaches or ex-footballers, who understand the intricacies of the game, not for somebody who had not juggled football before in his life. And every day, they are sacking coaches. Look at the case of the NFF President, he traveled to London to watch the English season-opener between Chelsea and Arsenal, and traveling with Oliseh because they are pals at a time, when two of Nigeria’s national teams were playing critical qualifiers for the 2016 Rio Olympics, and when the country’s two most successful clubs were clashing in arguably the biggest game of the Nigerian Professional Football League season. Nigeria had two crucial matches but instead the president of the federation chose to travel to London for a jamboree, preferring to watch Arsenal play in the English Premier League and you think our football can move forward,” he queried.

Disu also chastised his ex-international colleagues for bringing themselves low before football administrators.

“We are the problem of ourselves. We have refused to love ourselves; we have refused to come together as one by having one Players Union that would cater for us all because of greed. We need to come together like in other climes, where players unions are very strong and we know what we can do when we are together. If we are together, we will support ourselves rather than clamour for the downfall of our members in positions so we can take their places. We dig pits for ourselves to fall. It is sad but that is the reality on ground,” he said.
Asked why he didn’t play professional football in Europe but opted for studies in the United States, Disu said, “I never dreamt of playing professional football in Europe, because my education was always my priority. After qualifying for Mexico ’83, the then Sports Minister, Buba Ahmed asked what we wanted and majority of us requested for scholarship which was granted. But it is sad that up till today, the promise had not been fulfilled.

However, what my country failed me, Chief MKO Abiola gave me. After winning the 1987 FA Cup with Abiola Babes, beating Ranchers Bees, Chief Abiola gave me a four-year scholarship with accommodation and feeding all taken care of. When I was leaving, he gave me a note to a bank in New York and there an account was opened in my name. When I got to the school in Alabama, the school gave me athletics’ scholarship,” the graduate of Alaba Agriculture and Mechanical University said.

After Chief Abiola helped him to further his studies in the U.S, Disu in return had extended the gesture to more 18 players. He helped to secure visa for them and some of them even stayed in his house in America which he bought with Abiola’s money before finding their feet. Some of include  Tosin Adebambo, Emmanuel Akpan, Seun Ashagidingbi, Wasiu Adebayo, Seun Robert, Ganiyu Adebayo, Ganiu Akani and Pius Oley.

Disu at the moment is dedicating his live helping youths across Nigeria to realise their dream of going to America to study and also play football through his America Scholar Scheme. “The final selection would be concluded next month in Abeokuta, where about 10 to 15 of them would be eligible to study an American University and also play football,” the Masters holder in Sports Management said.
Taju is married with four children. His wife, Muheebat Disu is a certified nurse at Boston Hospital. His first born Adiat , is a graduate of Boston University and the CEO of Adiree Fashion New York, U.S and was part of the African Fashion Show in New York last year July. The first son, Waheed, is a graduate of Howard University, Maryland, while the twins, Ibrahim and Ismail, are undergraduates at Florida State University.

“They are all into athletic and doing well, though they are more interested in basketball, which is popular there. But I have told them to make U.S their home because of the inherent nature of grab it all and corruption that has crippled Nigerian system,” Agricultural Economics graduate said.

Earlier this year, Taju’s daughter, Adiat was among the six young Nigerian entrepreneurs honoured in the United States for their contributions to high society fashion. Adiat, along with five other Nigerians, made Forbes’ list of 20 Youngest Power Women in Africa.

“My daughter is the youngest of the awardees at the ceremony which held at Hilton Hotel, Broadway, New York with Nigeria having the highest number of awardees. She was a reliable centre defender like me before her mother stopped her from playing football when she broke her Cliaubore in an NCAA college football match in Boston, USA. Her mum told her that football was not meant for female but male, that was why she stopped playing to concentrate on her education,” Disu said.