Former Super Eagles coach, Adegboye Onigbinde, and ex-Golden Eaglets manager, Henry Nwosu, have knocked the Nigeria Football Federation for the lingering controversy over the appointment of a new coach for the national team.
Since November 2014, when Nigeria failed to qualify for the Africa Cup of Nations, the NFF has not been able to get a fresh coach for the national team or renew Stephen Keshi’s contract.
And since last week the federation has stuck in a controversy with Keshi over the details of contract proposal handed him.
Keshi’s agent was on Monday quoted as saying the new deal is a “slave contract” while insisting that the former Eagles’ captain would not accept it.
Onigbinde, who lamented the delay in the appointment of a coach for the Eagles, said the NFF got it wrong from the beginning by failing to advertise the job.
He said, “I’m getting concerned that this is taking too long. A couple of weeks ago the NFF said Keshi was the only candidate who applied for the job and I asked, when was the job advertised? How many people applied? When were they screened and interviewed? I wouldn’t have been asking these questions if they said they were reconsidering Keshi’s contract. But to say that he is the only person that applied for a job that was not advertised shows that we are being economical with truth.
“Keshi about two weeks ago said nobody was talking to him, so how did they come up with the contract? Contracts are supposed to be negotiated. If he said they were not talking to him and a contract suddenly surfaces; that is where it becomes slavery. Such a contract will be lopsided. A lot of things were wrong. The people in authority know what they are doing and they know why they are doing what they are doing.”
Onigbinde added that he would not have applied even if the job was advertised, but noted that there was the need to do things the right way.
Nwosu, who assisted Onigbinde when he was Eagles coach at the 2002 World Cup, said if the NFF must go on with Keshi, then they must sit with him and renegotiate.
“Let the NFF call him, sit down with him and discuss. I think that is the honourable thing to do. If they agree or disagree, then everybody will know how to forge ahead. The problem lies with NFF officials,” he said.
However, contrary to Keshi assertion that the NFF wrongly thinks they are doing him a favour, Nwosu said the football governing body did him a favour by singling him out as sole candidate for Eagles job.
He said, “They are doing him a favour even though he is coming to work. There are so many coaches who want that job. There are so many of us, Nigerians who want that job. So if they give it to him, it is favour. But then that does not mean they should enslave him. If you are giving me a job, don’t enslave him. Give me some respect.”
