We all saw it coming and Keshi himself must have seen it coming; why he came back at all to allow himself to be so rubbished is what many couldn’t understand.
Surely this Illah, Delta State-born chap was far smarter than that. Stephen Keshi should have seen that his time was coming to an end when none of the warring parties in the federation appeared to back him.
To tell the truth many were in support of him continuing as Super Eagles manager after the World Cup to consolidate on what he had started. Watching the body language and listening to the vitriol of many NFF officials and such ex-internationals like Victor Ikpeba and Garba Lawal, as well as some Nigerian journalists, it might have been best for Keshi to call time on his Nigeria career after the World Cup.
Perhaps he didn’t want the ever-emotive Nigerian fans, sports journalists and the spin doctors in the NFF executive to turn around and accuse him of abandoning the national team because he had not been offered a new and improved contract. So he decided to continue without a contract on an ad-hoc arrangement while the shameless opportunists of the NFF continued with their own machinations.
Keshi | Mistreated by the federation?
Whoever does that in a nation where people love to live a lie?
Did he think he was indispensable?
Did he think all those who were still grieving over the events that culminated in his initial resignation after the Cup of Nations triumph and all the accolades that came his way, have suddenly cleared all the green in their eyes?
He talked about being sabotaged.
Surely there was some of this going on.
But he won’t be the first to be sabotaged. It’s been the way of the Super Eagles for too long; especially with indigenous coaches.
Ask Samson Siasia. Ask Chief Festus Onigbinde. Even ask the perennial interim coach Shaibu Amodu.
Amodu | Surely he will be able to sympathise with his predecessor
NFF officials, players, and journalists whose favourite players and kinsmen don’t get called to the national team embark on all sorts of ridiculous campaigns to whip up public sentiment and run down coaches.
It has happened before and this won’t be the last time either.
But it would seem that in Keshi’s case, Nigerians, sports journalist in particular, in spite of their well-known antecedents, have allowed particular prejudice, bias, envy, hatred and an unbelievable degree of illiteracy to becloud their judgment that one is left wondering.
The news that has been all over the sporting press was the 'sacking' of Stephen Keshi and his technical crew from their Super Eagles job. But pray, how do you sack someone that you didn't have a contract with?
To the best of everyone's knowledge, Keshi's job with the NFF ended after the World Cup in Brazil and he was only prevailed upon to act in an ad-hoc arrangement pending when the federation realised they needed someone to steady the ship. Until Wednesday, Keshi was acting in that capacity without any legally-binding contract.
So where does the word 'sack' come in there?
I had thought that some mischievous fellows were trying to court trouble for Amaju Pinnick and his team so early in the day when they claimed that they had ‘sacked’ a man they never had a contract with until I read the reasons the man himself gave to the Minister of Sports, “that they had to sack Keshi for his personal safety”. Interesting. Either Amaju Pinnick doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘sack’ or he has just allowed his long-standing resentment for Keshi to overtake him.
Pinnick | What role did he play in Keshi's departure?
Did Keshi not read how Kwesi Appiah refused to allow himself to be messed up by the Ghanaian FA?
As for Keshi and his legacy, some of us believed in him and will continue to remember him as the one who restored our faith in the Super Eagles and our locally-based players when faith in the national team was at its lowest ebb.
We will remember him as the one who brought the fans back home to the stadium when Eagles played. Did he make some mistakes now and again? Yes, of course and who doesn’t?
I‘d advise him to take all he has learnt from the Eagles job here and be a far better and achieving manager elsewhere.
Something tells me we would certainly meet this man again somewhere, sometime! Maybe we’ll wish we had him back.