President Muhammadu Buhari last Thursday rewarded members of the under seventeen World Golden Eaglets that won the maiden edition of the youth soccer championship in China in 1985. Members of the squad were given monetary rewards alongside the winners of last year’s FIFA organized U 17 Championship in Chile.
While members of last year’s squad got N1.2 million each and their coach N900,000, the 1985 champions were rewarded with N2 million and their coach received N1.5 million. The cash reward for the 1985 heroes came over 30 years after the lads did the nation proud.
Incidentally, Buhari who was the then military head of state had promised to host the victorious team which he named World Golden Eaglets, but the palace coup of August 27 1985 led by Gen Ibrahim Babangida[retd] and his cohorts truncated the plan.
Successive administrations, from Gen Babangida to former president Goodluck Jonathan did not consider it worthy to honor the champions. It is an irony of fate that the same Buhari under whose administration the laurel was won would return as a civilian president to fulfill his promise. That is why we applaud the gesture despite the fact that it was a belated one especially when one of the members of the team, Kingsley Aikhionbare is late.
As commendable as the reward was, we cannot spy it’s unprecedented feature. This was perhaps the first time in the history of rewarding our football team that the players would receive higher cash reward than their coaches. We expect that the sports minister and other presidential sports advisers including members of the Nigerian Football Federation NFF, to know better and should have advised the president accordingly.
Beyond this however, we recommend that anytime our sport heroes deserve to be rewarded for bringing glory to the nation, it should be done in a timely manner. A situation where they have to wait for almost a lifetime before they earn what is due to them is an unsavory commentary on the value attached to sport heroism. It is morally reprehensible that past regimes failed to appreciate the import of the squad’s exploits and the attendant goodwill it attracted to Nigeria. After all, the World Cup was a victory that boldly inscribed the name of the country on the indelible scroll of world sport history. It wasn’t just a victory for the then military administration of Buhari.
That is why we urge our leaders to always put aside political differences when issues that foster national unity and cohesion are involved. We therefore advocate a national reorientation that rewards deserving citizens in all fields of endeavor and do away with the culture of giving national awards and recognitions to characters of questionable means. Our sporting heroes must not be allowed to die before they are rewarded.
