Let Nigeria revive NNPC/Shell Cup

I have been in hibernation for two weeks, high up in the hills of Wasimi in Ogun State buried in work. As a result, I failed to catch up with some major sports news. I missed Raphael Nadal’s loss in the first round at Roland Garros. I missed Manchester United’s surprise defeat of my favourite team in the English Premier League, Manchester City FC in the FA Cup final.

I also missed Nigeria’s matches at the CAF Under-17 AFCON, where I am told that, for the second time in a row, the national team failed to win and to qualify for the FIFA World Under-17 Championship.

I asked what the reactions to not qualifying out of Africa to the FIFA championship where Nigeria holds the best records in the world with five World Cup victories. I had to ask, because, contrary to my expectations should Nigeria fail a second time in a row, the world did not end!

Instead, (as I was told) the country’s football officials are actually toying with the idea of promoting the ‘failed’ coach of the team to a higher age-grade level!

Nigerian football did not shake to its roots? Nobody was fired? Nothing happened? The country and its football have just moved on, unperturbed and undisturbed, when my own blood pressure had shot up in worry and uncommon concern? What is happening? Where has Nigeria’s passion for grassroots football gone to? What is happening at the grassroots level of Nigerian football? Why would the country’s national teams suddenly become cannon fodder for other African teams? Why would the production room of great Nigerian players and squads in the past suddenly become impotent and unproductive?

Yet, even from my humble observatory in the hills of Wasimi, I see global interest for young, strong, athletic Nigerian football players by foreign