After watching Cyril Stober and his panel
of analysts at one of the weekly Tuesday-Live programmes on the Nigeria
Television Authority, a friend who watched the programme simultaneously
phoned me and asked rhetorically, “So, an average Nigerian won’t get to
see live pictures from the 29th African Cup of Nations in South Africa
on an indigenous television station – where Nigeria is a major force and
participant?” Promptly, I replied him, “What more can you get in a land
where absurdities thrive?”
But wait a minute! How on earth has the
mighty fallen and descended to this ludicrous stage? By the way, who
plunged Nigeria into this mess? These are questions, among others, that a
majority of the people cannot answer with all modesty and honesty.
The 29th edition of the AFCON, apparently
the biggest sporting event on the continent, is underway already with
Nigeria in firm participation. But back home, an average Nigerian has
been sardonically denied the opportunity to watch the Super Eagles take
on other countries. No thanks to the failure of government and
lackadaisical approach of some administrators who are just there for
their hedonistic benefit and pecuniary affluence.
It is a known fact that football is the
common language every Nigerian speaks and it’s apparently the only
unifying factor in the Nigerian system. An average septuagenarian can
easily recall the names of some footballers but may never know the head
of the Nigerian Sports Commission or even the Deputy President of the
Senate.
Having listened to several analyses on
why Nigerians won’t get to watch their darling Super Eagles and the
entire Nations Cup via their preferred indigenous television stations, I
came to the surreptitious conclusion that they were all saying the same
thing with different mouths and from different perspectives. The bottom
line is, Nigerians are not watching the Nations Cup live from their
terrestrial stations. Smacks of crass lugubriousity!
The reasons postulated were that the
Confederation of African Football solely handed over the televising
right to a company in South Africa (SportsFive) which is expected to
link up with other participating or interested countries for expansive
transmission worldwide. The company was reported to have demanded six
million Euros from their Nigerian counterparts through the Broadcasting
Organisation of Nigeria, before they’ll grant them the indulgence to
beam the soccer fiesta live on terrestrial stations. BON was said to
have negotiated the “astronomic” price to 3million Euros but the company
insisted and stood their ground. The administrators too couldn’t shift
their ground as well, so it became a battle between two elephants and at
the end of the day the grass (the average Nigerian) bears the brunt. In
one of the fora, the question raised by an analyst was that, “how can
the same company charge Ghana 1.5 million Euros and then ask Nigeria to
pay 6million Euros?” This question is not just sick in content but also
warped in comparison! How can anybody be thinking of Ghana whose
population is not even up to the population of Lagos state alone (with
all due respect) and comparing it to a country with a staggering
population of 160million?
The fact is, Nigeria is a strategic
market for any investor or market to thrive. There’s simply no logic
they can tender to Nigerians for not beaming the competition live to
Nigerians who don’t have easy access to DSTV – which obviously is the
only remedy.
Furthermore, it is not just the brunt of
high transmission charges that have thronged Nigerians into the state of
utter bewilderment and profound frustration; our football
administrators also didn’t deem it fit to put the right peg into the
right hole at the right time. How can you go bidding for transmission
rights a few weeks before the competition when others started queuing up
immediately after the last edition in Angola? It is often said that “no
man goes to the stream early and fetches dirty water”. It’s all a
business affair. You don’t come late and expect the best of the deals!
It is either you get crumbs or you’re plunged into a tight corner where
you’d lose. It is not the businessmen in SportsFive that have brought
pains to the Nigerian football-loving people rather it is the failure of
government and its administrators! “Businessmen will forever remain son
of bitch” as J.F. Kennedy was once quoted to have said. That’s why
Roman Abrahamovich, the Chelsea FC of England owner could whimsically
dismiss nine coaches in eight years for all he cares – it is business!
Sincerely, it is quite painful to see how
the joy, support, passion and enthusiasm of an average Nigerian soccer
faithful have been reduced to nothing. Coincidentally, as if the
National Orientation Agency foresaw this imbroglio that it staged a
campaign nationwide a day before the kickoff of the Nations Cup, with
the theme “Do the right thing”. Our football administrators’ inability
to do the right thing at the right time has brought another untold pains
to Nigerians. “Tell it not in Gath and publish it not on the pages of
Askeleon” that Nigerians are paying through their nose to catch a
glimpse of a competition that is played on their own continental soil.
Do you know how much each public viewing
centre rakes in from the sale of tickets for each match? Multiply it by
the total number of matches (32). Sum them up nationwide and then tell
me why six million Euros became a herculean task for the acclaimed giant
of Africa? But a National Sports Commission secretary once told
Nigerians last year January that they spent millions of naira to open a
Facebook account for the commission. We are not all fools in this
country!
What more can we ask from a nation where
N28m could be spent to renovate 26 toilets? What more can we ask from a
nation where football administrators just convene at the Glass House to
collect allocations without doing the right thing at the right time?
What more can we ask from a country where a mere Local Government
Chairman has the capacity to single-handedly sponsor the Nations Cup
from his profligate affluence? What more can we ask from a nation that
parades itself as the giant of Africa? What more can we ask? And how
much is much? By the way, the 2014 FIFA World Cup, I am told, is just by
the corner.
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