Oh, it was great to see the media reaction when Amaju Pinnick turned on his famous chest-beating, praise-singing tune after Ademola Lookman emerged as the CAF Men’s Player of the Year in Marrakesh on Monday night.
The former Nigeria Football Federation president is right to claim glory for bringing Lookman to the Super Eagles and ensuring that the player’s international change of allegiance was completed in time for him to feature against Ghana in March 2022.
“I recall, just before he played his first game, there were (sic) correspondents that I needed. I had to rush to the Ikoyi club to meet his dad in ensuring that I got it personally. You can ask the dad, so, it was a lot of effort,” Pinnick said per OJBSport.
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The rest is history. Lookman had a breakthrough performance in his first Africa Cup of Nations appearance this year, scoring three goals as Nigeria reached the final. His man-of-the-match performance in the Europa League final in May made him an international sensation.
Pinnick, who has never been known to be humble, rightly staked a claim at this moment of glory. He quickly reminded us of a key success of his eight-year term.
Pinnick’s Youth Policy
Pinnick never hid his intentions to recruit Nigeria-eligible players born in England and Europe for the Super Eagles. He believed they could be the future of the team. We were faced with a system where players doctored their ages often. One couldn’t be sure if the age on the player’s passport was his biological age, and supposed teenagers could be inching towards their late 20s.
This meant that players born abroad who are truly talented and properly documented could stay on the national team for longer.
Lookman, Olaoluwa Aina, Joe Aribo, Maduka Okoye, Semilore Ajayi, Calvin Bassey, Kevin Akpoguma and Cyriel Dessers are some of the players who benefitted from this shift towards Europe under the Pinnick regime.
England internationals Tammy Abraham and Eberechi Eze got away, as Pinnick failed to convince them to switch after famously declaring that they had committed to Nigeria.
As Pinnick basks in the glory of Lookman’s incredible African Player of the Year win, we must remind ourselves that not everything he touched became gold.
His late tinkering with the managerial position on the eve of the Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon caused the Super Eagles to crash out in the Round of 16. They then fell to a weak Ghana over two legs, and we failed to qualify for Qatar 2022.
Pinnick had eight years in office to build structures for Nigerian football. He claimed severally that the organisation had become financially independent of the government. However, once he left office, we realised that the connections made in corporate Nigeria were most often tied to his connections. Organisations like Aiteo all abandoned the game once his tenure was over, and the NFF returned to its place as a dependent of the government.
Today, Mr. Pinnick enjoys his position on the FIFA Council, but Nigerian football has not become the shining star that he made us believe it was during his tenure. While successor Ibrahim Musa Gusau can be accused of lacking the charisma and self-promotion of Pinnick, he has put his hand on the wheel and resuscitated our dwindling national youth teams and ensured that we have a proper pipeline for the emergence of young, new home-grown stars for the future.
We should no longer chase after every potential player from abroad. It is time to put in proper structures for the emergence of talent at home. And if we do get the occasional talent from abroad, Lookman has indeed set the bar high. They must be top-tier players, not just middling talent who want to use Nigeria to win international caps.