By Daily Sports on March 25, 2019

I am yet to know what qualified Imama Amapakabo to handle a national team side when his credentials or performance as a coach at the clubside levels left a sour taste in the mouth. Mildly put, he is a failed coach. He has no track record to back up or justify his claim as a trained sweat merchant that knows his left from his right hand on the job. Amapakabo is empty and not worth his salt in coaching. Nigeria has not had it as bad as the present. He is a ‘super’ coach, likened to stories in Ikebe Super entertainment paper that reigned supreme in the 1980s which turned out oftentimes as a hoax. That is Imama for you. He is media made coach and this exactly how they end. He has no character and so the teams he has handled so far has been through the man knows man Nigerian style.

Without prevarication, Imama has danced naked in the market square. He has also murdered Nigerian football and ought not to sleep any more. What a mess and shame of a supposed grade A coach. This low life and unimaginative performance are unheard of in other climes where intrigues and lowest standard can never find space.

Imama and his likes have brought Nigeria to this lowest ebb. Never in our football history has this happened before where a war-torn country like Libya thoroughly disgraced supposedly one of Africa’s power football playing nations in the continent in an Olympic qualifier match in even a neutral soil in faraway Algeria.

A recap, the Libyan U-23 team whipped Nigeria’s U-23 Eagles 2-0 to keep hope alive while Nigeria is banking on a magic home soil to see how far it will go. In short to be or not to be in the process yet nobody has made any concrete statement to that effect. As usual, all eyes are on the decisive second leg where it is believed U-23 Eagles lads would do a miracle to turn their opponents back and move on.

Once an end is achieved i.e. by beating Libya, Imama stays on with the second most ranking team next to the Super Eagles.  A pretender of a coach like Imama is in charge. Funny enough, a supposedly serious-minded national team is being handled by a mere claimant like Imama who has no address. Only in this useless and big for nothing country would such illegality hold water. What are the things that qualified Imama to be in that team for instance if not for the way and manners things are done in this land?

If you critically look at it, you may totally not blame the process that threw him up; after all, it is the norm in the APC controlled federal government where non-performers are even cabinet Ministers and sundry. They are being clapped for and they are enjoying the oil money without any hassle and this has become the order of the day since the inception of this inept Buhari / APC government. People with little or no pedigree are favoured above their peers from other parts of the country who ordinarily are more qualified.

To be honest with you, the time has come when we must start treating every citizen equal otherwise something unimaginable may likely loom because the injustice to some sections of the country remains unacceptable and alien to international best practices.  I digress.

Imama showed that he is not a coach to be trusted with any team because of his being a non-starter. For him to lose to a Libyan side that its national side is in exile meant a lot and says a lot also about him and coaching. It equally places a big question mark on him. No club would dare engage Imama in whatever guise because he does not know anything on the trade.

This writer is calling for a thorough investigation to be instituted on what led totally to a very scandalous and embarrassing ragtag team from war-ravaged Libya to disgrace Nigeria. Imama has brought the game into disrepute and must show cause why he would not be thoroughly investigated having an array of tested young players to his credit to prosecute the qualifier only for him to mess up with the whole task.

Imama has failed and those that prompted him must also admit that it was their fault to have forwarded Imama of all Nigerian coaches to handle the U-23 Eagles. I don’t hide the fact that how Imama came on board was not tidy enough and again which has left more questions than answers.

If we are people with honour, why would Imama head a national team? He has brought the angle so low that one questions his certificate as a coach. It is sad that we have come this long and the question of the U-23 Eagles hang in the balance and the mathematical formula of ‘if’s has set in thereby catching us on the web.

Let us watch where the pendulum would swing after all Paul Aigbogun failed and up till the time of putting this to bed, he is still holding his position in one of the national teams unperturbed. It is the way we are in this part of the world.  Fact is that everything goes for you as long as you have a godfather up the ladder.

It has snuffed off life and social value in the country making it a shadow of herself of late. Whatever argument anyone might hold in his defence, Imama one insists, has reduced or confirmed Nigeria as a condemned nation merely existing on the surface but without motion?

As we continue to keep a close watch on this shame of Imama and Nigeria, let’s discuss this on our social media handles. Meanwhile, keep shooting hard despite… till next week!!

Source Daily Sports

Posted March 25, 2019

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