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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