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Three years after he represented Nigeria last, Peter Ogaba was no longer playing active football. He was just 18
Article | August 19, 2011 - 3:00am | By China Acheru

In 1985, Nigeria won the first ever FIFA U16 World Cup and there was a certain Fatai Atere on that team who was 14 years old.

Two years later, at 16, Fatai Atere played in same World Cup and in three years he had faded out of the game. Atere was just 19 when he quit active football.

In 1987, there was 13-year-old Peter Ogaba who played for Nigeria’s U16 team that won silver at the Canada 87 World Cup. He was the youngest player at that World Cup. Two years later, at 15, he played in the U16 World Cup again and the U20 World Cup in Saudi Arabia. Three years after that, Peter Ogaba was no longer playing active football. He was just 18.

In 1987, Philip Osondu was named Most Valuable player at the FIFA U16 World Cup. At the time, he was 16 years old. A Super Eagles player who quit the game in 1996 told me that when he first got invited to the Eagles in 1981, Philip Osondu was in the same team but they both got dropped after the first phase of camping before qualifiers for the 1982 Africa Cup of Nations and World Cup began.

However, Osondu, after a sparkling performance at the U16 World Cup in 1987, was signed on by Anderlecht and was supposed to be a player for the future. He managed to play in the U20 World Cup in two years (1989) as an 18 year old, but two years later, Osondu could no longer play football actively. After he left Andelecht, he started selling African fabrics at the airport in Brussels and later on became a cleaner in the same airport.

Fast-forward the hands of the clock a bit and that will take us to 2007 just before the Nigerian U17 team won the World Cup in Korea. The Nigerian goalkeeper had been married three years earlier and had three kids (2 from his wife and one from another). He was born in August 1979 and not August 1990 as his passport showed.

The names of his kids, their ages and where they schooled were presented to the Nigeria Football Federation head of Technical Committee. This was five months before the tournament. Shockingly, this Federation member said the player will not be dropped. Yet another had his wife and kid at the airport to receive them as they returned home with the trophy and we can go on and on.

In 2009 was another celebrated case of Fortune Chukwudi, the captain of Nigeria’s U17 team. Few people talked about the fact that Chukwudi was at least 10 years above the age limit. For those who do not remember, Fortune Chukwudi played for the Sharks feeder team in 2002 and at the time he said he was 18 years old.

Unless he was actually 9 years old, then there is no way he could have been 17 in 2009. He actually registered with the Sharks feeder team as Fortune Chukwudi Ohakwe, grew up at Afikpo Street in Diobu, Port Harcourt, and left secondary school in 1998. He was five years old when he finished secondary school. That is an age cheat!

I know not every player at youth level goes on to make it at the big stage but how many times do star players fail to make it on the big stage? Maybe 2 out of 10. Who have our star players been? How many played football ten years after the U17s? I know there are Nwankwo Kanu, Wilson Oruma, Jonathan Akpoboririe, Victor Ikpeba and a few others but we cheat at age group level and it has not helped Nigeria’s football.

Can we kill age cheating in Nigerian football? Those who support age cheating will say there has never been any proof. They will say, “Lay the facts on the table and the players will be dropped” but they also know it is difficult to prove age cheating in Nigeria unless you were there when the player was born and you had a video recording of his birth including panning the camera to the calendar on the wall for good measure.

How do you know an age cheat in Nigeria then? A few examples have been given above. If those were not age cheats, then no one is.

Another example is Philemon Daniel who played regularly for Nigeria’s Kaduna United in 2001 but is still 20 years old ten years later and just played the U20 World Cup.

Mackson Ojobo claims he was 12 when he won the Nigerian League with Ocean Boys in 2006. Twelve years old? Really? A regular player in the Nigerian League? Age cheat!

These may not be all out proof but they are all symptoms of age cheating and the question on our lips should now be if there is a way out of this.

The only way out is to go back to genuine school sports/ football in Nigeria.

The average age to start secondary school in Nigeria is 10 and that means by the time you are in Senior Secondary School SS1 you could be between the ages of 13-16.

Can the Nigeria Football Federation decide that only JSS3-SS3 students are eligible to play for the U16s? That way Nigerians can be sure they won’t have any one above 16, maybe 17, play for the U17 team.

Can the NFF say that no Nigeria Premier League player should feature in the U20 team bearing in mind that with the way Nigeria’s football is run there is really no twenty year old playing in the Nigeria Premier League?

Do Nigerians really want to change the trend? Does the Nigeria Football Federation want to change the trend? If they do, this could be a start.

Nigeria has cheated for 26 years and it has hardly helped football in the country because there have been three wins at the U17 World Cup but it has never graduated to success at senior national team level.

But one thing makes it seem that Nigeria/ Nigerians are not ready to stop cheating.

When Adokiye Amiesimaka exposed the former captain of Nigeria’s U17 team in 2009, the widespread comments amongst Nigerians was, “Why is Amiesimaka trying to stop this boy’s chance of making money for himself?”

An article I published five months ago ensured players like Mackson Ojobo and Gomo Onduku were dropped from the current U20 side.

I spoke with Mackson Ojobo a few days ago and as soon as he knew I was the person on the other end he said, “I wonder why you are calling me now; you have done your worst.” He then hung up on me.

If Nigerians do not change this attitude of elders trying to use U16 and U20 football to get into limelight, the fight against age cheating will fail.

At the World Cup in Colombia, Nigeria bullied its way past Guatemala, Croatia and Saudi Arabia but as soon as we met opponents who knew how to play football, our strength and speed we used to overpower opponents because we were older could no longer help.

The NFF must educate the public that every time an over age player wears our national jersey, we deprive the rightful owner of that jersey a chance to represent his country.

Until then, this will certainly still be an exercise in futility.

But do the NFF really want to stop age cheating? Still a matter of conjecture.
http://dailytimes.com.ng/article/solution-age-cheating

hhhmmm so true, enlightment is the key