Nwankwo Kanu is 42 and Taribo West, whose
career ended two years ago, is in his late fifties,
say bloggers in Nigeria

Nwankwo Kanu's official age is 33 but his real
age is 42. Obafemi Martins is not 25 but 32. Jay-
Jay Okocha was 10 years older than his "official"
age throughout his career. And Taribo West,
whose playing career ended only two years ago,
is in his late fifties. Who says so? A stream of
bloggers on some of Nigeria's most popular
websites, in response to comments made after
the country's timid effort in last month's Africa
Cup of Nations.
Failure to win that trophy is nearly always
considered a scandal in the continent's most
populous nation but Nigeria's latest
misadventure in the tournament triggered a
particularly explosive condemnation back home.
It started when a former manager of a leading
Nigerian club told the Lagos Guardian: "What
happened in Angola is a confirmation of what
has been happening in the past where most of
our players falsified their age during
competition. Most of the players are beyond the
age they professed and this made it impossible
for them to withstand the pace of teams like
Zambia and Benin."
It also led to an entertaining discussion that
shows no sign of abating as the Nigerians, who
have three months to prepare for the World Cup,
reacted to the criticism by sacking the coach.
"Our boys are old, we are paying the price for
age cheating," said Ken Anugweje, a former
national team doctor and board member of the
Nigerian Football Federation.
Suspicions about true ages of some Nigerian
footballers date back 20 years. Fifa banned
Nigeria from all international fixtures for two
years after finding that the birth dates of three
of their players in the 1988 Olympics were
different from ones used by the same players in
previous tournaments.
A year later Pelé famously declared "an African
team will definitely win the World Cup by the
turn of the century" after watching seemingly
promising Nigerian youngsters lift the Under-17
World Cup and reach the final of the Under-20
competition. How was Pelé to know that the so-
called Under-20s of 1989 were so old that, in the
words of George Onmonya on
nigeriavillagesquare.com, "most of our players
have now retired and become grandpas"?
Nigeria have a rich tradition of seemingly
promising youngsters who mysteriously fail to
fulfil their potential. Phillip Osondu was the best
player at the 1987 Under-17 World Cup, after
which he was snapped up by Anderlecht, only to
drift out of the game and into janitorial work
after questions were raised about his real age.
The star of Nigeria's finalists at the 2001
Under-17 competition went on to become
officially the third-youngest player to appear in
the senior World Cup when he started the 0-0
draw with England in 2002. But that was as good
as it got for Femi Opabunmi, who by 2005 was
playing part-time football in the French lower
leagues.
A trawl through the blogosphere makes for
intriguing reading. "A friend of mine who once
played in the Nigerian league told me his real age
was 34 but his football age was 21," wrote
Onmonya. "You can walk into any immigration
office in Nigeria today, forge documents at the
nearby business centre, change your name, place
of birth, date of birth, pay 7,000-10,000 naira
instead of the official price of about 5,500 for an
international passport and within hours you
have completed the whole process." A new
passport, a new person – and if you are a
footballer, a younger one.
A former employee of the British embassy in
Nigeria told Observer Sport that when visa
applicants complained to him about having their
applications rejected, he would reply: "Well don't
talk to me about it, I'm dead." He would respond
to their looks of puzzlement by pointing to the
wall behind him, on which hung his death
certificate, purchased for a small fee from a
Lagos supplier. Fifa reckon they have finally
come up with a foolproof way of determining
real age. Ahead of last year's Under-17 World
Cup in, as it happened, Nigeria, the governing
body announced that players would be
subjected to wrist scans using magnetic
resonance imaging, and this would determine
their true age.
That led some countries to undertake
precautionary scans beforehand. The results
were never announced, but Nigeria suddenly
discarded 15 squad members, while Gambia
omitted 11 of the 18 who had helped them to
victory in the African Under-17 championship a
few months earlier. Reports claim that
retrospective analyses of the previous three
Under-17 World Cups showed more than a third
of all players were too old.