Gifts To Super Falcons Out Of Proportion

 After surviving the pre­liminaries, Nigeria’s Super Falcons went on to the quarter-finals of the Women’s African Cup of Nation (WAFCON) football competition to defeat Zambia. At the semi-finals, they over­whelmed South Africa and eventually triumphed over hosts, Morocco, to win the final match.

It was surreal as the Super Falcons, trailing Morocco by two goals, resumed the sec­ond half with the spirit that brought the Flying Eagles from four goals down to perform the Dammam Miracle of defeating USSR’s Under-20 team at the 1989 FIFA World Youth Cham­pionship in Saudi Arabia.

They first earned a penalty kick that was converted into a goal by Esther Okoronkwo. Then Folashade Ijamilusi net­ted the equalizer second goal. Finally, Jennifer Echegini put in the clincher third goal and Nigerians, including President Bola Tinubu, burst into ecstatic celebration.

Nigerians, hitherto divided into as many political camps as there are presidential as­pirants, suddenly returned to becoming one nation – albeit a fleeting unity – soaked in the euphoria of the victory over Morocco on its own soil. That may explain why President Tinubu went overboard with the compensation of the Super Falcons.

In addition to the national honours of Officer of the Order of the Niger, the President gave each player a three-bedroom house in Renewed Hope Estate, Abuja, and a mouth-watering $100,000 (N15 million at an exchange rate of N1,500). The Nigeria Governors’ Forum, represented by its chairman, Governor AbdulRahman Abdul­Razaq of Kwara State, gave N10 million to each player.

Of course, handlers of the team also got superlative com­pensations for getting the team to achieve the superlative per­formance. And no one can fault an appreciative nation when its team brings home a trophy – for the 10th time! In this regard, we laud the Tinubu-led government for honouring the Super Falcons.

However, given the current economic realities in the coun­try, it is believed that the fed­eral and state governments’ gifts of about N4.4 billion to 24 players and 11 handlers are out of proportion. Such ginormous sum could have been used to tackle hunger, malnutrition and fix decaying infrastruc­ture, like roads and hospitals.

By WAFCON rules, each play­er would have earned $2,000 at the group stage of the matches; $3,000 at quarter-final; $4,000 at the semi-final; and a big whopper $5,000 at the final, in addition to a share of 33 per cent of the $1 million prize that the team earned as winner of the game. Ordinarily, this could be adequate compensation for each player, who got to prom­inence through the opportu­nity provided by the country. We are of the opinion that the President should have paused after giving the victorious girls the honours and the houses, and ask to be briefed about the compensation from WAFCON before deciding how much cash he would give them.

We cannot but wonder if President Tinubu knew at all about the statutory payments before the lavish splurge on the team. It is even worse for a gov­ernment that wants Nigerians to endure the belt-tightening and high cost of living that ac­company its economic policies, which removed subsidy from petrol, foreign exchange and electricity. A nation buffeted by socio-economic crises of im­mense proportions, including debilitating debt burden ought to be prudent with its finances.

We recall that at the last AF­CON in Cote d’Ivoire, the Super Eagles, who won silver, were lavishly rewarded by the Feder­al Government. If a team that came second in a tournament, after an arguably below-par performance, could be extrav­agantly rewarded, what would have been the remuneration if it had won the tournament?!

Senator Nenadi Sambo, for­mer Minister of Finance and current National Chairman of opposition Labour Party, has an unusual but interesting angle to the presidential extravagan­za. She cannot understand why the President chose to finan­cially reward the girls and their handlers with the dollar, an international currency, instead of Nigeria’s national currency, the naira.

Although she recognizes that the President said that the cash gift would be paid in the naira equivalent of the $100,000 to each player and $50,000 to each coach, she argues that “the symbolic elevation of the dollar over our national currency… is a damning indictment of the administration’s economic mindset.”

She opined further: “The ad­ministration, having supervised the free-fall of the naira, from an already precarious N500 to over N1,500 to the dollar, ap­pears to have thrown in the tow­el…This speaks volumes about the level of disdain and lack of faith this government has in the naira – the very symbol of our economic sovereignty… Perhaps we would expect the national budget to soon be presented in dollars, or worse still, in a bas­ket of foreign currencies!”

Although it appears too late to reverse the actions of the President and Nigeria Gover­nors’ Forum, there should be a reward template for future champions.