When it comes to seeking a place in CAF and FIFA, Nigeria’s Amaju Pinnick should avoid anything to do with Cairo, the Egyptian capital and home of the Nile.
Indeed, this Cairo he should strive to see no more.
I recall vividly how he looked like L’Etranger and how only a handful of us tried to console and comfort him after losing the first vice Presidency of CAF in the dispensation of the Island boy Ahmad.
It was a low moment for the one who could easily have become CAF President when the then incumbent Ahmad was briefly arrested in Paris.
It was difficult that day at the Marriott Hotel to have a drink as we were all touched by the way our colleague Osasu weaved the story of Amaju’s lonesome displacement by Ahmad.
Today, in the same Cairo, just by one vote, he lost the opportunity to have a repeat representation in the FIFA Council of Africa’s most populous and passionate nation. Winning and losing are marks for sportsmen, but when victory in an election is lost by a vote it compares to the pain of missing a sudden death shootout.
Only time would tell whether Cairo would one day provide a healing balm for the former czar of Nigerian football.
Sadly, the anglophone voice will be missing in the FIFA Council and it is left to imagine what his staunch friends, Gianni Infantino and Patrice Motsepe would be whispering to him.
Sometimes to play the game, you must only be useful as they think you are useful. Just like he worked extremely hard and wide to get Ahmad elected and then got betrayed, so also today we are counting on a president whom he virtually nominated, sold and canvassed to us all for his acclamation.
Motsepe does not like to stay in Cairo, but he must find a befitting role for a friend indeed and in need.
Can we see a co-opted member of the CAF Exco from Nigeria…Don’t need to go to the pyramids to give good comfort to a true Gunner for life!
