The 1990 AFCON held in Algeria from March 2nd to 16th 1990 in two Algerian cities of Algiers and Anaba with eight teams participating. The Super Eagles of Nigeria engaged the host, Algeria in the opening match which they lost by five goals to one.
Before the commencement of the competition, several centrifugal forces were at play. Perhaps it may be necessary to take us back to the penultimate year to be able to grasp these behind-the-scenes negativism. They say Nigerians are bad losers and I agree. I also agree that most of the time we are equally bad winners. What I mean is that a “bad” win which could be a tight win like 1-0 or 2-1, even though it gives the same number of points like 3-0, is seen as bad and must be questioned.
And so it was that there was a growing clamour for a foreign coach to replace Paul Hamilton and crew who were seen to have fallen short of the standard in some stakeholders’ estimation. And come August 13,1989, the Angolans came calling for their qualifying match for the Italia ’90 FIFA World cup.
The Angolans were so stubborn and stoutly refused to let in the needed goal and the crowd became agitated and uncontrollable. Meanwhile the national stadium in Surulere Lagos was filled almost beyond capacity and more people were “running coming” at least to watch the Eagles maul Angola in their last home qualifying match, but suddenly a big tragedy as Sam Okwaraji one of the Eagles newcomers and midfielders lay prostrate on his back gasping for breath. He died later in the hospital and the match concluded with a lean one-goal victory against Angola.
Between the 13th of August and 27th of August when the Eagles would play their last qualifying match away to Cameroun in Yaounde, the NFA gleefully brought in a Dutch coach to immediately take over, to the chagrin of many. To gain traction, and this is my perspective, the Dutchman Clemens Westerhof, immediately began his additions and subtractions of the players he had little or no knowledge of, well, Hamilton, an indigenous Odi man of Bayelsa played along even hurting inside of him.
He became an “all correct sir” assistant. In fact, let me whisper to you here that he only assisted in retrieving the balls that had gone out of play, like a ball boy, during training for our match with Cameroun.
The National team of Nigeria was quartered at L’Hotel Independence in Yaounde and every night prostitutes would congregate there in their tens and hundreds in shameless display of nudity, promiscuity and other perverse gestures just to distract the team.
A night to the match, Chief MKO Abiola arrived Yaounde and ordered the evacuation of the Nigerian contingent including journalists out of the place to a more serene and classy Hotel Sofitel (Ego na ekwu – money talks).
Enough of the digressions and fast forward to Yaounde at Ahmadou Ahidjo stadium at 4 pm local time on Sunday 27th of August 1989. Nigeria filed out knowing she needed a draw to qualify for the world cup while Cameroun needed a win. The match began with the Lions of Cameroun expectedly pushing for a goal while David Ngodigha in goal for Nigeria put up a high-rate resistance that he got seriously injured.
Now he had to be taken off and Aloy Agu now had to make his sudden debut. But wait for it, his coming in was delayed by the fact that his jersey clashed with the color of the Indomitable Lions of Cameroun. He had to borrow from Taju Oyekanmi before entering the pitch. Whispers filtered in that he also wore oversized boots. Ngodigha was taken away in an ambulance for further examination and treatment.
The match continued but the pressure was much from the Cameroonians especially from the Biyik brothers—Kana and Omam who eventually nodded in the goal, and we lost but qualified to be in Algeria for the AFCON 1990.
Fast Forward to Nigeria’s contingent departure to Algiers. It was drama galore as a few players were axed at the airport. Eventually only Andrew Uwe, Ademola Adesina and Rashidi Yekini made the trip among the foreign based players. Samson Siasia we were told was injured while Stephen Keshi didn’t come, Goalkeeper Rufai had been dropped by Westerhoff before the match with Cameroon. We later heard some players were told not to come while at the airport.
Well, Westerhof had to make do with the home-based players who were jittery in the opening match. What looked very funny to me was that the supporters’ club approached some of the Nigerian journalists for the names of the Algerian stars before the match. It was later discovered that they tried to “tie” their legs so that they wouldn’t click but my calculation showed that the “tied” legs were the ones that scored the five goals in the opening game including the highest scorer of the tournament, Djamel Menad, Rabah Madjer and Tahar Cherif El-Ouazzani.
When the Supporters’ Club came back to us for the final, we chased them away Perhaps the talking point was that despite the 5-1 mauling by Algeria in the opening match, our boys went all the way to qualify for the final losing by a lone goal to the same Algerians who were winning their first AFCON. Zambia won the bronze beating Senegal in the third-place match.
There was a wild drama during the match with Egypt at the preliminary stages. The story had circulated that Egypt tortured the Algerians when they went to play their world cup qualifier in Cairo and the Algerians vowed to retaliate. On the other hand, Egypt elected not to come but were forced to rescind their decision because of sanctions from CAF. That day everyone in sight was an Egyptian, no matter the colour of your skin. Anyone in sight was stoned and spat on.
Our commentary position was filtered with spittle and urine pouring on our heads, on our faces, all over the place. That day the cold weather also joined the hosts in hostility. The weather was so cold that it affected our voices and even speech. My colleague Umar Farouk Musa was the worst hit, and we had to take him off commentary. In fact, when a print media colleague of ours, Late Chris Eseka, joined us for half time analysis, you could hardly hear him.
The Egyptians were not interested in winning, just to escape sanctions so they arrived that day, drove straight to the stadium, played and scampered back home, with their faces and heads covered just to lessen the intensity of the stones being hauled at them. To the best of my memory, I didn’t hear of any sanctions on the Algerians for their animalistic behaviors. Many teams only reported for AFCON on world cup year as a mere formality as they played with caution to avoid injuries that would halt their world cup dream.
Back to our hotel, Hotel Mazafran, an all-white, sprawling edifice owned and managed by the Algerian Army which ends itself on the bank of the Mediterranean Sea where a line of eateries is lined out as if on parade. The number of things there meet in harmony but just as exercise your freedom of consumables. There were officers secretly assigned to protect you, and more importantly the beautiful edifice which glow relentlessly at night as the ships and trawlers pass by. You were almost sure to find me there after the day’s work with some good companions including late Muyiwa Daniel, Sports Editor Concord Group, Late Fabio Lanipekun of NTA and others.
One late evening, we were there as usual and we consumed so much that they took note of us and decided to find out if all was well going with the evidence on the ground yet soberly discussing things like Chief Executives. The army officer, I think a captain patiently waited until we meant to leave. He advanced towards us and sought to know who we were, where we were coming from and where we were going.
Having led us to the hotel and having satisfied his curiosity and military instincts, he bade us good night, and we became friends and as time went on, he led us into so many issues we didn’t know about. He even paid for one round of consumables for us on another occasion. To lodge in Mazafran is to me to caress yourself to asking questions. I will leave it at that. The only issue for an average Nigerian is their food. They had so many choices in Oyibo and Arab but too little of African diets except couscous. Only rice [ritz in French] accompanied by fish or chicken or beef. Chicken is poulet in French while fish is Poisson, you can mistake it for poison. All the Nigerian journalists ate ritz et poulet ou Poisson.
What I have just said was that we ate rice with chicken or fish, so much so that the kitchen stopped asking us what we would eat. In fact once you entered the restaurant they would chorus……”rice and chicken or fish….” and they would all laugh. Another infuriating issue was the number of cats that meander through the tables, chairs and your legs while one would be eating or waiting to be served, mewing at you at every opportunity One good thing though, the cats would wait patiently but will never attack your food, unless you asked them to eat. Well trained you may say.
In my journalistic curiosity, I visited Algeria four times, and, on each opportunity, I insisted on staying at Hotel Mazafran to compare notes and I was not disappointed as the standards kept improving. The mindset of our Arab brothers as to their Arab inclination cannot be wished away.
The Algerians were the hosts, and they were still telling us “You Africans”, It was beyond imagination. Perhaps the consistent hosting and participations may have changed all that.
