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Immediately after winning the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the Spanish national football team first met the Head of State of Spain, King Felipe VI, before even formally engaging with the media. I was physically present with then President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday, February 12, 2013, when he was the first person to receive the victorious Super Eagles at Aso Rock Presidential Villa in Abuja following their 2013 Africa Cup of Nations triumph. Neither General Muhammadu Buhari nor Waziri Atiku Abubakar, who had contested and lost to the then incumbent in 2012, and were planning to throw their hats in the ring with him in 2015, attempted to circumnavigate the protocol or sour the joyous national mood by politicising the situation. Rather, they commended the team and the nation. No other Nigerian, living or dead, has contributed to the development of sports in Nigeria, and particularly football, as the late Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, who was made the Pillar of Sports in Africa in 1980 by the African Sports Journalists Union. Yet, despite his contributions to African sports, when the Baby Eagles (later the Golden Eaglets) won the inaugural FIFA U-16 World Championship (now the FIFA U-17 World Cup), they did not meet with Chief Abiola first. For context, Chief Abiola had supported them financially and morally from the beginning of the tournament to the end. Instead, after their victory in China on August 11, 1985, the team first met Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, then Nigeria's military Head of State. That is the convention, not only in Nigeria and Spain, but in every respectable, responsible and ordered society run by the rule of law and constitutional democracies. Placing yourself above such conventions and wanting them circumvented because of your personal agenda, itinerary, and convenience could be interpreted by reasonable people as you not putting national interest first. Sports should be protected from the "toxic" politics of individuals who try to sow disunity at a time when football has united the nation. Wanting to insert yourself into a victory that you did not contribute to, and a team that you did not even acknowledge until they won, is not only opportunistic, it falls beneath the standard of behaviour expected from a statesman, who should know that their first port of call should be the Head of State. That is the textbook definition of 'toxic' politics. Bemigho Reno Omokri
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