Vincent Enyeama Shuns Saraki, Ogba

The clamour by soccer loving Nigerians for the return of former Super Eagles goalkeeper, Vincent Enyeama to the team may have hit a dead end as the Lille of France goal tender is reported to have snubbed even the efforts of the hierarchy of the National Assembly to lure him back.


Recall that Super Eagles Technical Adviser, Gernot Rohr had revealed his intention to talk Enyeama into returning to the national team, especially since the goalkeeper crisis occasioned by the illness of goalkeeper Carl Ikeme.

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Sports, Senator Obinna Ogba who revealed this in a chat with journalists yesterday in Abuja regretted how Enyeama shunned his and the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, while making efforts to plead with him to return to the national team.

“I personally called Enyeama up to three or four times, I pleaded with him, it got to a stage that I got the senate president involved, I went to the Senate president’s office, put a call across to him for the Senate president to speak to him, when I told him that the senate president wanted to speak to him, he cut off the line there. I called him severally and he refused to pick again.

“I mean some of us played this game without getting a thank you. Those of them, who have come to play with thank you and the money, should know that without Nigeria, how could they have come to stardom today? If Nigeria were not a football playing nation, nobody could have come to Enyimba to spot him. So we should be patriotic enough. When it is obvious that you are still in the game, your mates are still in the team, why must you snub calls for you to be part of that team”?

The former first vice president of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), advised Nigerian players to always remember that no matter their position today, it was the country that first gave them the opportunity to showcase their talents to the world.