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We will not leave hotel until we receive our unpaid Bonuses-Super Falcons Vows

Published

6 years ago

June 23, 2019

Barely 24 hours after the Nigeria Super Falcons was sent packing FIFA Women’s World Cup in France after 3-0 defeat to Germany players have refused to leave their hotel in France, until all their outstanding bonuses are paid.

The Super Falcons are owed bonuses from two games, against Gambia and Senegal, from as far back as two years ago, amounting to N2million (about $5,600), but they have been paid only half of that.

The players also claim they are owed five days of daily allowance while at the 2019 World Cup.

“They paid us 1 million [naira] and said that is all. We want them to pay the balance.

“Part of that money is from two years ago, the other is from three years ago. And they are also owing us five days’ daily allowance here in France.

Before the World Cup, we asked them for a meeting so that we could discuss our World Cup bonuses, like they did with the men’s team last year. They ignored the letter and nobody said anything about it until now,” one of the players said.

The players are also demanding their share of the World Cup participation fee from FIFA, even though the tournament’s organisers are not scheduled to pay those until September.

Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) president, Amaju Pinnick, however, insists all the outstanding allowances have been paid.

We have paid them everything they are being owed,” he said.

“The only thing outstanding is the participation fee from FIFA, which is not expected to come until after the tournament. But they insist that they want to get paid, as they have spoken to players from Cameroon and France, who told them they have already been paid

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Featured

ELECTING A POPE: THE BURDEN OF MAKING CHOICES

Published

12 hours ago

May 11, 2025

The Gleamer

By Olubunmi Mayaki

“Habemus papam!” which in the English Language means, “We have a Pope.” was pronounced by Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, a French Catholic prelate, His Eminence, Cardinal Dominique Mamberti from the iconic loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican City on Thursday 8 May 2025 after white smoke billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel. Those Latin words proclaimed to a tensed global audience the result of the election of a new Supreme Pontiff after the death of Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Pope Francis) on 21 April 2025 at the age of 88 years.

The Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, Cardinal Robert Prevost (Pope Leo XIV) emerged as primus inter pares (first among equals) from the cardinals after undergoing detailed election rituals, which have been the process of selecting the head of the 2000-year-old Catholic Church for centuries.

A papal conclave, the process by which a new Pope is selected, was held consisting of one hundred and thirty-three (133) College of Cardinals, drawn from different parts of the world converged at St. Peter’s Basilica for a public mass before heading to the Sistine Chapel to cast their votes to elect the 267th Pope. During the mass, part of the choir renditions reminded voters to remember their last day when they would stand before God in judgment to render their stewardship on earth, which is to prevent them from rigging the voting process. At the behest of the senior cardinal deacon, voting formalities were read to the electors, which included- oath-taking- “I call as my witness Christ the Lord, who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one whom I believe should be elected according to God”. Other processes are banning phones, jamming calls, forbidding speaking or contacting any of the candidates, voting rounds, spiritual pauses etc.

Looking at the voting process, one should be curious about how an election to pick a leader for a religious body could be so systematic and attract such global attention. It is a sharp contrast to elections where political leaders are chosen. Even in the so-called advanced democracies, we have seen electoral flaws and a dearth of political leaders. States are finding it difficult to pick genuine statesmen, giving rise to hegemonic leaders. These political imperia ums are emerging and stoking crises in their domain. Fallouts of elections are no longer favourable due to unpopular candidates forced on citizens.

Africa, as a case study, shows that no matter the rules put in place by the continent’s leaders, our election processes have been fraught with rigging, corruption and waste. In most cases, the leaders who set the rules are the violators of the same process. Governments conspire with electoral bodies to truncate election processes at will. Such political brigandage has destroyed the progress of the continent.

Closing this view, I hope that African leaders will take a cue from the Catholic Church’s election process to reinvigorate and rejig the continent’s faltering political process for the good of its people. Better still; political scholars from the continent can study the Catholic model. The common features of elections in most parts of Africa, especially sub-Saharan Africa, are riddled with vote rigging, violence, human rights abuse, repression, barbarism, crises, untold hardship, and sometimes, outright war. This is the bane of Africa’s development.

The burden of making good political choices should ordinarily rest on citizens. However, politicians have hijacked this process for selfish reasons. It has given birth to bad leaders. If we fail to get it right, what we see is what we get. That is the story of the world politics!

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