How I escaped death as Eagles coach –Oliseh

Former Super Eagles coach, Sunday Oliseh, on Sunday said that had he not quit the Super Eagles team when he did, there are strong possibilities that he would have died.

He also claimed that the late Stephen Keshi almost beat up the chairman of the Technical Committee of the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF.

Oliseh, who made startling revelations about his tenure as the Chief of the Super Eagles on his twitter handle, said the incident took place in South Africa during the 2013 African Cup of Nations, AFCON.

In the tweet, with link to his blog, SundayOliseh.tv, the former Nigerian captain revealed that he almost died while in the national team.

It would be recalled that Oliseh threw in the towel just after seven months in charge of the Super Eagles, citing unpaid salaries and poor working conditions.

Speaking of his near death experience, Oliseh said: “One day whilst coaching the Super Eagles in Abuja stadium prior to the Burkina Faso game, all of a sudden I felt dizziness, light headedness, headache and could barely stand. I managed to finish the session before calling on the doctor into my room who was clueless to what was happening.

“From then on it was sleepless nights, loss of appetite, high blood pressure and before I knew it I started losing weight.

“After several visits to doctors abroad nothing was found though the doctors found anomalies they couldn’t pin point the actual illness to.

“For weeks I was bed ridden, lost 7 kilos and could barely walk 5 metres without sitting down. My family was petrified and all feared the worst. One thing was for sure though: had I not taken that evening flight to Germany when I did, there was a strong possibility of a far worse outcome. Thank God for his mercies.”

The tactician also went for the NFF President, Amaju Pinnick, accusing him of making false claims over the payment of salaries of coaches.

Read also: Amuneke faces sack

“On the day I was unveiled, the very vocal president of the NFF, Amaju Pinnick boasted to the world that he was going to pay me 6 months’ salary in advance, we were never ever going to be owed as he had procured sponsorship from Zenith Bank, that he knows I am the African Guardiola etc. These were declarations that not only added unnecessary pressure on us but made us hated by certain quarters as ‘prima Donnas.’

“We now know that, that was a ploy to make the world falsely believe that I was giving all the tools to succeed whilst intending to eventually starve us of tools to succeed in reality to have a scapegoat and employ his dream foreign coach for obvious reasons, as was tried failingly recently!”

He also disclosed that the noise made by the NFF on the salary may have made kidnappers into targeting his family members.

“In October 2015, with the belief that I had millions from the NFF, kidnappers attacked a family member of mine home in Lagos, but thanks to God the intended victim was not at home.

“Shaken at the news, I called Mr. Amaju to inform him of my displeasure of his false public declarations in my regard and there and then the seed of resignation started to grow in me. Is this worth my peaceful family suffering?

“I signed my contract as Chief Coach of the super Eagles in July 2015 and was paid in August for July and August but did no longer get any payments till January 2016. My assistants were worse off as they received just a month’s pay as at January 2016. The NFF and its allies in public claimed otherwise.”

Continuing, Oliseh has this to say about the NFF Technical Committee: “The moment Ayansi was replaced as head of the infamous technical committee by Mr. Chris Green, we all knew that disaster and chaos was on the way.

“Chris Green is a man who late Stephen Keshi almost beat up just midway into the 2013 AFCON adventure in South Africa and eventually was going around all of Rwanda telling all who cared to listen that he won the 2013 AFCON for Nigeria and the 2014 World Cup qualification and not Keshi.

By Timothy Enietan-Matthews

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