CAF Award: Nigeria living on past glory –Peter Ijeh

Sweden based former international Peter Ijeh has declared that Nigeria is living on past glory and will have to change ways of doing things if she is to become a force to be reckoned with again in the round leather game

His submission is coming barely 24 hours after Confederation of African Football (CAF) rolled out names of winners of the prestigious African Footballer of the year award in both the men and women categories among other awards in Dakar Senegal.

Although Nigerian players have won the gong combined five times in the men's category and combined 10 times in the ladies category, Ijeh insists that the country is not making deliberate effort to discover and sustain talents good enough to compete at all levels.

Since the reign of late Rashidi Yekini according to him, consistency has been a teething problem." After Rashidi Yekini we have not had a goal machine that can really compete, we have had strikers that come up and fade  and that is because we have not been doing the right thing" he observed

The former Malmö and IFK Göteborg ace placed the blame on the door steps of the Nigeria football federation insisting that it will take a synergy between the football house and ex-internationals that have something to offer to adequately harness the talents at the disposal of Nigeria at home and in the diaspora.

"I will blame it on the football federation that is not ready to accommodate input perhaps believing they have monopoly of knowledge. When you call and even write to make contributions they will not even respond, so if you have ideas that can help and they are not ready to hear it there is nothing really you can do," he said.  Ijeh had earlier predicted that Liverpool forward Mo Salah will retain the award in Senegal.

The 41 year old who went into coaching after hanging his boot in 2012 boasts of Uefa advanced licensed certificate.

He made only one appearance for the Super Eagles in 2002.  His invitation to the national team then became inevitable after he emerged highest goal scorer in the Allsvenskan in 2002 with 24 goals.