The death of Coach ‘Wonder Boy’ Paul Hamilton who played
for the senior national team in the 60s and early 70s, including featuring in
the football tournament at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, as usual, has
been generating the expected torrents of words of concern and all sort of
sympathy messages coming from not only the officials of government but also
super rich business owners and many other influential persons, including those
who thrive in the round leather game trade.
Reading and watching people saying good things about him
leaves nothing but bad taste in the mouth because Hamilton did not enjoy his
labour of the past.
Surprisingly, the same Paul Hamilton would have enjoyed a
happy ending if few of those who are now crying more than the bereaved had lend
helping hand to the late super player who later became a fabulous coach when he was dire need of that
elusive succour.
Those who saw the late Hamilton hustled for stipends to
keep body and soul together, are not happy that Nigeria is not being fair to
her heroes. Hamilton who lost a leg to amputation lived very close to the
National Stadium where he was once considered hero. Unfortunately, the same
stadium saw him becoming almost a beggar.
Interestingly, before his eventual death, he was said to
have been diagnosed of heart and kidney related issues some months ago, but he
was not able to see anyone including the country he so much labored for coming
to his aid to bail him out of his predicament. It got so bad that Hamilton
begged journalists for as little as Two Hundred Naira (N200), just to eat. It got
so bad that many journalists in the stadium are looking ways to bail him out
permanently before death came calling.
Nicknamed ‘Wonderboy’ for his delicate skills and
on-field wizardry, Hamilton was at a few times head coach of the senior
national team, including taking the reins for the 1990 FIFA World Cup
qualifying series, before Dutchman Clemens Westerhof took over with only the
last match of the campaign (away to Cameroon in Yaounde) left in the series.
Despite all these achievements, Paul Hamilton was not treated
in any special way until his last breath.
He was also head coach of the Nigeria U-20 squad that won
the bronze medal at the FIFA World Youth Championship (now known as FIFA U-20
World Cup) in the Soviet Union in 1985.
‘Wonderboy’ was also the first head coach of the senior
women national team, Super Falcons, and steered the team to the 1991 and 1995
FIFA Women’s World Cup final competitions.
Now that he is dead, no amount of good words can equate
the inhuman treatment that was meted out to him while alive.
Nigerians should learn to celebrate the living
and not the dead
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