If I had money like a senator, I would have placed congratulatory message in a national newspaper for the commander-in-chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. My President you are a real man, because it takes a real man to swallow his pride, roll up his agbada , adjust his hat and hunch down to feast on a nicely baked humble pie.

By rescinding your decision to ban Eagles from disgracing us in the next two years showed that you are not a dictator like the others we have had to contend with in the past. The joke is on those that say you have no liver or some that used even more fanciful words to say you have no balls. They have forgotten that it is only a man with real balls (not the flimsy Jabulani type) to realise his mistake and publicly make amends.

Let them waste their breath declaring your flip flopping behavior was unbecoming of a president. Did God not make Saul a king and later make him a mad man? The dismal performance by the national team which you have wasted tax-payers’ oil money on would make even angels weep and whip the NFF thoroughly for not planning well.

There is no doubt that you know that our real problems are beyond football, but you have always said you are a man with a hammer that will treat every form of corruption like a nail. Well NFF and the Eagles happened to be one of those obvious nails that needed hammering. Though you have flipped a cowboy kind of u-turn upon FIFA’s threat, you made some progress with the sacking of a few bad eggs in the NFF.

Don’t even listen to bad-belle people who are saying that you did a 360 degree swing around and ate your words the way a goat eats palm fronds. They have forgotten you are a live-and-let-live leader. I am so happy you did not let pride and ego take the front seat in your decision to back track like a rewound cassette.

Mr. President your backtracking like a driver caught by LASTMA in a Lagos one-way lane is an eye opener for us the governed. It shows that you are human, because as they say, to err is human and to forgive is presidential. You are a passionate man,

who cares about the social welfare of Nigerians. This action has also shown us that you will sooner than later channel your exuberant mass ‘red carding’ to other areas that really need a kick in the shin. We now know you are going to harness this energy and anger to remedy other faults.

Those detractors saying the President should have stood his ground, right or wrong don’t wish you well sir. They have no idea what you have achieved and done for them. People seem to have forgotten already that you stamped our name in the history of world football. The history of the World Cup will no longer be complete without mentioning how a Nigerian President who loved football so much was so angered by his national team’s bland performance that he banned and unbanned them before cockcrow.

So what if you did not look before you lipped (no pun intended sir). Come 2014, which will be your fifth year in office by the special grace of God as your people say in Abuja, the new and reformed NFF will see us to Brazil and do better than the Black Stars of Ghana...otherwise.

So Mr. President, now that you have shown us the kind of leader you are - that you are amenable to remedy mistakes that were ill advised by overzealous advisers, lets revisit one very burning issue that will be perfect for a u-turn.

The issue is about that N16 billion earmarked for Golden Jubilee celebration later this year, which you have just reduced to N9.5 billion. You will not achieve anything by spending that much money. Can’t you see how angered you were when NFF squandered so much money during the World Cup and couldn’t win a single game? You should know that those urging you to give the children’s bread to the dogs will not stand by you when nemesis visits later.

If we must celebrate Nigeria’s independence in such an ostentatiously wasteful manner let’s find some clever way to “package” the financing. There are corporate bodies owing the country a backlog of corporate social responsibility. These mega-companies have benefitted from us for more than fifty years; the least they can do is donate from their bumper profits to this mega jamboree you are planning. A little from Shell here and little from Julius Berger there will be more than enough for just jollof. There is no shame in asking for help from those the country made rich over the years.

But if you are bent on spending the tax-payer’s N9.5 billion which cannot be accounted for at the end of the day, you would have left your detractors no choice but to place a phone call to FIFA, the biggest and scariest masquerade that can make a grown man quiver and rescind his decisions kia kia.