Grapevine

Growing up in Oshodi inspired me to become sports commentator — Guerrero

Yes, I am. I have been the matchday presenter of the Nigeria Premier Football League for the past two years. Mainly, I do commentary and football presentations for the World Cup and the Nations Cup. I was on the call for the last Nations Cup, where I presented and analysed some live matches on terrestrial television.

How has the journey been?

In the beginning, it was very tough, and it gets tougher because each phase comes with new challenges. For example, when I started, acceptance was a big issue because a lot of people were struggling to get used to my kind of style because I wasn’t a known name at the time. Convincing people that I could do this was a bit difficult, and when they started to accept me, it became a problem of challenging the old guards, but I think it’s been a phase of growing and getting better.

What prompted your decision to become a sports commentator?

I didn’t find myself in this trade by accident, because I didn’t have a job, because I didn’t go to school, or because someone talked me into it. I have always liked it, and I followed the World Cup with the USA ‘94 my first; it was glamorous for me because of what it meant to Nigerians at the time. My first television appearance was at the defunct DBN. What inspired me was that I grew up in Oshodi, a part of the country where everyone was trying to do crime and the irregular stuff, but I wanted to be different and make my parents proud. I said to myself that if I couldn’t play football, I could still do something around sports, and I started developing myself by listening to some top-class presenters over the years, and I picked up a lot of skills from how they delivered their work.