Here we go again; resiliency is a trait that cannot be separated from Nigerians’ psyche. A donkey will continue to ‘go’ until it can ‘go’ no more. No, Nigerians are not donkeys. I say that because my 24years old complained about my comparative view usually with animals before typing this article for me (yes, I still hand write occasionally without editing though I formerly taught computer programming, specifically, artificial intelligence, over fifteen years ago) and my response was simple and to be specific I said, human race exhibits animal tendency in all our endeavors. And she replied, okay daddy, you are papa donkey to which I said, you are daughter donkey. We laughed and I expect my readers to laugh out loud.
Humour is the best medicine for Nigeria at this juncture in the country’s development when few individuals wanted the country to revert back to mediocrity while illegally chosen few talk nonsense on a daily basis and some mainstream media will carry such as if all readers are uneducated. It is even more appalling for those media outlets to refuse reply to such backwards advertorial by those illegally chosen few.
On serious note, my unique styled writings intend to poke serious hole on many innocent appearing actions by National Sports Commission (NSC) because trained eyes always see through appearances while concentrating on substantive issues raised by such action. For example, innocently awarding monies for job well done by Super Eagles and others but looking at the youth teams and I think its mere foolishness because such funds could have been deposited as trust funds for those kids as its’ done elsewhere.
Quite frankly, those funds will likely disappear within days of receipt without any benefit to such kids that can be quantified. Furthermore, for how long these kids can sustain the artificial lifestyle created by such funds and I am sure their parents would not be able to maintain such standard when the money is no longer there. In the end, the athletes get frustrated become beggars and available for exploitation of all sort from such federation so-called officials. Alternatively, the President could have setup a trust funds for educational and upkeep of the athletes. Again, this innocent agenda get turned ugly due to lack of adequate skills on strategy and athletes welfare. Also, I doubt if the monies will be directly issued to the athletes rather the athletes will need to part ways from the full amount announced through deductions from leeches claiming to be former athletes (majority of them our drugs tainted former athletes).
Matters Arising
Henry Amike noted recently that probing London Olympics is a waste of time and to be fair to him, he neither study any business field nor sports administration so, it’s easy to understand defeatist mentality from him in terms of governance. Some former athletes simply believed in a phrase called, bygone is bygone let’s move on. Unfortunately, ignorance is not an excuse when our children’s children looked at us and forms general opinion about so-called adults essentially that we are dumbasses.
In my view, it takes just basic secondary education to understand that when one failed in an examination one needs to check what areas one lacked sufficient training. Now, can the readers comprehend how anyone can rely on bygone mentality when over N2Billion was wasted. It is more appalling how this great country can place people with this type of mindset as leaders? I truly weep for this country. This is not just Amike and Bolaji Abdullahi (Sports Minister) but also there cronies where some of them are well qualified on papers.
Yes, I may sound defensive of Mr. Elegbeleye, the new Director of Sports stance but the reason is quite clear, no professional especially accountant wants to start a new regime by accepting thefts by past administration as their own and more importantly, the country is in democracy where opposition parties are more vigilant now, given the fact that Mr. Elegbeleye was a representative of ruling political party as recent as 24 months ago.
Mr. Elegbeleye is also professional-ethics bound to review status before digging-in, otherwise, bankruptcy is the next action. Amike and others including Bolaji Abdullahi, believes spending available money is the only function of NSC or even an accountant as was done with Mr. Ekeji. As I’ve said many times incompetency is rampant in NSC and injection of one qualified person may not be enough as the same crew that destroy NSC still hang around to influence clear conscience persons to dance to their tune.
In another discussion, a sports writer noted that athletics federation may just have a different modus operandi than my view and I tried to reason with him but unfortunately, it was not necessary because a propagandist know of no reality and gift of bribes in form of airline tickets for a vote and stealing funds meant for athletes can never be accepted as sports development strategy. Every single announcement by thugs in charge of that federation came from my proposal but unfortunately, to implement that agenda requires adequate credentials and ethics. We’ve heard of free airline tickets and accommodations’ to former athletes to come and clap for local athletes sleeping at the venue of the competitions. Again, this is not within my proposal and this is purely breeding corruption and the aim was quite clear as that federation returned the same set of thugs to remain at leaders because of such airline tickets bribery some allegedly given to Fidelis Gadzama or whatever he wanted to be known in the present time so that he can vote for them. But investigations will soon reveal whether or not Gadzama qualifies to be member of that federation board based on criteria previously set by NSC including educational background and financial well-being.
Bolaji Abdullahi announced earlier in the year that federations will now be free to appoint their own secretaries but this same man went before Nigerian Senate last week to advocate for NSC to appoint federation’s secretary in the same vein as imposing board members. I ask, do ethics mean anything to this guy?
Of course, I don’t share the view that the Presidency noted NSC as performing good in recent regime self-evaluation but everyone got their own opinion however self-appraisal means nothing, am afraid. Many federations are now in courts, some internationally and others locally simply because of Bolaji Abdullahi actions. The urgency to remove Bolaji Abdullahi is critical otherwise; the country should forget to make any impact at Commonwealth Games.
Also in the news is Habu Gumel whom Bolaji Abdullahi returned as Volleyball federation President to continue destructive ways of advancing volleyball standard in Nigeria paid back Mr. Abdullahi with good evaluation for destroying sports simply because another 20th plus years destroyer of tennis, Mr. Ndanusa forwarded his name as member of IOC. Such self-appraisal simply meant nothing but can be found at Mr. Abdullahi former employer, Thisday newspaper publication on the following link: http://www.thisdaylive.com/
This my article may sound very critical of Mr. Gumel but the problem is, I cannot comprehend how an individual can’t just sit back to view consequences of an action before taking the plunge and more troubling is the fact that these people are supposed to be leader. Is this a country of intellectuals that the rest of the world thinks we are or are we just pretenders? If these actions don’t bother some people, I really find it difficult to believe the education those people may have claimed to have earned was really an education or is it that they just fraudulently obtained an education? Furthermore, if sports lovers do not care about these events then how do we expect our athletes to remain athletes?
The Agenda
Ideally, sports federations have no ground to develop any athlete because their international principals requires them to be independent of political influence or bias towards any athlete. Therefore, sports’ federations that believed that they have a mandate to develop athletes ought to think again but that does not mean that they should not bring forth written programs to aid athletes training. As such, NSC has no legal or moral basis to fund any federation.
NSC should set standard to measure development of athletes nationwide by directly engaging community organizations in sports development that National Assembly already provided N500Million for. That fund must be distributed equally nationwide and evidence of all spending must be available to all Nigerians whether or not they seek such materials under freedom of information act.
I rest
Dr. Rashid A. Balogun, CPA, LLB(Hons.), LLM(London)
