Ado Salisu
Athletics and Other Sports Development Initiative, one of Nigeria’s Non-governmental organisations on good governance, transparency and accountability has caused a stir by accusing the National Sports Commission (NSC) leadership of failing to fix sports in Nigeria to chase frivolities.
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In a Press Statement made available to newsmen, the NGO reiterated the high hopes Nigerians welcomed the NSC establishment with the desire that it would set Nigerian sports on the path of rapid and sustainable progress.
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“The change which Nigerians expected has been dashed for misplaced priorities and wild goose chase by those appointed to supervise the sports industry in Nigeria”
The Chairman, Board of Trustees of the NGO Hon. Ahmed Shauibu Gara Gombe in a statement said,
“The National Sports Commission (NSC) hierarchy’s honeymoon is over, and the Grace period given to NSC Chairman Shehu Dikko to fix sports in Nigeria is over.”
“Definitely, he has failed completely along with his Director General, Bukola Olopade, who is operating the NSC like Sole Administrators, which runs flagrantly against the act that established them.
The opportunity was given for them to retrace their footsteps and change from their past.
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Unfortunately, nothing has changed, and I ask, why do we have the National Sports Commission in the first place?
The statement noted that “Today, Nigeria has no single Stadium that can host international matches that meets FIFA or CAF standard, only Godwin Akpabio Stadium in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.
The other one CAF permitted owing to the influence of Businessman and Chairman of Value Jets Airline and proprietor of Remo Stars Stadium, Chief Kunle Soname who used his connection to plead with CAF to inspect the Remo Stadium in Ikene Ogun State to allow Remo Stars and other teams play only their international preliminary matches in the facility.
El-kami FC Shamelessly travelled from Maiduguri to Ikene for their matches.
Remo Stars played there and were knocked out after the preliminary rounds.
Rangers could not Play in Enugu for the same reason.
Soon, the team’s registration for continental matches would be over, and Nigeria would start rushing.
Instead of Dikko and his team strongly intervening and improving the Stadia, they resorted to bringing a team from abroad to check the Moshood Abiola Stadium in Abuja.
This was a Stadium over N85 billion was spent to build by the Obasanjo government.
Apart from the Stadium in Abuja and the National Stadium in Surulere Lagos, the same person, Sunday Dare, was allegedly in-Charge and money was paid.
The former minister, Sunday Dare, ran the refurbishment of the National Stadium Surulere Lagos in the media; he deceived us with graders lined up inside the stadium pretending that work was going on.
The sad aspect was that Baba Ijebu paid money and no one accounted for the money.
“Later, they said the money Baba Ijebu donated could not complete the job.
Why did he tell us that Dangote donated One million Dollars ($1m) for the Abuja stadium renovation and Baba Ijebu gave a similar amount for the Surulere Lagos Stadium, but Sunday Dare did not tell us much?
All these were in the media, and this person is hiding in the Villa as master of ceremony in the office of the president.
Shehu Dikko and Olopade were supposed to interrogate the failure of the project before bringing partners to check the Stadium.
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Are the foreigners coming to invest or to provide expert advice?
If they are here to invest free of charge, well and good, but I want the NSC to find out what stopped work at the National Stadium Abuja and Surulere Lagos.
Money donated by Dangote and Baba ijebu, what happened to it? Sunday Dare should provide answers.
If there is any sign of change at the NSC, it should begin with the Federation Elections.
They have shown they are not ready for any change. They were unable to interrogate the AFN election process because they are business partners.
Anyway, on the elections, the matter is already in court.
We would see what happens, we said the honeymoon is over.
Since they were appointed, they have brought no single sponsor, but they claim to be Caesars of sports; they have contacts, etc..but are earnestly waiting for government funds.
“I call on The Secretary to the Federal government, the Chief of staff to the President, the National Assembly both the Upper and Lower Chamber Committees on sports to provide answers to Nigerians.
The National Assembly Sports Committee have an Oversight role which they hardly implement., I don’t know what they are doing.
You enacted a law which is not well implemented, and you sit and do nothing, allowing them to spend public money anyhow on travelling all over the world.
If even you are amending the law, you have not said anything about which part of the law to amend. There’s no part of the law that said continue to act until the Law is amended before it is reviewed as a work in progress.
We are going to ask the court to interpret whether actions taken by them are legal. There was no Presidential order that says go and operate the act until the law is reviewed, no.
They have been appointing their friends who shared their bad past, including those who allegedly stole a generator and were forced to return it.
There are even those who were dismissed as civil servants; they were the ones they appointed to serve in the NSC.
That is why they want to operate as a cabal.
The Press Statement read thus..
“I would like to start with a follow-up statement which we issued earlier.
We gave some Marathon organisers an ultimatum to pay their Athletes, and we gave two weeks and an additional one week.
Interestingly, those involved had gone behind to make payments for two out of six Marathon races they failed to pay.
This clearly shows a lack of credibility, accountability, and even sincerity of those either organising or supervising the races.
Sadly, these organisers are the ones in charge of our Sports today.
We have also established a prima facie case that they were owed.
If they were not forced to pay through our threats, certainly, they wouldn’t have paid some of the participants at all.
We are going to compile all the races they have paid and the ones that are pending, and we will make it public and take it straight to Court; we don’t need to notify them anymore.
We are going to sue the sponsors, organisers and the regulators.
The Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC), under Engineer Habu Gumel, is one of the badly run associations in this country.
Nothing is really happening there that impacts sports in Nigeria.
I read where people were saying I wanted to divide the sports industry into North and South. What cheap blackmail; perhaps they don’t have anything to say, and more so, they don’t know me.
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The architect of those statements knows me, and I know them. I have records of what they told me about the same people they are defending now.
When they are bankrupt, they try to cook up lies to attract favours. I am not like that, At least, I can take adequate care of my family. Continue to spread lies to attract favours.”