Ndanusa, Ekeji Must Stop This Nonsense!

Zonal elections to the Nigerian sports federations (32 of them) started in earnest during the week with good news that some credible Nigerians who have made their marks is sports are warming up to take up the challenge of turning the country’s dying sports around. It is a cheering news that the chairman of the National Sports Commission (NSC) Sani Ndanusa and the Director General, Chief Patrick Ekeji are poised to seeing that elections into the federations are not business as usual.

With the administrative pedigree of the duo, Nigerians can now heave a sigh of relief hoping for a landmark result at the 2011 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, India.  Nigerians can now see the seriousness in our administrators with the four-year rolling plan of the NSC.

But few of the results especially in the Athletic Federation of Nigeria (AFN) it is clear that the NSC is likely to renege on its vow of ‘not business as usual.’ And we are worried that it is either the NSC did not spell out the qualifications of contestants for the elections or they are not just serious about holistic development of our sports.

Our federations have been in shambles in the last eight years not because of the dearth of athletes but mainly because of the administrative ineptitude of the people running the federations. This has been the consequence of the alien style introduced by the Olusegun Obasanjo regime whereby serving state governors are saddled with the responsibility of running the federations as presidents or chairmen, as the case may be. That sporting blunder led to the collapse of professionalism in running the federations as almost all the governors were too busy with states and national politics. Some of them even spent more time attending to restless youth and kidnappers in their area so much so that they did not have even five minutes to peruse the files of their federation thus leaving the job at the mercy of the secretaries.

Take a look at Boxing under former Edo State governor, Lucky Igbinedion! For the years the governor pretended to be boxing chairman, it is not an over-statement to say that boxing was dead and buried. Swimming also groaned under Dr Peter Odili of Rivers while Hockey was almost a forgotten sports with Abba Buka Ibrahim of Yobe as chairman. What of Taekwando under Governor Gbenga Daniel of Ogun State and even Judo  where Dr Orji Uzor Kalu held sway? If there were to be a score-card to measure the performances of these governors, only Kalu will get something close to 10 per cent. Others are zero.

The purported purpose for bringing in the governors were defeated as sponsors shunned the federations. It is on record that only few of them supported national or international competitions for the federations. The secretaries even found it difficult to leverage on the names of the governors to get sponsors for their events.

Here we go again! Benue State governor Gabriel Suswan has emerged member of the AFN from the North Central in a no contest kangaroo election where an Olympic gold medalist Sunday Bada was denied entrance into the race because the director of sports in Kogi State refused to endorse his nomination papers. This is a shame.  It is a classic demonstration of the shambolic state of our sports.

It is saddening that a few individuals who want to hijack AFN are behind the shameful election of the governor in Jos.

What is the governor’s pedigree in sports generally and in athletics specifically. Nothing to point to. As the chairman of Lobi  Stars Football Club, Governor Suswan has not been able to steer the ship of the club out of the murky waters of relegation. For a man who could not start his charity at home to be bestowed with huge responsibility of running the AFN, then we are sure to navigate on a terrible terrain.

We have had enough of all these strange bed fellows in sports. Let the minister and DG save us from another round of trauma by allowing these governors to fix electricity, water and roads in their states. They are already saddled with enough headache in the states adding more will be counter-productive as witnessed in the past.

That’s why we are calling on Ndanusa and Ekeji to stop yet another drive to sports oblivion.