A cat’s sense of intelligence cannot be compared with that a dog (trained or untrained) but once a soldier always a soldier. It will take a high sense of intellect to connect the dots on the above sentence, but it is not insulting, but a statement of fact as this writer sees it. This writing is simply a discussion on the positive effect of March 28, 2015 Presidential election in respect of sports.
Preliminary Commentaries
Few former athletes drew their lines in the sand supporting the country’s beloved President Goodluck Jonathan while current athletes are scared silly to utter a word publicly, but they made statements on social media in support of the opposition party federal candidates, but those statements cannot be positively linked to them and then came Blessing Okagbare shouting at the incumbent President’s media campaign people for using her image despite unprecedented accolades beyond counts (money or otherwise) that President Jonathan bestowed on her. Of course, she is entitled to speak freely, but wrongly advised by her handlers even after her attempted damage control and this writer appeals to the citizens of Nigeria to simply understand that she is young and growing. And to J.J. Okocha, Nwankwo Kanu, Henry Amike and a few others, this writer truly wish you well between now and 2019 but the hope is that you would have learnt a strong lesson about politics. It must be noted that, an appearance of certain individuals on behalf of the political gladiators might be the game changer in a certain socialistic economic environment and to zero-in on such phenomenon is worth more than a pat on the back. Of course, this is the view of this writer on the emergence of Rtd. General Muhammadu Buhari as the President-Elect of Nigeria. It is highly doubtful to think the game changer sought at the helm of power in Nigeria is that of expired athletes that were remembered only in athletic historian circles.
Positive Effect on Sports
Current athletes by consensus view wants change to everything concerning sports and of course the President-Elect ran his political campaign on change in respect of governance in the country. He noted that high priority will be placed on Procurement Act of the federation. And course the readers of this writer can recall the acrimony by his brother named Bolaji Abdullahi, the former Sports Minister, that he (this writer) should produce the law (he referred to) in one of his writings concerning the misstep in the hiring of an American firm after disgraceful outings during the London Olympics Games. In fact, Mr. Abdullahi later hired two Saudi Arabia’s dumped American Coaches without any semblance of compliance with due process or Procurement Act. In addition, the former Sports Minister jettisoned the country’s heavily invested drug laboratory for the so-called high performance center ran by the two individuals hired without due process. Those individuals never produce a single athlete till date and for these events Mr. Abdullahi must not be considered to head sports again.
Recently, Mr. Abdullahi, said that the President-Elect has no business in meddling with sports and this writer can say clearly that his beloved brother (Mr. Abdullahi) was never appointed by All Progressive Congress (APC) or Rtd. General Muhammadu Buhari to speak on his behalf nor his comments should be acted upon. It is hypocritical to Nigerians that Mr. Abdullahi that ignored the Federal Procurement Act while a Minister under President Jonathan should be seen with the President-Elect that announced that his number one priority is compliance with the Procurement Act and zero-tolerance on corruption.
One thing is clear and that is the incoming administration will conduct super-background checks on any political appointee because to do otherwise is tantamount to the return to status quo and will likely result in voter backlash come 2019. Furthermore, the benefit of a doubt goes to the incoming federal government executive branch, in the sense that current sport’s administrators are fearful of bad and corrupt behaviors knowing fully well that crime does not have an expiration date. Essentially, whether or not the accused committed the act during Rtd. General Obasanjo regime or the current President regime, it matters not and for that reason, the athletes and non-athletes must rejoice that past intimidation and corrupt practices will be dealt with and the fear of such penalty means, those few offending individuals (among NSC staff or federations) will shape up quickly. Hopefully, the goodness in the majority of them will become the norm and that is the positive impact of Rtd. General Muhammadu Buhari even before taking the helm of power.
Status of Sports
Nothing really, to cry or rejoice about at the present time in respect of sports in Nigeria, but it is worthy of note that the era of violating the constitution of Nigeria by certain sports federations like athletics will meet serious challenges with the incoming Attorney General and Minister of Interior as well as the National security adviser. As regards to the Olympics, other than Mr. Siasia Eagles team and Blessing Okagbare, the country’s chances are very slim and that has everything to do with the reliance on useless agenda of poaching expired aged druggists from USA to represent Nigeria. Athletics Federation of Nigeria must be probed for illicit acts of facilitating issuance of Nigeria’s passports to non-Nigerians and for all monies received from the National Sports Commission (NSC) for the purposes of procuring such foreign athletes.
All in all, the incoming administration must embark on sanitizing the NSC, including its directors and all those hired without due process.
I rest for now.
Dr. Rashid A. Balogun, CPA, LLB(Hons.), LLM(London)
