HOW TWO PERSONALITIES MULL SPORTS
Two Nigerians were talking. No, two very important personalities were talking; because it’s the only way to attract attention to germane issues here. One spoke for the nation, Sports Minister, Bolaji Abdullahi. The other, Lagos State governor, Raji Fashola, spoke for his state, and what he wanted to do for it. He has always spoken like a man that is on a mission for his state, Fashola. So when he attended an occasion where football was the business to discuss, he spoke as a man that had an understanding of the industry, one who knew what he wanted to do about football for the benefit of his people. He had sounded revolutionary that time, revolution in the management of the football industry, that is; while the Minister had sounded cautious about what he wanted to do with the nation’s sports, and it was just as well, because he works for a boss who believes in transformation, not a revolution.
The list of the woes is long for the nation’s sports. Nigerians know all of it, no need to bore them with the items. It was the reason President Goodluck Jonathan called a meeting the other day, for instance. The nation’s sports must be reorganized for better performance, the president had directed. That was after the 2012 London Olympics outing that yielded no medals in able-bodied events. And the minister had come out smoking thereafter, sounding the voice of his boss. One would think heads would roll in the sports sector then. Weeks have passed and heads have not rolled, not even when some managers of the national stadium, Abuja, failed to manage the stadium, and Nigeria’s number one citizen who paid a visit had to walk through the bush and share paths with bush rats in a stadium built with billions of naira some ten years ago. And now that the minister was speaking since the time he promised changes following the president’s directive, he sounded like his ministry was handcuffed, that it had no means of administering painful solutions necessary to turn the nation’s sports fortune around.
The rot in sports and in sports federations are serious, the minister admitted. They are weak, filled with people who don’t understand how to administer them, and as such a surgical operation is needed to effect a turn around. But one needs to be cautious, he pointed out, for his ministry needs these federations if it must achieve results at the end of the day. They have elected members, the federations, and are affiliated to international bodies. Now, the minister continued, his ministry does not have the authority to engage in the kind of needed surgical operation, and if it does not tread cautiously it would be accused of interference for which there are sanctions. So the minister searched for a route that would enable his ministry carry out some form of transformation; it was by reviewing the statutes that set up federations. The aim? Ensure competent people get into offices in each federation, including people who can invest and bring in investment. No one can quarrel with the minister on that, except that there are reasons to be skeptical about his solution, in the face of a presidential task to achieve and the limited time there is to achieve it.
A comparison. When Lagos state governor was speaking at the football business seminar, his concern was not on all sports, but one. He focused on the sport many maintain is Nigeria’s number one, and which some say is the worst managed. The last election into the football federation was a ruse, and the ruse had brought into office the kind of individuals the sports minister said no sports federation needs at this time. But the light is still on what Fashola said at the football business seminar. On that occasion, he spoke like one who understood the business of football, the economic potentials for his state, the multiplier effects of the football industry and from which nations that know what they are doing benefit immensely.
A fan of the Manchester United FC of England which money-making strategy he must have studied, Fashola should know, so he said the programme he envisioned, and which would combine all the beneficial aspect of football business necessitates that he tinkers with football administration in his state. Note, he hadn’t sacked any football official, he didn’t bother with how sport officials are elected into office. He simply introduced a programme that, one may suspect, is capable of ultimately weeding out unwanted hands that find their way into football. What is serious business, and is run as a serious business has a natural way of rendering useless hands, useless. Furthermore, the governor connected football with education, a forward looking decision that had the interest of future generation in focus; no youth would be part of the latest football programme unless he or she is in school. In the end, part of his overall goal, he said, was to unleash football economy in his state. Now that’s robust talk.
And yet a comparison. While the sports minister wanted to start studying statutes with a view to monitoring how officials in federations are elected and perform for the next four years, Lagos state governor has come up with a strategy that synergizes and taps into the economic benefits of Nigeria’s foremost sport. Now the difference is here: Mr President wants each sport to bear fruits in medals for the country especially at the Rio Olympic in 2016. Some sports federations possibly have a year or two to go on their current mandates. A year or two out of four years, so the question follows: With the minister’s approach, how much rejuvenation would have gone into the federations if they would produce medals for the nation, not just in the Olympics, but in other championships between?
This is a slow-motion solution, untimed, and is likely to go the way of other propositions once the heat on public officials has abated. Yes, statutes can be tinkered with in order to bring in capable people to manage each sport, but the more practical steps that could, naturally, weed out unfit pegs in the wrong place are the type Lagos state is taking. In a situation where the state government’s blueprint on football is an encouragement to those who know their ways around the football business, for instance, unneeded hands would soon be out in the cold. Federal government’s involvement has always made hijacking of federations attractive to those who have no business being there.
Wrong people in the right place cannot become a thing of the past, and management and performance enhanced, if monitoring of federation for set targets is all that the minister has to offer at this time. A sport that is allowed to be managed in line with more modern practices, and on its own, ensures that misfits find their level; it works like a free market, a private sector working that sees incompetent hands thrown out. With the minister’s promise to further assert the presence and supervision of the National Sports Commission (NSC) in each of the federations, which in the real sense translates into more presence for the sports ministry, the way forward in achieving Mr President’s directive for better administration in sports in order to effect optimal result is bleak. Forward-looking programmes that are subsumed in an overall strategic blueprint, the Lagos state example, is the better way to go.
Written By Tunji Ajibade
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