Patrick Omorodion
8 November 2008
(Page 2 of 2)
It also smacks of hidden agenda by making the already removed former Minister of Sports (Gimba) the 'whipping boy' of that visit, after all the man is gone and the President who appointed him did not make the reason (for his removal) public.
One would have thought that the LOC should now concentrate on convincing Nigerians about their budget and what benefits the billions committed will accrue to Nigeria - the silence of the LOC on this aspect speaks volumes!
They further compared South Africa 2010 to Nigeria 2009 which is like comparing apples to oranges - the World Cup is arguably the biggest sports property in the world while the FIFA Under-17 is for children in the school system - maybe the fact that we cheat with over aged people in this competition is beclouding our judgement of the fundamentals.
Why the affront to the Presidency's decision to cut the budget to N9 billion at the Senate 'without briefing the acting Minister of Sports, what was so important in that Senate visit by the LOC and staffers of the NSC without the acting and/or substantive Minister of Sports and Chairman NSC; after all, the Minister is their boss and will be the one to once again defend the LOC budget at the Federal Executive Council.
On a secondary note, this is the same Senate Committee on Sports that had an orchestrated public hearing a few weeks ago and went outside their original brief of probing Nigeria's performance at Ghana 2008 and discussed all aspects of sports where they found the former Minister of Sports guilty on all counts without giving the man a chance to defend himself.
The former Minister is now gone but our problems in sports show no signs of abetting; if anything the prognosis for the future is frightening and headed for the precipice especially as it concerns school sports which should be the conveyor belt of our future glory and laurels in sports
Is the Senate Committee on Sports just being briefed by LOC and NSC on the FIFA 2009 budget - if that is the case, did they have time to read, understand and digest the budget before challenging the Presidency in their wisdom to cut the budget from N35billion to N9 billion?
That visit of the LOC to the Senate also defies logic and one wonders why we should continue to accept this type of contrivance in our sports sector.
We have had seven Sports Ministers since 1999 which is an atrocious attrition rate of nearly one Sports Minister for every year - and our sports has continued to wallow in mediocrity and less than optimal performance compared to the resources wasted.
Are the Sports Ministers the problem or does the problem in our sports lie elsewhere .....?
The substantive Sports Minister has not arrived and already his staffers with active connivance of 'outsiders' are setting an agenda for him and had strewn 'banana' peel for whoever that person may be.
We can safely bet from experience that with billions of 'free' Government money at stake for the FIFA 2009 U-17 World Cup, the new Minister of Sports is already doomed if he fails to fall in line and/or align himself to the framework of the floating billions (from pronouncements in the Senate the stage has already been set for the massive increase of the budget).
That comparison with South Africa is also misleading because while South Africa has used the World Cup as a catalyst for massive infrastructural and socio-cultural regeneration and revolution - LOC is yet to articulate in concrete terms what Nigeria stands to benefit.
Furthermore, South Africa LOC is partnering with the corporate world and has raised over $3 billion to FIFA from the corporate world thereby not only surpassing the Germany and Korea/Japan World Cups but it is the biggest revenue to date for FIFA.
I am not making up the numbers or the story because no less a person that the CEO of South Africa 2010, Danny Jordan was in Nigeria recently to give a lecture and tell us directly to our faces how things should be done - besides it is all on the internet and website of South Africa LOC 2010.
Please goggle Nigeria FIFA U-17 2009 and what you will see on the internet is still the Korea edition - no mention of Nigeria!
Why are we the only country in the world that host FIFA events and other sporting events with 100% reliance on Government to provide the money - it is what I call a tragic-comedy for a country like Nigeria that is so endowed with an abundance of talented people and institutions in this area
One can go on and on.
However, all sports lovers should challenge the LOC to publish their budget with detailed breakdown and the projected revenue profiles from the private sector (they claim they will raise billions from the private sector) so that we can subject it to empirical analysis and hold them accountable to some benchmark of performance.
Why should the project be so opaque if openness, transparency and accountability is the watch word of the present Government?
We should ask these questions so that we are not taken for a ride or be subjected to the usual 'musical chairs 'and we should not allow a few people to continue to mortgage our collective destiny and that of our children on the altar of private greed and gain.
Why should the questions be proactively asked? Very simple; it is because we have not seen any budget and any accounts in Nigeria sports in the last fifteen years - from FIFA Under-20 World Cup tagged, Nigeria '99 to the 2003 All Africa Games to our Commonwealth 2014 Games bid and the wasted billions, and more recently the Beijing Olympics.
If the Government really wants accountability and private sector buy in, participation and input, the whole process of budgeting and accountability should not be shrouded in secrecy and/or left to civil servants alone.
Let us use this whole imbroglio of the floating billions; 37 to 35 to 17 now 9 billion Naira budget to re-energise our sports and turn a new leaf of openness, accountability and private sector participation and leverage as is the practice in other parts of the world. After all, the billions from Government are tax payers money and both the civil servants and the Senate Committee on Sports are all servants of the Nigerian people, dependent largely on the Nigeria State for their salaries and upkeep.
It is also pertinent that all sports loving Nigerians should ask both the Senate Committee on Sports and the staffers of the NSC where the programme for school sports can be found and what is the budget for it - after all we are talking Under-17 World Cup which is for school children and committing billions of tax payers money to it without any commensurate programme for our children in schools and the school system.
On another note, one can safely proffer advice - one billion Naira committed to each of the six geopolitical zones in the country and placed in a bank at a modest interest can form the basis of national school sports in perpetuity for our teeming young people so that we can re-focus their energies away from negative pursuits like cultism, militancy, excessive computer games and other vices.
Discussing only the conflicting and confusing billions of tax payers money in the media that will be wasted in the next few months by a few Nigerians in the LOC and their collaborators is simply nauseating and a flight to fancy while the fundamentals and basic structures of our school sports/youth sports programmes is practically non existent.
We should stop making mockery of ourselves and our country the subject of caricature in the eyes of the sporting world. All people of good conscience should remind the Senate Committee on Sports and the LOC and staffers of the NSC that this is an internet and electronic world and we are now a global village where information is available and research and comparisons are now quite an easy process.
Finally, there are many arguments for and against the hosting of the Under-17 Cup which has been surreptitiously thrust upon Nigeria without any bidding process and/or openness by a few people whose motives can not easily be ascertained.
However, once our President has made a pronouncement on the matter; we would all fall behind him and do the best we can as a people and as a nation to host the world - the least people that should be clamouring for increase of the N9 billion budget without any commensurate explanation and/or justification should not be those who we pay for their salaries/upkeep. Enough should be enough!
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