Leadership (Abuja)
Ikpo Igbinoba
12 November 2009
Lagos — The curtains will fall on the 13th FIFA U-17 World Cup Nigeria 2009 on Sunday. But then the final word on the controversy-ridden tournament won't be heard soon. The final word will take some time in coming.
In fact a new chapter in the tournament story should be opened from Monday when those who had something to do with the organization as members of the Local Organising Committee (LOC) and top officials of the Ministry of Sports would come under the scrutiny of investigators.
There are several allegations of fraud and the anti graft agents are just waiting for the go ahead to screen the books and the men.
A top official of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC confirmed that the whole financial transaction before and during the tournament would be thoroughly investigated.
"We have a mandate to deal with economic crimes and we are just waiting for the signal".
The accusations of financial impropriety had been on even before the tournament kicked off on October 24. It started first as a whisper but with time the allegation became loud enough for newspapers to feast on. There were allegations that the Vice President Goodluck Jonathan had hijacked most of the contracts.
In a swift reaction the office of the Vice President did not only deny the allegation but threatened to probe all the contracts awarded. Days rolled into weeks and nothing was heard about that threat after sometime. However with cracks emerging in the preparation with facilities not delivered on schedule the allegations of more fraud became more strident.
There were fresh allegations of committee top shots and Sports Ministry big wigs awarding contracts to themselves and cronies at highly inflated cost and not doing anything after collecting the money. Apart from this allegation, some officials were also accused of diverting funds meant for the tournament into their private accounts. Some were accused of buying up choice properties in the high brow parts of Dubai from the stolen funds.
The open protests from the sub seats and sub committees that the Sports Ministry was holding on to the funds meant for them further exposed the corruption already going on even before the event kicked off. Up to midweek, the sub seats and sub committees were still are daggers drawn with the Sports Minister Sani Ndanusa over the balance of their funds.
Ndanusa in a memo had insisted that he would only release the balance after the committees must have explained how they spent the funds earlier released.
One of the insiders at the LOC said what happened in the tournament is worse than what happened during the 8th All Africa Games COJA 2003.
"You cannot believe what happened during this tournament", one of the LOC staff lamented in a chat with LEADERSHIP. "I can tell you that there was nothing like due process in the award of contracts for this event. People stole like there won't be tomorrow" The member prayed that the committees should be directed to publish in leading newspapers what they received and how they spent such funds.
Another aggrieved LOC member said if the anti -graft agencies should do their jobs properly, a lot of dirty secrets would be revealed. "If some of these dirty deals are revealed, my brother you won't respect our so called leaders. I believe that some of them who perpetrated those scams will go to jail if they do not influence the work of the anti-graft agencies from above"
The FIFA U-17 World Cup tournament which was conceived in controversy had been dogged throughout its three week span with different crises. Apart from fraud which is tearing the LOC and the Sports Ministry apart, age fraud has also reared its head.
Ex international Adokie Amasiemeka had raised the alarm that the skipper of the Golden Eaglets Fortune Chukwudi who played in his feeder team when he was in charge of Sharks FC of Port was 25 years. Amasiemeka's revelation did not only smear the good run of the host team but also cast a big question mark on the integrity of FIFA which claimed that all the players for the tournament had gone through the Magnetic Resonance Imaging Test successfully.
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