Sunleye-Solawumi Olaleye
29 November 2009
opinion
Lagos — Today, I should be answering more than a few questions. Obviously, it is threatening to become a matter the Japanese like to call 'loss of face' if I don't seek a time out to answer a few.
It all has to do with this little matter of the level sports has degenerate in corruption. They now say the dregs in the city of Nigeria's sport are murkier than the silt in the country's political landscape.
They say that time was it, but gone by, when Sportscity used to be like the freshly spurn cotton, side by side with 'Political Nigeria' where tales of bribery and creaming-off-the-top thrived so much it caused the country to get labeled a member of the top-ten most corrupt nations of the world.
They also scream to high heavens, in praise of it, the age when sportswriters were like angels in the comity of journalism, so much that when anyone came into a gathering of the politicos or general business people, and announced him- or herself a sportswriter in those days, the atmospherics did seem to do a makeover, in the least, froze at best, as people around beheld in awe the aura of the one announcing himself thus - and back then, no one ever came calling who was a woman and announces that calling for herself. It was unheard of then for anyone to be from the fair sex and profess a profession in sportswriting. Given this bent, it was like this area of journalism was acting out a self-given role as Nigeria's last bastion of male chauvinism in professional calling.
I heard all this, I was told so much but I refused to bulge. I refused to be heckled into getting into a fight I might not be able to finish. I was not going to be hedged into going into a war in which I had nothing at stake; nothing to prove and which I believed I could not win. After all, did not all books, modern and ancient, from Sun Tzu to 'V', written on the art of war, make out the first law of warring is running; the second patience and the last, to win without fighting?
That last rule was even the crux of Fabian principle and strategy for battle. This set of social strategists, Fabians, motivated as they are by the Roman general, Quintus Fabius Maximus - The Cunctator - proselytised incremental change over revolutionary fervour and fight, as the means to procuring desired new orders.
My hectors and tormentors pointed to the golden era of sportswriting in Nigeria and mentioned the likes of Esbee, Cee-Kay, Yinka Craig, Lanre Lawal, all late heroes and tried to remind me of the ones who left it for us, such as Segun Adenuga who are now looking with sadness, at what we have turned the sub-profession into these days - a cash and carry affair.
Still, I refuse to answer. I did because did not the elders say the only constant in this world was change? Hell, those were the golden age. The world of sportswriting had gone through its own change as it must, and as all other sectors had done. It had gone from the golden age to the age of Kadi, as nature had decreed everything would.
In the spiritual realm, everything is explained via cycles. An age reaches its zenith when it is on top of the cycle and the people begin to experience their golden period in life. Then the cycle proceeds down and down until the Age of Kadi is reached, at the bottom end of it; which doth becomes the evil era, when every decadent thinking and acts reign supreme.
Of course the cycle continues and the age gets gradually refined until once again another golden era is attained, when a new set of humans emerge who believes in the purist ways of God - another time atop the cycle. It goes on in continuum, ad infinitum.
So, I was not planning to raise pen against anyone until this my group of tormentors-in-chief started making out that I could not care to write because I was part of those who facilitated the decadence.
Particularly, they say I would not see anything bad in the coaching crew of the Super Eagles, as presently constituted because I was in league with the mafia who ruled Nigeria's soccer and saw nothing bad in the way sport was being ran. Their summation is; if I was a slimy benefactor in all the deals that had ever been closed in the last two decades in the land of sport, why should I bother to raise a lazy forefinger?
Well, with their hecklings attempting to impinge on my image rights - and image is something no one in his right senses should allow to get trampled on - I decided to make a little case, and clarification.
To begin to fight the level of decadence that Nigeria's 'Planet Sport' at Sportscity has degenerated into, we have to start from the top. Today the top - the presidential villa of sport - in our land is the Ministerial Suite, which is presently occupied by Sani Ndanusa.
Back in the day, when sport just started joining the decadent train of Nigeria's slimy outback, it was alleged that there was a group of Fifth Columnist set up in the ministry to ease every new minister into office. That was in the days of our 'Evil Genius'.
So, what used to happen then, as it was alleged, was that each time a new sports minister came around breathing fire, this group would visit with a bag of 'loot' and a briefcase for briefing.
The 'loot' welcomes him in and the briefcase made him see he needed not exert himself over anything, and that as long as he let the established method of troubleshooting continue on its auto-trajectory, the 'loot' would continue to flow across his table without him having to raise even a finger.
Now that age is gone, the unfortunate thing is that the sad old system had gone into auto-propagation. It bred a system of 'Aristobratcy' at sports' Ministerial Suite, becoming therefore the cursor of an unrepentant production line of Aristobrats whose only care in the land of sport is how to propagate their reigns and have a situation whereby they would never have to stop ruling even if they were to be removed from their office through a cabinet re-shuffle.
Another sad reality of it now is that even the ones that came out of the family breeding system has become like those that were not from the bloodline.
This was why I had my doubts as to his ability to succeed when a member of the family in Ndanusa, was chosen to rule at Sportscity. Today, I seem to have been vindicated. From his wanting to hold all minor offices along with his big one - as the emperor of the land - to his attempt to install himself as the Prince of the Nigeria Olympic Committee, Ndanusa looks to have all the dirty tricks of bygone dictators memorised; and he is now reeling them out off the cuff.
That the minister wants to become the head of the Olympic family by all means and against the Olympic credo, smirks of the new aristobratcy that is abroad in the land of sports.
But although the issue [of the NOC] touches on the essence of our land and belief, I still do not rate it as above the great matter of the manner in which the funds and materials for the FIFA Under-17 World Cup Nigeria 2009 had been disbursed and used via the LOC.
Now that we have been authoritatively informed that the half-hearted probe [of Nigeria 2009 LOC] over the tournament's fund disbursement is on the verge of arthritis, in its first steps towards rigor mortis, it is becoming pertinent that we remind the President of the Federal Republic of his much-maligned phrase of 'No Longer Business As Usual'.
One of the reasons those who inform us say is to be used in killing off the probe is the fact that when the Vice-president, Goodluck Jonathan, said there would be one, he was said to have made the statement on the spur of the moment and not as part of the interview plan, nor was it in the speech he was reading. They say it was only a pestilential son of a reporter that threw the topic in, off the agenda.
Based on this knowledge, I am, therefore, sending my 'Get Well Quick' wish and message to Mr. President, Musa Yar"Adua, with this opening write up on how to kill off the cankerworm invading sport. I am now waiting for him to be back on his feet so I could make this issue, and others in the file, my welcoming speech to him when he returns to the Villa.
For instance, if Ndanusa called back for his CV in order to amend it for the job of the NOC, and he submitted the amended version a week late, then he should be out of the election reckoning of this noble body.
At Nigeria 2009, they did a cutthroat thing. We should not accept that the same people who raided the church could come to the temple for absolution on the eve of judgment.
In the credo of the present government about business no longer being as usual, redemption should no longer be for sale for the highest bidder.
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