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I am setting aside
the write-up originally meant for today’s column, in order to be
involved in the distraction put in place by FIFA and its cronies in
Nigeria.

I was to react to
those of you who laughed when you read last week, i.e. 5th of October,
2010, that, Nigeria’s Super Eagles – well, that is if the name will not
been changed to “Royal Eagles”, or something along that line – will win
the FIFA World Cup trophy in the year 2018. You are laughing again?
Well, please feel free to do so, but remember, that, it is the one who
laughs last, that laughs best.

We are very
grateful to all of you, who believe that it is absolutely possible. We
thank you for your encouragement so far. We want to appeal to you to
please believe that the “dead and dry bones” of Nigerian Sports will
rise again. The road to 2018 will be rough and bumpy, but Nigeria will
make it by the special grace of God, hard work, resilience and goodwill
of sports loving/patriotic Nigerians. And since we are still in the
Independence “jubilee” anniversary mood, we implore you to please – for
the sake of the future of this great nation, proclaim and prophesy
freedom to Nigerian sports. Say something positive about this great
nation on a daily basis. Don’t give up so easily. Winners don’t quit.
Greatness is for champions.

Winners emerge from
battles, and several of them. This is one of the guiding philosophies
of Save Nigerian Sports Initiative (SANSI). We believe that just as
darkness cannot overcome light and the physical cannot overcome the
spiritual, the enemies of Nigerian sports – especially football will
not succeed in Nigeria.

Please forgive the necessary digression.

The brouhaha we
experienced last week, following the 4-day suspension placed on
Nigeria, by the all-powerful FIFA, was very instructive. Now that the
suspension has been temporarily suspended, by FIFA, Nigerians are
wondering what next.

For us in SANSI, no matter what any person does or says, the truth, like the tiny mustard seed, will prevail.

FIFA has to be
wise. Truth is very bitter for the consumption of those who are
enslaved, to falsehood – albeit, deceit. But whether this group of
people, opposed to telling the truth believe it or not, it is only the
truth will get us to the El Dorado. This is why we wish to very humbly,
but unambiguously counsel as follows:-

1. FIFA should
please respect the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The
NFA or NFF representing FIFA in Nigeria is governed by the laws of this
sovereign nation. Not only that, the NFA or NFF is funded by the
government. There is absolutely no wisdom in trying to insist that the
organisation responsible for the funding of events to the tune of N5
billion has no business monitoring how the event is handled.

2. There are
yet-to-be confirmed reports with issues related to the contracts
awarded for refurbishing some stadiums used for the U-17 FIFA World Cup
finals, hosted by Nigeria in 2009. While we know that it was solely
responsible for the fall-out between Amos Adamu and Sanni Lulu, we find
it rather interesting that any FIFA official would be involved in such
a scam. We will not say more than this for now. FIFA beware.

3. There can never
be meaningful changes, without some degree of pain. So, to all those
who did not see the need for FIFA’s suspension, and those who do not
agree with the self-inflicted suspension by the Presidency, we say – no
problems.

The truth is that
we have missed the opportunity to re-structure once more. Enough of
this FIFA issue please. It is just a necessary distraction anyway.

Congratulations
Nigerians. The glorious days are coming back gradually. With 26 medals
in the kitty already, we have every reason to rejoice and be grateful
to God. Too bad the case of Damilola Osayomi testing positive to banned
substance has reared its ugly head. We just hope it will not affect the
other athletes wearing the green and white colours.

Thank God we were not beaten silly by Guinea. One nil was just okay,
considering the type of old and tired Eagles who represented us in
Conakry. Everything about that match was sour and disgusting. The
gentleman, who was supposed to run the commentary, was such a bore. For
the sake of football, do we still have proficient commentators in this
nation? They should please rise up to such occasion. And for players
like Yobo, Adeleye, Ayila, Ordiah, Enaramo and the one-footed Taiwo, it
is time for a rethink.

A
World Cup hangover continues to linger over several of Africa’s
footballing heavyweights who were humiliated at the weekend in the
early stages of qualifying for the 2012 African Nations Cup finals.

Algeria, Ghana and
Nigeria all paid the price for the uncertainty that has come with
recent coaching changes while Cote d’Ivoire and Cameroon were also
unimpressive as they looked to a new post-World Cup era.

Only hosts South
Africa seem to have kicked on from the tournament they hosted in June
and July, springing to the top of the qualifying group they share with
African champions Egypt.

Algeria’s 2-0
defeat on Sunday away against the lowly ranked Central African Republic
was one of the biggest upsets in Nations Cup qualifying history.

It marked only the
second time the Central African Republic, who rarely enter the
tournament and have only ever played in a single World Cup qualifying
campaign before, had won a competitive international. Their last
success was in 1973.

Algeria now have
just a single point from their opening two 2012 Nations Cup qualifiers
after being held at home by Tanzania last month in another upset
result. It led to the resignation of Coach Rabah Saadane.

The tenure of his
successor Abdel Benchikha could be over after just a single game in
charge with Algerian newspapers speculating on Monday he will be
replaced this week.

“I was shocked with
just how average the Algerian team looked,” Frenchman Jules Accorsi,
the coach of the Central African Republic, told reporters after the
match in Bangui.

Instability

Both Ghana and
Nigeria have yet to appoint new coaches after their World Cup managers
moved on and the instability showed on Sunday. Nigeria’s 1-0 loss in
Guinea was exacerbated by the uncertainty of the status of the game up
until Friday.

Nigeria was
suspended last week by FIFA for political interference in the running
of their football association, leaving the team’s preparations in limbo
until Friday when the ban was temporarily lifted.

Ghana played a
first match since coach Milovan Rajevac departed to a more lucrative
club job in Saudi Arabia and also looked lacklustre in a goalless home
draw with Sudan, a side they had dispatched with some ease both home
and away last year in the qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup finals.

Cameroon’s
qualification chances took a knock on Saturday in a tough group they
share with Senegal and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A first home game
for new coach Javier Clemente ended in a 1-1 draw with the Congolese,
allowing Senegal to go to the top of the group standings.

Cote d’Ivoire continues to battle without the presence of Didier
Drogba, who has taken time off from the national side after the World
Cup. They managed a pedestrian 1-0 win in his absence over Burundi on
Saturday.

The
prized gold medal and the tag as the fastest female sprinter currently
hanging around Damola Osayomi’s neck are now objects of controversy as
she remains provisionally suspended. The Business Administration
graduate of University Of Texas, El Paso has to wait until Wednesday
morning to discover if she will be stripped of her 100m gold medal
after testing positive for the stimulant, methylhexamine.

The situation in
the Nigeria camp as described by the leader of the Nigerian delegation
to the games is that of shock and disappointment.

Elias Usman Gora,
chef de mission of the Nigeria team, told Reuters that he, like others,
remain “shocked and disappointed.” at the development.

“We brought our
athletes here to compete and in the right spirit,” he said. “It is very
unfortunate if the second test also comes out positive.

“We had done out of
competition testing on most of our athletes before coming here, except
a few who joined us directly from the United States and Canada. Osayemi
happens to be one of the few who joined us from the United States.

“She has been a good athlete and had no problems with doping ever. I just don’t know what happened.”

Osayomi explains

Osayomi said
through the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) that the result
stemmed from prescription medicine given to her for a toothache and
that she will contest the results if they are not favourable.

In the event that
she loses her medal, Osayomi has the right to take her case to the
Court of Arbitration for Sport to seek redress.

The panel set up
to investigate the drug case said it will not release its findings
until there is confirmation of the B sample which will only be made
public tomorrow.

Medals chase continues

Despite the drug
scandal, Team Nigeria continued the quest for medals as the women’s
4x400m relay team made up of the quartet of Abugan Folashade, Margaret
Etim, Bukola Agbojuloko and Josephine Ehigie have booked a place in the
today’s final of the relay event.

The quartet will
however have to step up their game if they desire a podium finish.
Their qualification time of 3.35.70mins falls short of a medal finish.
It was the fourth fastest time returned; amongst the eight finalists.

Sadly, Nigeria was
not represented in the male version as the country’s quarter-milers
were all dropped just before the Games owing to poor times returned at
the trials conducted by the AFN.

There was also no
song of victory for Nigeria in the women’s 100m hurdles event final as
the hopes for a medal hit the rocks when the country’s sole
representative in the finals, Seun Adigun, finished in a disappointing
sixth postion.

Adigun, who currently wears the African crown in the same event
after emerging tops at the Africa championships, failed to replicate
her blistering form at the Delhi Games

Mark
Webber, Sebastian Vettel and their Red Bull team have no fear of the
unknown as they lead Formula One into unfamiliar territory after a
dominant one-two win in Japan.

South Korea, with a
new and barely-completed circuit being inspected by the governing body
on Monday and Tuesday, poses a fresh challenge next week but Red Bull
expect some things to stay the same.

“We think that we
can be competitive at all remaining tracks,” team principal Christian
Horner told reporters after Vettel led championship pacesetter Webber
to the chequered flag at Suzuka on Sunday.

“There’s nothing
that we fear in the remaining three races.” Australian Webber increased
his outright lead to 14 points, with Vettel and Ferrari’s Spaniard
Fernando Alonso tied behind him, but it will be his young German team
mate he will be most worried about.

Vettel, dubbed ‘crash happy’ by some of his rivals not so long ago, has revived his challenge and roared back into contention.

Webber has continued to bank the big points with admirable consistency.

Two more similar
one-two finishes would see Vettel and Webber equal on points going into
the season-ending Abu Dhabi race with the constructors’ title in the
bag and a winner-takes-all battle for the drivers’ crown.

“The dream scenario
would be to be able to pull out a big enough gap to all those behind
that it was just down to them on track,” said Horner, whose team are 45
points clear of McLaren. “Whether that is possible or not, who knows?

“There are three other drivers in contention and it’s wrong to write off any of those three.”

Mclaren gloom

McLaren’s champions
Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button would agree with that, even if their
post-race defiance and determination to fight on sounded more like rage
against the dying of the light than true belief.

Hamilton is 28
points off the pace while Button, the reigning champion, is 31 points
behind Webber with the Australian seemingly playing down his rival’s
chances.

“As we’ve seen this year, five of us are capable of winning races,” the Australian said on Sunday.

“Well, four in the
dry. Jenson’s had a few races in the wet conditions but in the dry
conditions it’s been four of us who can win.”

Even if the
Australian drops points, the chances are that Vettel or Alonso will be
poised to cash in just as much as the two Britons.

The British media certainly left Suzuka wondering whether it was all over.

“We go away from
here 28 points behind, 75 points in play and three races to go,” said
McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh, putting on a brave face.

“At least, we hope
it is three races. We are assuming Korea is there and we will do our
best. We’ve got to make sure we are reliable and make sure we get our
new rear wing, new front wing and other bits and pieces and we keep
pushing.” After increasing fears of cancellation, with the final layer
of asphalt laid only last week, the teams and powers-that-be are now
convinced that FIA race director Charlie Whiting will give the Yeongam
circuit the go-ahead.

No teams are
expecting perfect conditions but they will be hoping the track does not
throw up too many problems at a time when consistency is crucial.

Alonso said on
Sunday that he still felt a podium finish in all remaining rounds would
be enough to win him the title but Webber wanted more than that.

“I need to win again in the future,” said the Australian, who left
the circuit in such a hurry that Red Bull replaced him with a cardboard
cut out for their team photograph and victory celebrations. “I’m very
confident I can do that.”

Nigerian
athletes at the ongoing Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, India, have
appealed to the sports minister Ibrahim Bio to return to the Games. The
athletes said they want the minister to come back and give them the
moral and financial support, which had spurred them to produce the best
performance by any Nigerian team since the 1994 Games in Victoria,
Canada.

Bio was in India at the start of the Games but had to return to Nigeria on Friday.

Ndidi Eze a
weightlifter, who could not complete her event because she got injured
said, “Normally, when you are competing for Nigeria and you make a
mistake or get injured, the officials will abuse and insult you, but
this minister (Bio) is not like that. He is always moving from one
venue to the other cheering us.

“Ministers before him will just sit in their hotels, or they will go shopping, but he is always with us,” she added.

“I got the biggest shock of this Games when I was injured and could not complete my event.

“He gave me $500. I
was really touched, not just for the money, but that somebody
appreciated me. We are missing him, let him come back please.”

More than a minister

Weightlifter,
Augustina Nwaokolo, who won the Games’ first gold medal and got $1000
from Bio for her effort, also can’t wait to see the man return.

“We are really missing him,” she said. “To us he is not the minister but our friend. The man is too simple and humble.

“He is always in
the stands with us. The way he was dancing with IOC member Habu Gumel
when I won my medal, one would think he was the one that won the medal.

“After the ceremony, he gave me a thousand dollars, I am very happy,” said Nwaokolo.

Onyeka Azike, who
won a silver medal in weightlifting and was rewarded with $500 by the
minister, prays that Bio will return soon to continue to motivate them.

Those who won medals after Bio left New Delhi are also hoping he returns, to give them gifts as well.

According to Toyin Aluko, Bio’s special assistant, everyday, medallists ask her when the minister will be returning to India.

A female gold medallist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said with proper support, athletes will perform better.

“Our performance
here shows that if government could invest half of the money they
invest on football on other sports, the country will be better off.

“When people
mention Jamaica Usain Bolt comes to mind. Our footballers have failed
the nation, they have not won anything in the last ten years.

“At the last World Cup they got only one point out of nine, what a
shame. I’m not happy that the minister abandoned his friends who are
doing well for football, we will only forgive him if comes back to
Delhi.”

The
Obudu International Mountain Race, which is now in its sixth year,
comes up on November 27 at the Obudu Ranch Resort. And with a total
prize money of $278,000 as well as a star prize of $50,000 for the
respective winners of the men’s and women’s races, the event remains
the highest paying mountain running event in the world.

$15,000 is also set
aside for the respective winners of the men’s and women’s team races –
the African Nations Mountain Running Championship.

The men’s team
event was first staged at last year’s edition but the women’s team race
will be making its debut at this year’s edition, which is part of the
reason why Patrick Ugbe, the chief press secretary to the Cross River
state governor Liyel Imoke, said this year’s race will be the biggest
and the best ever organised in the history of the competition. Ugbe
also said the Cross River state government, organisers of the annual
Obudu International Mountain Race, was committed towards the successful
staging of this year’s event.

Bigger and better

“This year we are
having a three-in-one race,” said Ugbe. “Last year it was a two-in-one
race following the staging of the African Nations Championships for men
alongside the annual Obudu International race.

“This year, the
African Nations Mountain running championships (for women) will make
its debut,” revealed Ugbe, who also serves as the media chief for the
race.

The Obudu
international mountain race enjoys tremendous support from the African
Athletics Confederation(CAA), the World Mountain Running Association
(WMRA), and the International Association of Athletics Federations
(IAAF).

The race covers a
distance of 11 kilometres uphill to an altitude of 1,575 metres above
sea level, taking competitors to one of the finest tourist destinations
in the world, the Obudu Mountain Resort.

Mercy Nku honoured
Meanwhile, former African 100 metres champion, Mercy Nku topped the
list of 50 distinguished Cross River indigenes recently honoured by the
state governor Imoke on the occasion of Nigeria’s golden jubilee
celebrations.

Nku was crowned Africa’s fastest woman in 1999 at the 7th All
African Games in Johannesburg, South Africa but had four years earlier
at the 1995 African Junior Championships in Bouake, Cote d’Ivoire, won
four gold medals to make history as the only Nigerian female athlete to
accomplish such a feat.

World number one
Rafa Nadal overpowered Frenchman Gael Monfils 6-1 7-5 to win the Japan
Open on Sunday, capping a week of “Nadal Fever” in Tokyo.

It was the
Spaniard’s seventh title of the year and improved his tour-best record
to 66-8 after a flawless match in which Monfils failed to force a
single break point.

“I want to finish
the season well and winning titles is a perfect way to finish,” Nadal
told reporters. “It’s difficult to keep winning. I have to enjoy these
moments because you never know when they will end.

“I’m going to try
to keep it going in Shanghai (next week) and the rest of the season and
in London (ATP Tour Finals), the most difficult tournament for me.

“Gael is a great
player. He beat me in 2009 and we had a tough match at the U.S. Open
the same year. But I played really well today.”

Nadal bounced onto
the court like a prize-fighter and quickly had fifth seed Monfils on
the ropes with some brutal hitting from the baseline.

He wrapped up the
first set with a ferocious forehand down the line but Monfils, who
survived a fright when he took an early tumble and turned his ankle,
raised his game in the second.

The Frenchman’s
extra energy gave the match its highlight point in the 10th game when
he scrambled to return two overheads from Nadal.

Narrow escape

Monfils charged the
net after clawing back the second and dived in front of Nadal, whose
third smash narrowly missed giving Monfils a sore backside, after which
the two men touched hands.

Luck deserted
Monfils in the next game, a net cord giving Nadal break point and the
Spaniard nosed ahead 6-5 when a sliced backhand return floated past
Monfils and landed flush on the line.

Nadal delivered the
knockout punch in the next game, a big serve to the body ending the
match and giving this year’s triple grand slam champion a 43rd career
title.

He celebrated by striking a gunslinger’s pose as a packed crowd of 10,000 in Tokyo erupted in cheers.

Nadal, a nine-time grand slam winner, pocketed $260,000 for winning on his debut in Japan.

The end of the
match triggered a stampede for Nadal’s autographs and it took him 20
minutes to leave the court as he signed everything from baseball caps
to teddy bears.

“I think Rafa likes my type of game and I didn’t find a solution to
give him any trouble,” Monfils said. “Rafa is so tough to play
against.”

No one can really tell who will win the 2010 Formula 1 season at the moment – it is very close.

With three races
remaining, the season is turning out to be the most unpredictable in
recent times. Five drivers – Mark Webber, Fernando Alonso, Lewis
Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button are ranked one to five
with 31 points separating the drivers.

At a point in the
season, it seemed that Hamilton was ready to run away with the title
but three crashes in three races have downplayed that enthusiasm. Now
it is the turn of Red Bull-Renault, who have staged a charge to the
forefront and they proved they were the ones that had the energy
towards the straight.

Sebastien Vettel and Mark Weber controlled the Japan race and came in first and second.

Changing times

Race leader, Webber understands that the dynamics of the leader-board can change even with three races to go.

“Two weeks ago it
was Lewis Hamilton, and then it was Fernando (Alonso). It’s chopping
and changing, but the most important thing is that the gap is going the
right way. I need to keep it like that.”

The new system
awards 25 points to the race winner and 18, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 and
1 points for the second to the tenth positions respectively. An earlier
tweak to the system would have awarded 25 points to first place and 20
to second, but further consideration by both F1 and World Rally
Championship (WRC) opted instead to give race winners a wider point
margin than second place in a bid to encourage drivers to push for the
win instead of taking a calculated second place points finish.

As it stands there are still 75 points up for grabs.

The
2010 Milo Secondary Schools Basketball Championship was concluded at
the weekend with Benue’s Saint Joseph Secondary School emerging
victorious in the boys event, and Delta’s Asaba Girls Grammar School in
the girls category.

The girls from Asaba had on Friday defeated Kwara’s Dalex Royal College to emerge winners in the girls event.

Twenty-four hours
later, on Saturday, it was the turn of the boys from Benue state to
etch their names in the record books as they defeated former champions,
Ahmaddiya College, Kano, 76-63 mostly through the efforts of the trio
of John Ogwuche, Simeone Tamen and Abeda Phillips.

For their efforts,
the winners of both the boys and girls events were each given one
hundred and fifty thousand naira to go along with the winners’ trophies.

Speaking after
Saturday’s final, the Managing Director, Nestle Nigeria Plc, Martins
Woolnough, said the tournament has become more competitive for all
participating schools while also adding value to the game at the
grassroots level with over four thousand schools registered for this
year’s championship.

Woolnough also
disclosed that Nestle delved into basketball because of the country’s
enormous potential. He said it will be sad if the company fails to give
the country’s youths a lift in a sport he believes they have the
ability to become future champions in.

Woolnough advised
the youth to remain focused on doing their best at all times and also
pay attention to their education, which he regards as a springboard to
becoming future champions. He added that the company has a good
relationship with the Nigeria Basketball Federation to regenerate the
country’s basketball at the grassroots level.

Yearly improvement

For the Brand
Manager of Milo, Femi Akintola, the quality of play by the teams proves
that there has been improvements in the yearly championship.

He however expressed satisfaction with the organisation of this year’s championship, which is the 12th edition.

Akintola also said
he was hopeful that standout players from the championship will attract
the attention of international scouts and go on to feature in the
biggest basketball league in the world, the American NBA.

According to him,
Milo has not only provided a befitting foundation for the growth of the
sports at the grassroots level but has also paved way for the country’s
young players to qualify to play for the national teams.

Former Super Eagles goalkeeper and captain, Peter Rufai, who was at
the event, commended the organisers for adding value to Nigerian
basketball. Rufai added that the country’s sports administrators, as
well as other corporate bodies should endeavour to focus on
developmental sports programmes in order to build a virile future for
Nigerian athletes.

Once
again, we find ourselves in a mess. We are becoming a people inured to
crises. It seems Nigerian football is fated to convulsions, which is
gradually draining it of its essence.

Last Monday, the
much anticipated ban from world football governing body, FIFA finally
came. For any serious observer of events since President Goodluck
Jonathan announced the withdrawal of Nigerian national teams from
international competition for two years and later rescinded the
decision, it was clear there was going to be a run-in with FIFA.

And this is not
because Nigeria is engaged in a serial infraction of global football
rules but simply because Sepp Blatter and his foot soldiers in Nigeria
have some designs on Nigerian football, which apparently, from the
manner they are going about the whole affair, is unseemly to say the
least.

As the title of
this piece suggests, Nigerians know that even though the ban clamped on
Nigeria last Monday came from FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich, the hands
that actually wrought the scheme, were Nigerian.

There are people in
this country feeding fat off the slender and fragile frame of Nigerian
football. They sense that with developments on the football scene in
the last few weeks, they are in danger of not only being unmasked but
that they are actually in danger of being made to pay for their sins
against the game in Nigeria.

These developments,
which have led to the arraignment of former football chiefs for their
financial recklessness, and a Federal High Court rightfully declaring
an election – that ought not have held in the first place – illegal,
have struck fear in them. They know that if the momentum is sustained,
it is finished for them; that their caper will come to an end.

And so, to remain
relevant they will do anything including making their country the
laughing stock of the international community. They will, like the
biblical Samson, pull down the entire structure of Nigerian football on
everyone including themselves if they cannot have their way.

Yet, these men
claim to love Nigerian football. They claim that they love their
country. How can someone love his country and repeatedly conspire
against it with power drunk foreign nationals? How can you love
football and then frustrate its growth at every turn?

These are questions I am sure even they will find very difficult to answer for the simple reason that it is not possible.

What we face at the
moment is something far more complex than people think. For me, the
present crisis goes beyond the nebulous FIFA concept of interference of
third parties in the affairs of a football federation. It goes beyond
the debate about whether Harrison Jalla of the National Association of
Nigerian Footballers should have gone to a Nigerian court or the Court
of Arbitration of Sports in Switzerland in order to force the
leadership of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), to do what is
fitting and proper.

The present
conflict is really about doing the right, that is, what is just and
equitable. We must always remind ourselves that no matter how modern or
sophisticated the human community has become, it should always be
guided in its conduct by the demands of justice. Without this, society
relapses into a Hobbesian state of anarchy. As many of us well know,
the present conflict in the Niger Delta for instance, is the product of
several decades of injustice suffered by the people of the area.

Government as sponsor of football

Speaking of
interference, can Blatter and his lieutenants in Switzerland seriously
claim not to be aware that in Nigeria, government is practically the
sole sponsor of football? Can they look us in the eye and say they are
ignorant of the fact that all the football clubs in the Nigerian
football league are bankrolled by the various state governments?

If they are not
aware, has their henchman in Nigeria, Amos Adamu not told them? Has
Adamu not let them know (if they want to claim ignorance) that in the
four years between the 2006 World Cup in Germany and this year’s
edition in South Africa, the Nigerian government has spent more than
two billion naira on the Super Eagles alone?

When the Eagles
were stranded in London just days to the World Cup after the NFF
leadership bungled a simple assignment of providing a befitting
aircraft to airlift the national team to South Africa,

did their
representative in Nigeria not tell them that it was the Nigerian
government that sent a plane from Nigeria to London to airlift the
squad to South Africa?

How can FIFA
seriously consider the Nigerian government a third party when it is
almost single-handedly bankrolling football in Nigeria? It beats my
imagination. Seriously does Blatter want us to know he is ignorant of
all these issues?

When the itinerant
FIFA President came to Nigeria last year and was hobnobbing with
Nigerian leaders did he not discover where the real locus of control of
Nigerian football lay? Of course not being blind and daft he would have
seen and understood these things. So, why does he persist in the folly
of threatening and then banning Nigeria for governmental interference
in Nigerian football? Does government, which spends tax payers’ funds
on football, not have a right to know how such money is spent?

What kind of
administrator is Blatter? Does he go through FIFA’s books or is he so
reckless as to spend without auditing the body’s accounts? Does he have
a responsibility to the sponsors who bankroll FIFA’s many activities
and does he consider them third parties when it comes to accounting for
every dollar he has received from them?

Really, Blatter
needs to get serious and find genuine ways of addressing the issue of
how member federations are funded. More importantly, he needs to take
serious interest in what the leadership of these federations do with
funds that are made available to them.

FIFA has a code of ethics, which it says should regulate the conduct of its members. The preamble to the code says:

“FIFA bears a special responsibility to safeguard the integrity and reputation of football worldwide.

FIFA is constantly
striving to protect the image of football, and especially that of FIFA,
from jeopardy or harm as a result of immoral or unethical methods and
practices. In this connection, the following Code has been passed.”

One of the articles
in the code says: Officials may not abuse their position as part of
their function in any way, especially to take advantage of their
function for private aims or gains.

Except Blatter has
been living on the moon, he cannot honestly tell us that he has not
been informed that Nigerian football is now like a defenceless lass
that is being raped repeatedly by lascivious men old enough to be her
father.

When Segun Odegbami wrote to FIFA, in June and later in August this
year, intimating the body of how Sani Lulu, NFF President at the time,
had manipulated the federation’s statutes for personal gain, did we
hear one word from FIFA? Again in August when a properly constituted
court ordered that there should be no elections until Jalla’s case had
been fully determined, did not the FIFA official sent to monitor the
election encourage Aminu Maigari and his cronies to flout the order?