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These are not the
best of times for Amos Adamu, Nigeria’s suspended member of the FIFA
executive board. A highly decorated sports administrator, Adamu is the
current president of the West African Football Union (WAFU), and
executive council member of the Confederation of African Football. He
was the pioneer director of sports development in the Ministry of
Sports in 1991, CEO of the 8th All Africa Games in Abuja, and a former
director general of the National Sports Commission. A doctoral degree
holder in physical education, he has taught sports and practised it at
the highest levels.

Adamu’s domineering
presence in sports has been his strength and weakness. Over the years,
he has dispensed many favours and has built a coterie of admirers in
high places. In many quarters it is settled judgment that being in
Adamu’s good books is the beginning of wisdom. On the other hand his
success has also antagonised many forces who swear that he is the
author and finisher of all that is wrong with Nigerian sports, football
especially.

Obviously, the
truth oscillates between the two opposing ends. What is indisputable is
that sports cannot be discussed in today’s Nigeria without devoting
more than casual attention to Adamu’s role. At 58, Adamu is a director
in Nigeria’s civil service, and two years away from retiring peacefully
to Zuru or Ogbomoso, probably to write a best seller on his days on the
sporting turf.

Suddenly, the dream
of a peaceful retirement is threatened by some pestering newsmongers.
Operating under the credo that they are watchdogs of society, some
reporters from The Sunday Times of London hatched a plot to entrap.
Adamu. Claiming to be lobbyists for a consortium of American
businessmen anxious to host the World Cup in the United States in 2018,
they asked Adamu if he was ready to play ball and cast his influential
FIFA board vote for their clients.

Unbeknownst to him,
the Times journalists were secretly taping their conversations. When
they aired a clip from their recordings on the BBC on 17 October,
someone resembling Adamu reportedly asked for $800, 000 to build four
artificial pitches in Nigeria as consideration for the vote. Now, in
this age of digital imaging and electronic manipulation, anything is
possible and I am not suggesting that the distinguished. Adamu is
guilty. It remains an allegation, which must be proven beyond
reasonable doubt to convict Adamu of wrongdoing in FIFA’s court, even
if not in that of public opinion.

FIFA, anxious to
protect its reputation, has already asked Adamu and co-accused, Reynald
Temarii, president of Oceania Football Confederation, to step aside
pending the full investigation of the charge. FIFA president, Sepp
Blatter has already dubbed the development a “sad day for football; a
sad day in life” adding ominously, “you can’t always have sunny days”.

I have heard the
lawyers disclaim the purported move by the journalists as an entrapment
to seduce people into doing what they would otherwise not do. I have
heard concerns expressed about the methods of journalistic inquiry as
to whether in the guise of exposing misconduct, journalists are not
themselves embracing unethical means. I have also heard people berate
the Nigerian press for not going the extra mile like the Times (that is
if what they published was true) to unearth misconduct To all those
critics, I refer them to the Code of ethics of Nigerian Journalists.
Adopted March 20, 1998, it contains 15 articles. The relevant ones are
articles 10 (Access to Information), and 3b (Privacy). While the former
enjoins journalists to “employ open and honest means in the gathering
of information” it approves “exceptional methods only when the public
interest is at stake”.

Under article 3,
while approving respect for the privacy of individuals it sanctions
invading it where the public interest is affected. It justifies
publishing such information on grounds of exposing crime or serious
misdemeanour, antisocial conduct, protecting public health, morality
and safety etc. Read together, the press is expected to employ
exceptional information gathering methods where it is in the public
interest so to do. It follows therefore that what the Times of London
has done is justifiable even by our rules if the intention is to expose
fraud or absence of fairness in FIFA’s bidding process for the
selection of host countries.

Such a course of
action is expensive, dangerous and to be employed sparingly and
everyone knows Nigerian media houses are not the most buoyant. It is
not true that Nigerian journalists have not been daring. Idowu Sobowale
as a reporter in the 60s had to patronise a native doctor to expose his
thriving, fraudulent activities on the pages of the Nigerian Sunday
Times. Maxim Uzoatu and Ndubuise Okwechime had to go underground to
report a crime syndicate for Thisweek in the late 80s.

Occasionally, these
days, one comes across some investigative articles, written by
enterprising reporters. But it is true that the general fare is run of
the mill spot reporting, punctuated by “the President said,” the
“Senate speaker opined” and “the dignitaries at the event included….”

So, while awaiting
FIFA’s final verdict on the Sunday Times’ expose, we wish Amos Adamu
well, as we wish Nigeria and journalism renaissance.