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And we all thought
that football should bring enjoyment – the recent debacle loosely
referred to as the NFF elections draws attention to the less than
attractive side of the game. That it was a flawed process from start to
finish is stating the obvious. England’s Rugby Union had Bloodgate,
Golf had Tigergate, and Formula One had Crashgate, now we have our very
own NFFgate.

The election was
one roller coaster – initially scheduled elections were rightly
postponed only for the NFF to hold them a week later despite court
orders not to do so; Harrison Jalla, President of the National
Association of Nigerian Footballers (NANF) was escorted by police in a
bid to stop the elections and was met by armed police courtesy of the
security team at the NFF; Presidential candidate, Segun Odegbami sent
two written request to FIFA to intervene and the world football
governing body previously swift to act in the wake of the post-World
Cup suspension of all national teams, has been mysteriously struck
dumb. Several candidates pulled out of the elections as a matter of
integrity but votes were still counted for them. What an auspicious
start! There is no gainsaying that new blood is desperately needed in
our football administration. This foundation isn’t shaky, it’s
nonexistent. Nigerians had been hoping for a messiah and here we don’t
even have a John the Baptist. There is simply no recollection of the
NFF doing or achieving much without controversy.

If what we have at
the moment is an illegally elected Board, how do they plan to gain
acceptability? It would appear that is not their primary concern. It is
truly a sad period in the history of our football. Just when one
thought football has reached its nadir of decay, impossibly a new low
rears its head. It can be concluded that the expected shake-up is not
going to happen with this new executive. So it’s business as usual
while we watch helplessly from the sidelines.

Plunging to new depths

It’s not just
football that is in crisis, all our sports have sunk to new depths.
There are very few positive results to report in any aspect. Take the
forthcoming New Delhi Commonwealth Games; preparations are so far below
the radar as to have become invisible. The Games are to be held in
October and there is what we can call a deafening silence surrounding
them.

I’ll share a quote attributed to the president of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria:

“We are taking
steps to ensure successful (sic) outing at the Games but that may not
happen if our top athletes don’t approach the whole issue with the
seriousness it deserves.”

The first take-away
here is that one can actually use a good amount of words without saying
a single thing worthy of note. Mr President, would you care to outline
the steps you are taking? Also, could you explain what you mean by the
‘whole issue?’ The second take-away: if one is in a position of
authority, certain responsibilities come with this and it’s no good
passing the buck. Mr President, how on earth will the preparations of
the AFN be affected by the athletes’ approach? You do your work and
they’ll do theirs. For me, his words sum up the general attitude in
sports administration – a lot of flowery statements to disguise a lack
of specific strategy.

Comparable to the narrator in Robert Frost’s poem, ‘The Road Not
Taken’, who faced a crucial choice at the fork of a road, the Sports
Ministry also needs to make a choice. The figurative forked road
becomes the future of Nigerian sports. There is a need to evaluate the
choices open to the ministry in the quest to improve sports in Nigeria,
act decisively on this and make a difference.