Ngerem wants sports commission restructured
For the National
Sports Commission (NSC) to work as effectively as possible, there is
the need to overhaul it completely, says Dan Ngerem, former president
of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria.
Ngerem, speaking
about the state of sports in the last decade, said the chairman of the
commission should not be a political appointee.
“The NSC structure
itself is faulty. It should have a board and a chairman who hold office
for a fixed term unlike the situation we have now that the ministers
just come and go at any time”.
He also called on
the National Assembly to quickly pass the NSC Act so as to make the NSC
a legal entity appropriating money for a body that is not known to law
is unacceptable. The NSC must be backed by law”.
Public-private partnership
The former AFN president said there is need to make sports administration a partnership between the public and private sector.
“Government should
allow sports to thrive on its own. It is misleading and mischievous for
people to think that sports will die in Nigeria without government
funding. A few years ago we had a public -private partnership
arrangement, that’s talking about the Team Nigeria.
They killed that
programme and did not put any replacement in its place. We must go back
to it. The private sector is willing to inject money into sports but is
being held back by the lack of accountability and transparency of our
sports administrators,” Ngerem said.
On Nigeria’s declining fortunes in sports, Ngerem said one of the ways of arresting the slide is by returning to the grassroots.
“We must go back to school sports where values of discipline and
commitment would be inculcated in our children at an early age. This
will help them grow up to become thoroughbred professionals who will do
what is required to put Nigeria at the forefront of the global sporting
community,” he said.
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