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On September 21,
2010, my column titled: ‘God fearing women and men needed’ started
with: ‘Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long
hours of complete darkness, constant danger and safe return doubtful.
Honour and recognition in the event of success’. This was an advert
placed by Ernest Shackleton in the Times, in 1913, asking people to
join in his 1915 Antarctic expedition.

Here in this great
nation at a time like this, it is not only men that are needed. Women,
too, are needed, particularly in sports journalism, to assist in saving
sports in Nigeria. I am, therefore, praying that God, the greatest
sportsman Himself, will raise men and women, competent, credible, bold,
proactive and forward-looking, who will be willing to embark on this
journey with us.

My friend and
colleague, Tayo Balogun, a veteran sports writer, published an article
titled: ‘No sports writer will make heaven’. The write-up was culled
from his book titled: Will Anything Change?

My first reaction
was to immediately reject his submission as regards sports writers not
making heaven. As far as I am concerned, I will make heaven. How could
I go through all the ‘wahala’ of this world, especially in this
wonderful country, and yet not make it to heaven? In fact, I reject it
once more. I don’t know about Tayo himself, or about my editor or any
other sports journalist, but as for me, Paulo, heaven is my eternal
home.

But Tayo’s write-up
is so interesting, that I wish it could be syndicated for publication
in all our national newspapers. He did not just concentrate on sport
journalists. Mention is made of automobile mechanics and lawyers, who
are referred to as leeches and liars respectively. Tayo says a friend
of his once told him that, were he to meet members of the press in
heaven, he would know immediately that he had missed his way or maybe
something had gone drastically wrong. According to Tayo’s friend, those
whose trade it is to set things right, are themselves involved in
turning those things the wrong way.

Like the mechanics
or their lawyer friends, journalists look to be sure candidates for
hell. They lie, prostitute and cheat. Like lawyers, they turn black
into white. So if no journalist will make heaven, it follows that no
sports writer will be spared this horrendous state of nothingness
called hell, in the hereafter because, according to him, the average
Nigerian sports writer is odious.

He is a bad
imitation of the Nigerian on the street. He hankers after ‘brown
envelopes’, not news. That, according to Tayo, is why so many truths
would remain blurred in the mind of sports journalists. That is why
there is always magic in the decision-making process of our sports
policies.

Tayo continues, by
mentioning that sports journalists are not only supposed to reflect the
society in which they find themselves, but must also serve as catalysts
for the needed change, to turn the society around.

He goes on to quote
Effiong Nyong, another journalist in Lagos who, according to Tayo, told
a television audience that maybe the journalist succumbs to undue
monetary influence, because to do otherwise would mean exposing his
family to hunger and deprivation, and so for a long time, sports
writers have remained a laughing stock.

At press
conferences, ‘journalists’ without sponsoring media houses, are seen
scampering for crumbs. They visit the houses of sports policy
formulators to ask for money to buy batteries for radio sets or ask for
money to buy recharge cards. Tayo is not done yet. He goes on to state
that it remains business as usual, crazy and no one cares.

He says: “It is amazing no one dares to bring about a change. Not
the SWAN (Sports Writers Association of Nigeria) that is criminally
corrupt, so skewed, it has always found it easy to foster nincompoops
on itself, as leaders…” Well, what do fellow Nigerians think about
this? Nigerian sports must be saved.