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Only mischievous
elements among us will say that Tayo Balogun’s assessment of sports
reporters in this great nation as being inept, corrupt and lazy, is
empty talk or mere grandiose language. For me, and I believe many other
proactive, forward-looking, committed and God-fearing sports writers
with me, Mr Balogun’s assertions, graphically spelt out on this column
last week, constitute a revelation that requires very urgent action to
save Nigerian sports.

It is also a
clarion call to all sports-loving Nigerians to please team up with us
to initiate effective strategies that will eventually bring some degree
of sanity to sports journalism in Nigeria. We cannot and must not allow
sports reporting to continue like this. We must not continue to deceive
ourselves ‑ or allow a bunch of nincompoops, who have absolutely no
regard for decency, decorum or standard, to deceive us. Fellow
sports-loving Nigerians, it is high time we told them: Enough of idiocy
and shenanigans!

Samson Kabian,
FIFA’s football development officer, visited Nigeria’s NFA, sorry NFF,
in January, 2011, and saw the confusion Nigerian sports writers have
let take root in this country. Like frogs in the kettle, Nigerians have
been mischievously indoctrinated into swallowing such confusion and
deceit hook, line, and sinker. We have been made to understand,
however, that, those who are assumed to be in charge of football
administration in Nigeria at present are known as the NFA when they
desperately need their own portion of the ‘national cake’ and become
NFF when they engage in sponsorship deals or shameless trips like the
ill-fated Obama International Football Competition. Nigerian sports
writers are pretending that all is well with football administration,
or some are absolutely ignorant of this situation. What a shame! What a
travesty! Please forgive the digression.

Anyway, Samson
Kabian, was at the NF(F)(A) ‑ please feel free to take your choice ‑
and since we are in the middle of the democratic process called
elections, you are free to vote for whichever you consider worthy for
Nigeria (NFA i.e. ‘No Fruitful Agenda’, or NFF i.e. ‘No Fruitful
Foundation’) parties of Nigeria. Let me warn that it will be very
dangerous for you to ‘siddon look’ o. You do that at the detriment of
the present and future of Nigerian sports. Oh blimey! I digressed again.

Okay. So Samson
Kabian visited the Glass House, where he had a meeting with the
executive committee of the body governing football in Nigeria. During
this meeting, I was exclusively and authoritatively informed that Mr
Kabian bared his mind on the state of grassroots football development
in Nigeria. Mr Kabian was said to have told Aminu Maigari and his team
that countries like Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire are on their fourth level
of football development projects, while a Country like Cape Verde is on
its fifth, but our beloved great nation, Nigeria, is still on the first
project, which has not even been absolutely concluded! Mr Kabian was
reported to have told Mr Maigari and those present at the meeting that
“…you are lagging behind schedule and should be benefiting more…”
This comment made by Mr Kabian, whether we believe it or not, is the
true state of grassroots sports development in Nigeria. Was this
extensively reported on the pages of Nigerian newspapers? NO! Were
there no members of the Sports Writers’ Association of Nigeria (SWAN)
at that meeting? They were there, but we have it on good authority that
“efforts” were made by members of the executive body governing our
football to “kill” the story. Hence it was deemed “not fit” for the
consumption of fellow Nigerians. Brown envelopes were distributed and
that was the end of the issue. Business should continue as usual. After
all, who cares whether football develops in Nigeria or not. In as much
as we are able to beat Ethiopia and Kenya and Sierra Leone, that is
enough. Any form of developmental process can be forever labelled “Keep
In View”. The mouths of busybodies like Mr Kabian should be stuffed
with some naira, no, dollar notes, to keep them quiet. What is his
business with grassroots football development anyway?

Fellow Nigerians,
this is just a tip of the iceberg on the current state of sports
journalism in Nigeria. This is why there is urgent need for us to pray
that “…every tree (in this case, sports journalist), not planted by
God” in Nigerian sports should be uprooted. This is one of the ways we
can all join hands to save Nigerian sports.