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Congratulations
Taoreed on being appointed as Sports minister in Nigeria. “I rejoice
for you and I rejoice for myself”. I rejoice, because, for the first
time in the history of sports administration in Nigeria, we have an
astute politician cum sports technocrat, who has been eager to see
positive changes in sports administration named a minister of sports. I
remember very vividly, our last discussion on this issue, when we met
in Abuja a few years ago. You are now positioned to actualise some of
those dreams. Let no one deceive you, you don’t need a decade or four
years to institutionalise some aspects of sports management in Nigeria.
You know the terrain very well and I guess that with both eyes closed,
you should be able to navigate your way – politically and
professionally, around the cabal, seemingly, in charge of sports in
Nigeria today.

Yes, Hon Sports
Minister and Chairman of the National Sports Commission, you can make a
difference within the next couple of months, if you strategically avoid
the two sides of the coin and concentrate on the edge. This is what
most administrators don’t take into consideration in this part of the
world. Your predecessor Bio (the fire-brand minister), looked at the
other side of the coin and almost slipped. He was just one lucky man.
And you are extra lucky it seems, because I am sure Mr “Fix-it” will
not be able to fix you up the way your predecessors – apart from Bio
and late Mark Aku, were fixed up.

But then, you will
have to watch your steps with the coterie of professional charlatans
and hypocrites in your commission and ministry.

The marriage
between EDUCATION and SPORTS should also be a priority to you. It
should be said that as the first Physical and Health Education Ph.D
holder and former Education Commissioner, plus indefatigable grassroots
politician, you have the pedigree to illuminate the darkness that has
engulfed Nigerian sports. You should embark on the process immediately
and it sincerely does not matter whether you will be able to complete
it or not. It will be on record that Taoreed Adedoja laid the
foundation and for all I care, you never can tell if you will be the
one to continue after May 2011.

Please leave
football matters alone for now. As far as I am concerned, it will take
the divine intervention to rescue the NFF or NFA from the looming
disaster, the cabal managing our football are either ignorantly or
intentionally, planning. Our elders say “…when the tortoise is
heading on a senseless journey and the tortoise is asked when it will
be wise in order to come back home, the tortoise will respond – ‘not
until I have been disgraced’…”

Football crisis

I have the mandate
of the Creator of the Heavens and the earth, to say the truth, the
entire truth, and nothing but the truth. And a truth is absolutely
clear. The way and manner football is currently being administered in
Nigeria, is leading the “football ship”, slowly but steadily towards
the rock.

Yes, Hon. Minister,
you should look at other sports like Tennis, Table Tennis and Boxing.
These sports have been kidnapped by those I refer to as ‘prostitutes
and perambulators’. These sports have no bottom-up pyramids that will
ensure functional grassroots participation, needed to guarantee career
line for millions of Nigerian children. All we hear and see are
fruitless competitions, either politically motivated or designed to
line the pockets of some so-called sports developers.

Take tennis for
example, the annual Governor’s cup tournament that holds in Lagos has
been on for ten years and only one Nigerian player, Sule Ladipo has
made the country proud, and that was during the early editions of the
international tournament.

Ten years on, with
millions of tax payers’ monies, we have no records to prove that tennis
is developing in Nigeria. There are about 20 standard tennis courts in
Nigeria today but the questions are: – Are these courts meant for
Society Tennis or for the development of the potentials we have in
abundance in Nigeria?

Who are the
trainers or coaches handling grassroots training programmes in Nigeria?
How many trainers/coaches, apart from Coach Rotimi Akinloye, are
recognised by the International Tennis Federation? What are the roles
of Sadiq Abdullahi, acclaimed to be the tennis ambassador of this great
nation, in grassroots tennis development? Is there any programme for
tennis development in our schools and by schools I mean from primary to
our tertiary institutions?

I wonder if
Nigerians know that the erstwhile 1st Deputy President of the World
Table Tennis Confederation is a Nigerian. Not only that, the immediate
past Secretary- General of the NOC, Olabanji Oladapo is also a Table
Tennis man. Meanwhile, we were disgraced at the last Commonwealth Games
in India.

But
congratulations once again, Minister. One thing you can be sure of is
our prayers and professional support. Please consider this column as a
very friendly platform for those of us dedicated to saving Nigerian
sports.

To all our readers, we say compliments of this awesome season. May
the reason of the season manifest in your lives, homes, businesses and
in Nigerian sports. Please remember to appreciate God for keeping us
till this day and continue to pray that all the trees God has not
planted in Nigerian sports, should be uprooted, speedily. Please say
Amen