Supervising Minister of Sport, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi
By Duro Ikhazuagbe
Days of corruption in the administration of sports in the country appears numbered as the National Sports Commission (NSC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission, (ICPC), will soon come out with an action plan to end the malaise.
Supervising Minister of Sport, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi hinted at a stakeholders parley on the crisis in Nigeria football in Lagos on Wednesday that already, discussions were at advanced stage on how to curb corruption in the sports sector.
“Already, I have spoken with the Attorney General and Minister of Justice on the issue. In conjunction with the ICPC, we are going to set up a committee on corruption in sports related matters,” observed Abdullahi, who is the substantive Minister of Youth Development.
He insisted that the country can no longer continue to treat corruption in sports “as if it is lateness to work.”
While offering to end the lingering crisis in Nigerian football by taking a dispassionate look into all the grievances of all parties involved, Abdullahi stressed that money allotted to sports must be accounted for judiciously.
“Money cannot be given and questions are not asked how such monies were spent. If we keep carrying on like this, even if you bring people managing the English Premier League here, they will fail because of the system.
The Minister promised not to do anything that will spite the courts that have made pronouncements in some of the football matters before them.
“But we will act to halt this slide of our football fortunes. It cannot be worse than what we are experiencing at the moment when we did not even qualify for the on-going Nations Cup.”
Speaking at the event, President of the Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC), Sani Ndanusa, also revealed that the International Tennis Federation (ITF), has taken the junior championships earlier scheduled to hold in Lagos to Lome, Togo as a result of the activities of the Boko Haram group.
The former sports minister who also appealed to all the warring factions in Nigerian football to give peace a chance insisted that unless we put our house in order, smaller nations in the continent will continue to enjoy what ought to benefit our people.
“Twenty-one countries were supposed to come to Nigeria for the ITF Junior Championships but now we have lost the opportunity to host despite the fact that we have 21 very good courts in the country,” revealed Ndanusa who also doubles as the president of the Nigerian Tennis Federation.