By Ikeddy Isiguzo
Have you heard the latest claims that a flawed National Sports Commission is better than a Ministry of Sports? There are no limits to ends we travel to justify illegalities, absurdities, and a tending national culture of excellence in doing things badly.
The national propensity to do things illegally is readily available to those who dare match their fancy with action.
Welcome to the National Sports Commission, NSC, which has been set up without a law. A lawless organisation has been granted access to federal funds approved for the Federal Ministry of Sports. Everyone in the National Assembly knows about this illegality, but would not say anything.
Who set up the Commission without a law? President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has just done that. The army of clappers has filled the air with shouts of joy for the new impetus for sports though the ruse is obvious.
How are appointments to NSC made? What qualifies the appointees? Under what law would they be held responsible for acting on behalf of Nigerians?
When the NSC Chairman was appointed, I congratulated him. I even called him on phone. I apologise for my mistake. The law should have been in place before his appointment.
The Ministry running a few more months, for the NSC law to be sorted out, would not have done eternal damage to our sports. Nobody knows what the current contraption is meant to achieve.
Debates about such a Commission were on when days ago the President firmed up the contraption with the appointment of the Director-General of NSC. Both appointments are illegal because there is no NSC. Could the confusion be the administration’s way of prioritising the unimportance of sports?
Kenya is exploring the 160-page African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA, to “expand its sports industry”. A top government official announced that, “By reducing trade barriers, we can encourage cross-border collaboration, creating more platforms for Kenyan athletes, sports organisations, and even fans to engage with their counterparts across Africa.’’
Can illegal organisations like NSC be part of AfCFTA? Unlikely.
The President cannot pronounce NSC into existence. A law is needed. Federal funds cannot be expended by people unknown to the law. There should be a limit to our lawlessness. Or should there be?
An organisation called the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, has been illegally running Nigeria’s football for 20 years. Some people got ambitious changed the name from Nigeria Football Association solely for them to determine what to do with Nigeria’s football and its resources. They manage federal funds that are appropriated for Nigeria Football Association, which according to them does not exist. They claim they are a private organisation.
Imagine a private organisation that spends billions of public funds without responsibility or accountability to anyone. NFF takes public funds, gets funding from CAF, FIFA and sponsors. Any suggestions that NFF should be accountable to Nigerians, whose money it spends, are met with wooly assertions that FIFA finds accountability offensive.
Our football federation must be different from FIFA and CAF that swept their corruption officials away. Are the other African countries that are cleaning up their federations not members of FIFA and CAF?
At a joint public hearing of the Senate and House of Representatives Sports Committees in 2010, conversations veered to corruption in football. I accused both Committees of being responsible for the corruption. My point was that the Committees supported the corruption by approving money for a legal body NFA, and handing it to an illegal body, NFF, to spend, knowing fully well that they would not ask an illegal body to account.
Everyone appeared stunned. You would think a mistake had been unearthed. NFF still spends approvals made for NFA.
There is no end to the illegalities. The new NSC is merely joining the ride. There may be other illegal Commissions in other sectors of our polity but they are not enough excuse to promote illegalities with pomp.
