Dalung has become anti-Sports Minister ON NOVEMBER 24,
Mr Solomon Dalung, has once again, proved his
critics right
in seeing him as an unfit person to head our Sports Ministry at this stage of
our development.
From poor handling of the supremacy contest in the Nigerian
Football Federation (NFF) between its President, Amaju Pinnick and his
challenger, Chris Giwa, to the utter neglect of our Olympic team in Rio 2016,
Dalung has reportedly courted another controversy by advising President
Muhammadu Buhari not to approve Nigeria’s participation in the football World
Cup competition coming up in Russia in 2018.
According reports, Dalung justified his advice on the premise
that Nigeria was “too hungry” to participate in the games which it might not
win. This latest blunder from a man given the mantle to take our sports to a
higher level leaves many astonished Nigerians wondering whether this man has
come to build or destroy our sports.
Does he really understand why we have a Sports Ministry? Does
he know what sports, especially football, means to Nigerians? Is he the only
Nigerian that does not know that it is only during major international football
championships (of which the World Cup is the ultimate) that Nigerians forget
their infamous ethno-religious, political and sectional divisions and act as
one? Granted, Nigeria is in a crippling recession.
But the situation in
Buhari’s first time as a military leader in 1985 was even worse, as there was
severe shortage of essential commodities in our markets, stores and
supermarkets, yet we successfully sponsored the first batch of Golden Eaglets
to win Nigerian’s first universal soccer trophy in China.
Besides the psychological boost football offers to the vast
generality of Nigerians, it is also a great international image booster; a
leveller in that smaller nations that are big in sports (such as Kenya,
Ethiopia and Jamaica in athletics) rub shoulders with giants like the USA,
Russia and China.
This takes them out of obscurity to international reckoning.
Beyond these is the fact that sport (football in particular) has become great
business, not only for the talented youth who earn stupendously along with
their worldwide fame, but also for the nations that have developed their sports
infrastructure.
That is Nigeria’s aspiration, which is why we have a Sports
Ministry. We are convinced that President Buhari, who is a lover of football,
will not succumb to this misguided and unpatriotic advice from a Minister who,
clearly, has no business holding the Sports portfolio.
With Nigeria already established in a pole position to
qualify from our Africa group, any attempt to pull us out of the Russia World
Cup could trigger a major citizen revolt. We reject Dalung’s opinion and urge
the Federal Government to give the Super Eagles its unalloyed support to
qualify and participate in the World Cup competition in Russia in 2018.
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