I am thinking.
Despite all of Nigeria’s huge potentials in sports, success has been served the people only in occasional small doses. The ongoing World Athletics in Tokyo is a good example with the sprinkling of brilliant performances by a handful of gifted athletes. It could easily have been a ‘flood’ if the country had the right systems, structures and administrators in place. The most important are the administrators – the human minds and capital.
The Flawed Process of Sports Elections in Nigeria
The process of elections for administrators into the boards of National Sports Federations will soon take place.
Unfortunately, the exercise shall be another rigmarole. A currently well-entrenched process that has failed and will continue fail, unless something happens to change the situation that appears to be a ‘mission impossible’ for now.
The present system will throw up the same administrators from the failed system, still limited in capacity and unable to guide the Nigerian sports development and administration through the maze of past failures to new grounds and to attain global heights.
The Makurdi Turning Point of 2006
The country, in its shortsightedness, was misled many years ago to discard an old, simple, functional but imperfect process of electing the right leaders for sports federations. Instead the country adopted a new process that presented the ‘Second-Eleven’ from the stock of Nigerian sports administrators.
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That derailment happened almost 20 years ago in Makurdi during the elections for the leadership of the Nigerian Football Association, NFA.
It would take writing a whole book of uncommon drama and political intrigues to capture all that transpired during that entire period leading to ‘Makurdi 2006’ in Nigeria’s football story. A movie will be more apt. It will be a blockbuster!
How Amos Adamu and the Sports Ministry Reshaped the System
Probably, only through such a graphic display as a movie can Nigerians start to understand the enormity of the matter and its genesis, and appreciate the depth of the hole into which the country’s sport has sunk for almost 20 years on the back of the pursuit of personal goals by some actors in the sports field.
In order for Adamu to succeed in his plans to stop Galadima during the election in Makurdi, it required deploying the power of the federal government to amend the existing constitution to expand the electoral field.
The bloated addition to the electoral field check-mated Galadima. The elections were taken away from Kano, Galadima’s base. That ‘killed’ it.
Although, the mission was ‘successful’, it also birthed a by-product, a monstrous new constituency in the firmament that has sustained and now engulfs the entire superstructure of the Nigeria Football Association like an octopus.
The Legacy of Flawed Elections
Disregarding the consequences of their actions then, the puppeteers in the sports ministry adopted that flawed process as a model, extending its application to other sports federations, and spreading the cancerous prescription.
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Since then, elections have become a tug of war, throwing up and harvesting mostly ‘second-eleven’ administrators with plenty of passion and ambition, but short on experience, vision and humility.
Every criticism or new proposition is considered a threat to survival for those enjoying the fallout of that misguided process of intervention by government in Makurdi.
Galadima vs. Adamu – The Struggle for Football’s Sou
The Sports Ministry, under Amos Adamu, sacrificed the legacy it inherited that had lasted more than 3 decades, in order to get rid of Ibrahim Galadima whose main goal was to wrest the levers of football administration from government control, and entrench independence for the NFA in accordance with FIFA statutes.
Although a noble mission, Galadima was also a product and beneficiary of Government’s nomination for his first term in office.
The full story of Ibrahim Galadima’s tenure as Chairman of the NFA, and his struggle to fight against his removal by the same government that appointed him, must be retold one day.
The Unforgiving Politics of Nigerian Football
Amos Adamu’s story, his role and impact after he joined the Sports Ministry and became the most powerful man in Nigerian sports, must also be told for posterity.
The issue was that Galadima became Chairman with Adamu’s support. The ministry did not want him back at the end of his tenure that was considered a ‘failure’ because the Super Eagles failed to qualify for the World Cup.
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Galadima had started reforms, particularly securing ‘independent status’ for the NFA. He wanted to return without government support.
The ensuing fight was rofo rofo. Nigerian Sports development became the ultimate victim.
Second-Tier Administrators Entrench Themselves
‘Second-division’ administrators, not from the best stock in the country, took over power and would not surrender it again without bringing down the entire superstructure. They anchored their achievement to FIFA’s articles, which always favour autonomy over government interference.
That’s the unfortunate price Nigerian football has had to pay.
The Poisoned Legacy of Makurdi 2006
The NFA election in Makurdi opened Pandora’s box and established a poisoned precedent.
Federations terminated the simple, inexpensive, equitable process of electing their leadership, and adopted a long, manipulative, corruption-laden process that perpetuates crisis at every election since 2006.
The Path to Reform and Solutions
Fixing the matter does not require a degree in rocket science. It requires common sense, an objective analysis of Nigeria’s geo-political setup, and a constitution created solely for the good of sport.
The present federations’ constitutions feed individuals who don’t deserve it, while impoverishing sport itself.
The solution is simple: the National Sports Commission must be properly constituted and reinforced with a board of authentic stakeholders.
This will provide a platform for the articulation and discourse on reforms for Nigerian sports development.
