Ahmad
Early last Tuesday morning, I placed a call to Segun Odegbami, ex-international footballer and one of the most respected commentators on Nigerian sports. This was because of a statement from the Kwara State governor, Bukola Saraki that was a serious indictment of those in charge of Nigerian football. “I was in Abuja February 25, when I got a call from (football agent John) Shittu that he and (Glen) Hoddle wanted to see me”, said Bukola Saraki. “When we met, Hoddle complained that he was asked to part with $500,000 out of his $1.5m and that was the only way to do business in Nigeria. I was very upset. He (Hoddle) said some people asked him to quote $1.5million instead of the $900,000 he asked for….By the way why would the PTF of Nigeria Football Federation pay $1.5million when the coach agreed to collect $900,000.”
These allegations prompted my telephone conversation with Segun Odegbami. He confirmed that he took part in the investigation of allegations about the hiring of the new coach, Lars Largerback and there were no issues of controversy. But the allegations from Governor Saraki had followed those from John Shittu. One of the people in the controversy is Taiwo Ogunjobi, who heads NFF’s Technical Panel. Ogunjobi s response was that John Shittu should not be taken seriously by Nigerians, but as a sports writer noted at the weekend, we should take Governor Saraki seriously, and the issue really must be investigated.
Thankfully, the anti-graft agency, the EFCC has now waded into the matter, inviting all concerned to assist in unraveling the truth. Was any coach asked to hike his Claims from $900,000 to $1.5million? If so who did so? We must get to the root of this matter, because Nigerian sports are actually rotten to the core. A notorious process of cronyism has been perfected over the years which scams Nigeria of huge sums and destroy the edifice of sports. We have spoken about this in the past. For years, for example, Amos Adamu has controlled our sports and the jury is out on who has gained most: the man or Nigerian sports. For as long as that notoriously corrupt system is not uprooted, Nigerian sports will continue to suffer poor performances; defection of athletes and similar embarrassments of the past few years. The new issue around the money to employ a coach for our national team is merely a reflection of the rot I am talking about.
Sports corruption is very much like the monumental fraud called the privatization policy of government. From the mid-1980s the Nigerian ruling elite, adopted the neoliberal paradigm with the implementation of Structural Adjustment Policies. One of the central arguments is that “government has no business in business”. So following a regime of devaluation of our national currency, government has been selling national assets to individuals. The ideological platform is that individual capitalists will make these assets perform better. Under the Obasanjo regime, 1999-2007, privatization became both a scandal and a real crime against the Nigerian people. It was as if the regime was cursed in the frenzy with which it went about selling national assets. The most tragic have been the fate of NITEL and Ajaokuta Steel Company, not to forget the manner that Nigeria’s most important media asset, DAILY TIMES was sold controversially.
The most recent episode in the tragedy of privatization is the sale, cancellation of sale, re-bidding and so on, around NITEL. Nigerians used to complain about NITEL and its scandalous operations in the past, and we were right. But bad President on Special Duties and the Presidential Advisory Monitoring Committee. It is looking like there is an answer waiting for a question in this as government in 1998 and by the time Obasanjo came to office, the decision was taken to sell a company that was a strategic national asset. Well, a set of crooks were brought from the Netherlands, who frittered away NITEL funds onshore and off-shore. Today, no NITEL landline works anywhere in. Nigeria, and as the national company was DELIBERATELY destroyed, private companies from elsewhere have taken over the mobile telephony business. NITEL is as dead as a dodo. It is the same way that they have dealt with Ajaokuta Steel Company. The company they first brought in began by stealing equipment from the company and that was followed by some Indian scammers! The company was bled to death and Nigeria’s original plan to kick-start industrialization was taken on the dead-on-arrival ride to the morgue! But the ruling class has remained wedded to the delusion that privatization is the only route to salvation of Nigeria.
What is unfortunate is that there is no citizens’ initiative which questions received orthodoxy even when it is clear that Nigeria is being systematically scammed through privatization as practiced by its unconscionably corrupt ruling class. If you need examples of the evils of the banditry that is Nigerian capitalism, please check the privatization process as well as sports as the example of cronyism and corruption. For how long shall we continue to endure these from our ruling class?
