Corruption Will Still Make Nonsense Of The Best Development Plan For Nigeria Football

I congratulate the Honourable Sports Minister, Sunday Dare, for taking a bold step in setting up and inaugurating a committee to draw up a 10-year development plan for the Nigeria Football.

No doubt, the intention of the Minister is applauded, but the end result is likely not going to be different for all other similar committees in the past.

Many sports policies and development plans documents are stockpiled at the ministry wasting away in dust for over two decades. There is virtually no minister who hasn’t come up with one policy framework or the other in the past, but the results are lamentable.

The simple reason for this is nothing other than corruption.

Members of the committee itself cannot claim to be clean people. They are also part of the problems of football in Nigeria making policies and strategic plan to be implemented by corrupt administrators, tell me how it will work. It is an exercise in futility.

I therefore urge the Honourable Minister to do something different. There must be a radical approach to tackle Nigeria football administration problems and it involved stepping on bigger toes even in high-ranking positions in government.

I see a cartel in every administration holding back the progress of our sports in Nigeria of which the present administration is not an exception.

We must put politics aside if we want our football to move forward.

Now you have a committee to chart a way forward for the development of football headed by Galadima and many others who also failed to put it right during their respective times in office.

 We can’t continue in this roundabout way and think we are going to get it right.

Yes, I agree experience is important, but there are experiences that are retrogressive and currently unproductive because time and technology have overtaken the space.

Secondly, the committee is expected to formulate  a 10-year strategic plan for implementation by the highly corrupt football stakeholders in all the federating units of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

This is laughable!

What I mean by radical approach is a system of accountability, transparency, and sanctions where necessary. You don’t need committees.

Nigerians are intelligent and possess adequate professional capacity to run football at various levels, but give them administrators that are corrupt free through a deliberate approach committed to transparency, accountability and professionalism.

Put the Nigeria Football money on the high-tension cable, they will go and pick it. This is how terrible it is.

I wish the Honourable Minister and the committee a successful completion of this latest project, all the same.

God bless Nigeria. God bless our sports.

By Idris Adama, Former NFF Marketing Director