Being in Abuja prior to the opening ceremony of the U-17 World Cup has indeed opened my eyes to the extent of corruption in Nigeria and I now understand the real meaning of the "fire brigade approach".
I truly wonder if FIFA will ever give Nigeria a chance to host any tournament of such magnitude again. If it were to happen, it will not be anytime soon.
Looting galore
First things first. There is little or no publicity nationwide on the World Cup. At some point, on Monday to be precise, I heard that the Minister of Sports was ready to pay any amount for publicity.
I mean just five days to the opening ceremony and next thing they say is there is no money! It is so sad when Nigerians hear of things like how someone got a contract from the local organising committee to supply brooms, biscuits and water for N400 million.
Another contractor I heard got a job for N300 million and it was executed with under N15 million.
The truth is, I would be happy if I were in the shoes of those who are smiling to the bank with hundreds of millions, but my conscience would never let me not do it right. Take Governor Fashola for example, nobody has the right to say anything about him because we can all see what he has done in Lagos. He has made a difference in Lagos State in the last two years and I am almost certain that he will be there for the next six years.
I have been in and out of the local organising committee office in Abuja in the last eight days and I have come to the conclusion that most of these guys do not have the interest of this nation at heart.
Vanishing act
As at last week Thursday, during the committee meeting with all the sub-seats of each state, they all complained that they needed money and that most of the money they had used to prepare for the World Cup came from their respective state governors. According to a certain sub-seat member, there was supposed to be a balance of N3.9 billion from theN9 billion that was approved for hosting the World Cup. He said it came as a shock because they were not informed of how and when the N5.1 billion was spent.
According to him, they agreed to meet again on Tuesday to get the balance of the money for each host state. Lo and behold, in less than one week, the N3.9 billion disappeared with only N70 million left in the account. It was chaotic to say the least and they threatened to sabotage the competition. The meeting that started with opening prayers ended with the sub-seats members storming out of the meeting venue.
My source said they were stunned because all the states that are hosting were not fully prepared and the FIFA Vice president Jack Warner arrived shortly after their meeting, which meant, technically speaking, the tournament had started. He said once he returned to his hotel room and saw on CNN "Countdown to U-17 World Cup, 2 days to go," he broke down and wept.
Somebody spell shame
It's so shameful that contractors have resorted to reporting to FIFA officials that they have not been paid for jobs that have been completed. The truth is there is no money. The vice president of Nigeria is supposed to be the back bone of Nigeria 2009; he was supposed to make sure that everything went well; he was supposed to supervise the activities of the LOC, yet he is been accused of nepotism. You hear people saying things like it is the VP and minister's people that have done the jobs etc.
How much does it cost to charter a plane? May be, at the most, N1.2 million, yet it was said that for every time they chartered a plane for the minister to visit the host states, the LOC had to pay N5 million.
So many Nigerians don't even know anything about the tournament. No information about tickets, the opening ceremony, the matches and venues the teams and even the players. Publicity is zero! Even the cars that are supposed to take FIFA officials around are not fuelled. I hear some of the officials have resorted to taking cabs around. Imagine telling FIFA officials "oga, no fuel oh".
The most painful part is that Nigerians are not even interested. And this is supposed to portray the image of this country to the world with the countries that are participating in the tournament.
It is such a shame and I dare to say that even though Amos Adamu was accused of corruption during the 2003 All Africa Games, he did a better job than I have seen so far. In my opinion, COJA was more organised than Nigeria 2009. Shouldn't we be getting better?
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