Before Sports Minister scuttles our World Cup dream

Apart from declaring his intention to contest for the presidency of the Nigeria Olympic Committee, Sanni Ndanusa’s tenure as Chairman of the National Sports Commission, has been nothing short of disaster; National sports associations have never been in a worse state; the Athletics federation is weighed down by N60 million debt; basketball, boxing, and other associations are also endangered.

With the Commonwealth Games just 11 months away, one would think that Ndanusa would be preoccupied with solving all these and other problems that bedevil sports in the country. But no, what is of importance to him is becoming the next chairman of the Nigeria Olympic Committee. This is a legitimate ambition if he is qualified?

Going by the constitution of the Olympic Committee, Mr. Ndanusa is not qualified, and as a PDP member, he is determined to do it the PDP style.

The NOC constitution says before one can be eligible to contest for the office of the presidency, one must have served in the executive committee of a global, continental or commonwealth body for a minimum of four years.

Going by the documents Mr. Ndanusa submitted to the NOC executive board, he is the vice president of the Confederation of Africa Tennis (CAT). But the documents did not specify when he joined the body.

It is like an applicant who applied for a job in an organisation and the employer says he must have a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Ibadan from 2005. But the document the minister submitted just states Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Ibadan; the year was not stated.

The NOC went to the CAT website and it was gathered that the minister joined the executive committee in 2007. So, he is not qualified.

Deliberate ploy by NOC

Was it the current executive of the NOC that inserted this clause to disqualify Mr. Ndanusa? No. According to documents made available to NEXT, the constitution they are operating now was drafted by the Adamu Dyeri-led executive committee before this board came in 2001. What can be deduced from the above is that a sitting minister was silent on the date he joined CAT so as to be eligible to contest for an election he is not eligible to contest.

Another reason why Mr. Ndanusa is ineligible to contest is because he was not duly elected as the president of the Nigeria Tennis Federation. According to the election guideline, any candidate contesting for election into a national sports association must be physically present at the election venue.

When he was elected president of the Tennis Federation, Mr. Ndanusa was thousands of miles away from the venue.

He wasn’t the only one, Raymond Dokpesi, the chairman of DAAR Communication, also wanted to be the chairman of the Weightlifting Federation, but he was disqualified because he was not at the election venue. So if Mr. Dokpesi could not contest by proxy, why was Mr. Ndanusa allowed to violate the rule?

Either I get it or we destroy it

With the disqualification, the minister has plan B, which may lead to Nigeria incurring the wrath of the International Olympic Committee and FIFA, because football is an Olympics sports.

The minister’s plan is very simple. The national sports associations that are loyal to the minister have been meeting in Abuja, and the plan is they will boycott the NOC election slated for Dutse, Jigawa State December 9. They will then hold a parallel election in Abuja and elect the minister as the chairman of the NOC.

If this happens, the current board of the NOC may protest to the IOC, about government interference in sports.

This may lead to Nigeria being banned from all Olympics sports including football, and by extension the World Cup, if reason and good judgment do not prevail.

Ghana example and president embarrassment

The Ghana Olympics and the sports ministry were involved in a similar situation recently and it took the intervention of the country’s president, John Attah-Mills, who had to call the IOC president, Jacque Rogge, who settled the matter, to save Ghana from being thrown out the World Cup.

If Mr. Ndanusa desperately wants to be chairman of the NOC, he must follow the laid-down rules guiding election into the body.

Mr. Ndanusa should listen to the voices of reason – which those close to him claim include that of his state governor – that he should not scuttle our World Cup ambition because of his personal ambition.

Problems of sports

Charity, they say, begins at home. What change is it that Ndanusa wants at the NOC that that he could not start with the Tennis Federation that he leads? The sport is in comatose. Except for private initiatives such as the Governor’s Cup, tennis is virtually dead.

But for a former triple jumper, who rescued the athletics federation with her hard-earned money, Nigeria would have missed out on Berlin’09 World Championship. Till now, the lady has not been paid. The boxers’ trip to Milan was under similar circumstances. Many federations did not participate in competitions, which serve as qualifiers for the Olympics, Commonwealth and All Africa Games because of the problem of funding.

And at home, our athletes are just training; they are not involved in competitions. The state of our sports facilities and equipment is nothing to write home about. Instead of Mr. Ndanusa being preoccupied with righting these wrongs, he is busy trying to harmonise the office of the sports minister and that of the NOC chairman.

The NOC is an NGO which functions when it is independent. In fact, the reason the NOC has not functioned well in the last eight years is because Habu Gumel, the leader, was a civil servant.

Now that he is no longer a staff of the ministry, Mr. Ndanusa wants to take the Olympic movement backward by making it an agency of government.

Mr. Ndanusa, please do not make us lose our hard-earned World Cup ticket. Wait till 2011 when you will no longer be minister, then come and contest. By then you will be over-qualified for the job.

And if you are able to turn around our sports before 2011 that will be a plus for you. For now, please face your primary assignment, which is the revival of sports, and not fighting to head an NGO.