*Yusuf Sulaiman's 9-man 'reform' committee's albatross
I am reacting to the developments in our football in the last couple of days with a dispassionate and humble spirit. I submit that I do not and will never claim perfection for the various experiments or ways out of the quagmire. Like a science, I have conducted my thinking with utmost accuracy, forethought and minuteness and an open mind for the best interest of the game in the country.
So long as my acts satisfy my reason and my heart I do not owe anyone any apology on all the issues involved in the quest to make Nigerian sports, including the entire sports industry, better than we had met it.
The truth includes the experiments with various principles that are conclusive and logical to reason. The truth is both in context, content, and conception. I am, as an individual, prepared to sacrifice the things dearest to me in the pursuit of this truth. This I also believe was the consensus of the group I am the only one who applied to belong, the NFA interim board. Others were invited.
The myopic board led by Alhaji Aminu Maigari not to know that they do not have the power to ban a journalist for being too critical of their activities and for carrying out my constitutionally guaranteed role made me to apply to join the NFA interim board.
The myopic board led by Alhaji Aminu Maigari not to know that they do not have the power to ban a journalist for being too critical of their activities and for carrying out my constitutionally guaranteed role made me to apply to join the NFA interim board.
The relative truth is my beacon, shield and buckler. It is strait, narrow and sharp like the edge of the razor. And it is, can anyone wish away the judgement of Justice Okon Abang? Since the NFF slept on its rights to vacate that order and its now statute barred, where is their moral strength to remain in office? Which legal instruments caused their continued operations? The 2nd February affidavit remains its biggest albatross. All their trifling blunders, letters of insult to the NSC, Chief Patrick Ekeji etc can they be changed in view of the Yusuf Sulaiman nine-man panel? I keep strictly to these paths.
The solution to the problems beclouding Nigerian football is like the search for the truth. It is as simple as it is difficult. They may appear impossible to an arrogant person but quite possible to an innocent child. The seeker after the truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet but the seeker after the truth should be so humble himself that even the dust could crush him. Only then, and not till then, will we have a glimpse of the truth.
If anything that I write (or have said on radio and television) is seen as touched with pride, then he must take it that there is something wrong with the quest, and that my glimpses are no more than mirage. Let hundred like me perish, but let the truth prevail. Let us not reduce the standard of the truth even by a hair’s breadth for judging erring mortals like myself in this conflict.
I am not going to conceal or understate any ugly things that must be told in the defence of the best interests of this nation. I will openly admit my own faults or and errors if there are any. In judging myself I shall try to be harsh as truth as I want others also to be.
It is an unbroken torture that Yusuf Sulaiman’s committee will search for the truth in this understanding. It is the passion for the good of the nation that should be the eyelet of their various submissions. That will defeat the polar functions that caused the crisis that had broken down peace and development in the nation’s football.
What I want to achieve, -what I have been striving and pining to achieve – is national realisation. If it is possible for a kid in Johannesburg, Accra, Cairo, Rio de Janeiro, Barcelona, London etc to have a formal, deliberate exposure to football (like in all sports) development that is supportive and educative, why should the Nigerian child not have the same?
Some of the nations who provide these environments for these kids who excel are not better both in political, social, economic and environmental context than Nigeria. Why must our nation be different, backward and retrogressing? Why must people not get things done on merit including appointment to coach, work, be an athlete or excel in the national teams?
If Yusuf Sulaiman’s committee after successfully bringing the two extremist interests of our football to agree to go this way, cannot deliver the truth in its white colours by its recommendations and the issues that will be raised before them, God will not forgive them. Then, posterity will curse them. They will therefore, become the curse of ignominy.
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