RANDOM MUSINGS

Ekeji, DG NSC

WHO IS THIS MIKE ENAHORO?

His name is Bethel. He is based in Germany. He is so fond of my writing. According to him, if a day passes by and he does not get to the blog, he feels like he is missing his blackberry. He pulled a call through to me Sunday morning. We spoke for 1:38:15 minutes! His first issue is, “who is this Mike Enahoro?” I agree with him on the ways out of the crisis bedeviling the Nigerian football scene. Is the Federal government not a PDP government? Even the ones that are not PDP can be lobbied to see reason in this path.

Two other articles he wrote and you published on your blog made my days when I read them. These are the kinds of people who should be saddled with the management of the game in the country. Are our governors difficult to see? Can’t you guys reach the governors with this idea? Please, I beg you in God’s name, don’t just write. Please move in to see the governors. You guys can do it. I promised him that I will and by the grace of God, I will.

QUINTESSENTIAL PAT EKEJI:

Ordinarily, I am a type of person who when my friends go into politics or get into power, I try very hard to leave them alone until they leave the office and we continue our friendship when they leave. This is because there is a virus that catches up with them and makes them deaf, dumb and blind.

For those who gets into power on their own that for their office we have to relate, I try not to be close to them because I am naturally aggressive. I hate when someone gives me shit, I will return it for the value without blinking. That is why no one in this nation can say he or she is responsible for anything that I am.

Chief Patrick Ekeji as the Director General of the National Sports Confusion (if you like make the confusion read Commission) is the first athlete to have represented this country to have risen to that office. He was a coach. He was a lecturer in the National Institute for Sports (NIS). Can we have another person with these values to be fortunate to occupy that office?

By all standards, his tenure, if even for a day should have a marked difference. I say it that things are even worse than he met the Commission now. Sports development is at the nadir. His Commission does not seem to be on the driver’s seat. The quality of decisions taken therein makes one to think they are comedians therein.

However, one decision I want to reluctantly commend him for is that as it concerns the Nigeria Scrabble Federation (NSF) and the Ranting Nine. After the Maputo fiasco, he came and returned the issues in conflict to the right path. That is not after vehement protestations and scathing remarks about the Commission in the game’s online forum. Anyhow, I still return to my “unholy” (that was what Dr. Amos Adamu called it) suggestion that every sports federation should be allowed to advertise and employ and pay their Secretaries General. The current set up will never let development steam up. Most of the secretaries simply are incompetent, do not understand their job schedule and are simply out to make money at the expense of development.

I recall a seminar at the national stadium in Lagos when I was in Thisday newspaper. I stated this fact and Dr Adamu in his response defended them but to me then, and even now, stick to my position because I have so many case studies to prove this point which I know the senior cadre of the Ministry and NSC are aware of. The NSF ‘crisis’ was festered and nurtured by a rebellious secretary general. He wrongly fed the NSC with farce. All manners of terrible and laughable decisions came forth as a result. How Dr Ekeji got the truth and reversed those unpopular decisions makes one have some hope that he (Ekeji) can do it. Why and how he is not doing it well is what worries my head.

NFF-INDUCED ATTACK:

Two months ago, on my way to Ilorin, I had an accident with my car. It was practically a write-off. An avuncular friend in authority offered to buy me a new car of my choice. He said, let me know the cost I will give you the money. I have found it difficult to go back to him. Five of them promised me cash support. Three others promised me and gave me the cash which I took and appreciated.

One of such persons has his sympathy for the current board of the NFF led by Alhaji Aminu Maigari. He had tried to use cash t lobby me out but I kept insisting, its for the good of the game and not for the benefit of my pocket. If the Maigari team had done the right things correctly, I will come forth to support them.

In this crisis between the NFA and the NFF, I know people including sports journalists who are praying that the battle continues because it guarantees them a regular income. With the NPL issue, I know about three persons who have bought brand new cars from their pitching tents with one of the parties. I can mention names.

One of them was so naïve that when he called me to commiserate with me on the accident said, “na NFF people send missile to you.” I laughed myself hoarse. He was the ninth person who ascribed the accident to the NFF. Assuming it is true, they can intensify more efforts. I will come out better. To me, it is a mere accident. I will come out of it better and stronger. Case closed.

ATHLETICS FRAUD OF NIGERIA: It is time to congratulate Mr. Solomon Ogba for meeting the 10 gold medals he set out to achieve at the All African games. However, it is important we let him and his so-called non existent board be aware that, maladministration within the secretariat caused us the loss of more medals. There were some seven other medals we lost from home.

Can someone ask him officially where is Ohanaja, Nurudeen Selim, Vivian Chukwuemeka and a host of continental champions that were not in Maputo? Par Selim, the AFN lied that he was injured and that was why he was not in Maputo. Assuming the AFN lie is taken as true, who called him to find out how he is faring? The truth is, the chap like a lot of others are owed monies and the AFN is not responsible enough to pay the athletes and they in the AFN think they can wish them away.

Vivian Chukwuemeka is one athlete who I will continue to respect for her principles and strong will. This is one person who even at the height of competing for the nation will stand for what she thinks is right. She was practically rubbished and maligned in the public by the AFN on a phantom intricate drug web weaved around her. She was dumped. Suddenly, like a drunk sot, the shameless AFN goons invited her to the Maputo teams days to the event.

Now please ask, if it is true she was found in the drug web, what value of support was she given during the punishment phase? Does anybody reach her to find out about her state of mind and training? Rather than apologise to her publicly for the ridicule she and her family suffered as a result, they wished her psychological state away and think she will pack her bags and start scampering to the team.

This is a federation managed like a typical Nigerian motor park where only one lord reigns. Everybody in-house must pledge loyalty to the capon or be shipped out. The capo too, starts to think like a force inviolate. His thinking, even if, as it usual, is pedestrian, must be respected and seen as the truth unchallenged.