By Daily Sports on November 18, 2019

It is needless to re-emphasise that Nigeria is now ‘Beast of No Nation,’ even as my generation would vividly remember how this prophetic music, by the late Afrobeat maestro, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, was received on disco dance floors during the good old days. Today, that music by Fela has finally taken hold especially since 2015 when Buhari/APC employed propaganda and blackmail that shot them to power.

Since then, Nigeria and Nigerians have not been the same. The polity has gone upside-down, for want of a better expression. Insincerity is the watchword. The so-called corruption fight that has remained the mantra of the government is targeted at the president’s mortal and political enemies and he looks the other way when it involves his friends, family, and party members.

That is the hypocrisy of Buhari and his APC, otherwise how on earth would Solomon Dalung, former Minister of Sports be walking on the streets a free man, after such monumental failure and financial mismanagement during his tenure?

We saw what the present Minister of Sports Sunday Dare has been doing, going round to make amends and beg for pardon for Dalung’s misdeeds. However, my surprise is that Dare, despite how Dalung plunged sports into physical and other mess, is sadly taking such an inglorious path. Dare has put every feet wrong already, except he makes sudden U-turn and discard the people he surrounds himself with, otherwise, he would, like Dalung, become another physician who could not heal himself.

Things have gone awry in sports and Dare is busy talking with both sides of his mouth. As a journalist turned politician, he enjoys massive media coverage and such would deceive him at the end of the day. We saw how the very high pedigree, charisma welding Golden Eaglets failed in the Q-final of this year’s U-17 World Cup summit in Brazil against Holland, due to poor quality of the technical bench.

As if that was not enough blow, Imama took the wobbling and fumbling U-23 Eagles side and felled in the first group game before it managed to defeat Zambia after Awoniyi and company came to the rescue before the team finally got booted out of the tournament and thus out of 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. I saw it coming, as I did say in one of my columns on this page that Imama and his U-17 counterpart, Manu Garba are mechanics of the old stock and cannot match the dexterity of today’s well trained and alert coaches as opposed to the known quota system induced appointments.

In my past write up, I pointedly said that Amaju Pinnick and his gang must be held responsible for the nonsense and shameful results we have been posting in football because of the mentality that my brother, relation, in law, friend or kinsperson must be here or there. I added that it is exactly what has thrown Nigeria into the present crisis in all sectors. Due to his short shortsightedness in governance, Buhari enthrones dead woods in all sensitive sectors of the economy. 

It has been the bane of this country that believes vehemently in employing or engaging our second eleven in key and sensitive areas of human endeavour.

Now, like Nigeria that learns about geology a day after an earthquake, Sunday Dare woke up from deep slumber to hint about taking a second and critical look at the technical qualities of football.

Dare, like a typical Nigerian, waited until this ouster of the U-23 Eagles before thinking in that direction. What a country!

Talk, we all know, is cheap and that is exactly what we have heard from Sunday Dare, the Sports Minister that talks on the drop of a hat. In the first place, no serious a country worth her name would engage Imama into her national side because of his short shortsightedness from his days in Rangers International FC when the old warhorse flying antelope was in CAF first-rate championship.

I watched Dare ruining Nigeria’s inability to scale through for next year’s Olympic Games in Japan and dismissed him as a pretender of the first order. Someone should remind me what Dare said when Golden Eaglets failed to advance further in the competition. The one time journalist, now a typical Nigerian politician is, without doubt, a hypocrite.

Since he became Minister of Sports, I have not met him but his actions since he mounted the saddle leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. In short, writing or chronicling the short comings or missteps of Dare would obviously be boring to both the writer and the reader.

Though, to this reporter, from the first l heard Dare speak, I quickly took his talks with a pinch of salt. I have also seen him as one yet another huge failure waiting to happen. As we keep our fingers crossed, come with me to the social media handles of the very authoritative portal for trending further discussion on this. Meanwhile, keep shooting hard till next week!!

Source Daily Sports

Posted November 18, 2019

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