By Victor Enyinnaya on June 20, 2016

Former executive committee member of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Alhaji Gara Gombe Ahmed Shauibu, has declared that Youths and Sports Minister Solomon Dalung and his predecessor Alhassan Yakmut ought to be in jail over their inability to account for the missing N2.9 billion released to the ministry by the Federal Government.

Gara Gombe in an interview with Daily Sports berated Dalung for claiming that the failure to account for the money is the reason for the Federal Government’s refusal to release money for the country’s preparations for the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Dalung, according to Gara Gombe, had previously said that the Presidency given a different reason for the government’s failure to release money for the Olympics and told Sports Federations to go and look for money to fund their programmes.

Gara Gombe noted that it is not healthy for a minister to be speaking like that. He said that such double talk would make sports men, women, administrators, personalities, stakeholders and sundry not to take him serious on any issue and advised that President Muhammadu Buhari to call Dalung to order for his serial embarrassment of his government.

“If a Federal Minister will deeply resort to blackmailing, disconcerting and inciting the unsuspecting public against the same government he is serving, then something is not only fundamentally wrong with him but also unfortunate and deceit of the highest order. Dalung may as well resign from Buhari’s cabinet as he has gone against the oath he took on assumption of office,” Gara Gombe said.

The former Chairman of Gombe State Football Association (GSFA) stressed that as a minister, he must take full responsibility for any unaccounted money, wondering why it has taken him this long when the country has just less than three months to the Olympics before spilling the beans. Why these cock and bull stories now, he asked.

Said he: “Dalung, from what I know, is fully aware that Alhassan Yakmut embezzled the money. The remaining part of it (N2.9 billion) was handed over to the Minister just two months when he was sworn in. Let me further say it categorically but without any prejudice that both Alhassan and Dalung are supposed in mates of Kuje.”

Gara Gombe revealed that he personally handed over a copy of the BPP Report to Dalung that indicted Alhassan’s recklessness with peoples’ fund, sadly he ignored it, just like how he compromised the LMC Matter, he alleged.

“Let me alert Nigerians that as at that time the minister was busy spending his N650 million of that money out of which he borrowed Amaju about N300 million, Amaju got money and quickly paid back. The question on the lips of Nigerians now is, so where is that money again?”

The administrator claimed that the minister wanted to play a fast one on President Buhari when he then requested for Olympics participation money. The President ultimately said no way, and requested him to go and account for the missing N2.9 billion he earlier released for the Olympic preparations and Africa Games held in Congo without which he should not come near him for any money as far as Olympics is concerned.

“Unknown to Dalung, Mr. President is fully aware of his involvement in the disappointing recklessness. The minister, desperate to account for the money, sent security agencies after Alhassan. He first sacked him as NSC DG then scrapped NSC but the former DG is a better trained ‘felon’ found his way around it and even the security agencies were quiet about the matter till today now a helpless Dalung is going round to say it is the missing N2.9 billion that is causing the non-release of funds. Yet Alhassan Yakmut is walking freely and is still a civil servant in Federal Government agency. We are waging total war against corruption,” he rues.

Gara Gombe informed that athletes funded their Olympic qualifying programmes by themselves. Some qualified while others did not, some were belatedly refunded and majority are still being owed, a scenario he roundly condemned and described as a shame of a nation.

“The President is aware of every goings on so nobody should think he is ignorant of all these in Youths and Sports Ministry. To compound the whole matter, under the present prevailing circumstances, Dalung has traveled to 8 countries yet our athletes were not paid their allowances. Till today, he has not told us what value those trips of his has added to Nigerian sports including that of Robin Island in cape town, South Africa.

•Photo shows Gara Gombe.

Source Daily Sports

Posted June 20, 2016

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