By Daily Sports on March 19, 2018

Nigeria is a country of ironies and so Nigerians have become un-shock able due to many absurd moments the people encounter daily. If a Lai Mohammed is not disturbing their ear drums with wicked lies in faraway Germany, a Femi Adesina is here defending the wicked and deliberate decisions and steps Buhari is taking which daily snuffs life out of Nigerians.

Nigerians have no refuge any longer. Man has become beast to his fellow man. Killings, corruption, hate, division, ethnic cleansing agenda, arrest of Journalists and all manners of primitive and dark ages like practices keep resurfacing in the Nigeria of 21st century. For hypocrites in this government, nothing is wrong with this faux pas. This is one government that used all manners of deceits to grab power and despite the continued deception; some devilish Nigerians are busy clapping for them.

At the end of the day, Nigerians will come to know that this is the worst government ever in Nigeria. They are all pretenders. In terms of killings, this government ranks highest ever. Coming to eradication of corruption which it made its key mandate, it has recorded abysmal failure. We saw the reaction of the people in Benue/Plateau for instance. Their distaste for President Buhari’s cosmetic visit after the continuous massacre of their kit and kin by the Fulani killer herdsmen leaves sourest taste in the mouth. Everyone around Buhari is haughty. It is has been the main undoing of this horrible government that even the establishment that aided him to grab power has turned  its back against him.

President Buhari government is bad news in all ramifications. The other day, President Buhari’s clowns and clappers dubbed Lagos fiery Pastor, Tunde Bakare a nuisance to man simply because of his true assessment of the dictatorial tendencies and clueless government ‘his friend’ instituted for three years plus now in the once liberated country.

Let us leave it at that point for now. Many of the readers may ask what the above has to do with sports which this page treats every week. I will roundly say it has everything to do with it because it is not in isolation because sports men and women are hugely affected in the current madness prevalent in the country.

Sports men and women can only thrive in an atmosphere of absolute peace. We have all seen what has been happening in our sports which have in turn affected the overall performance of our sports men and women. It must be recalled that many inconsistencies in decision making have become the lot of sports for the past three years plus, of the Minister of Sports and Youths Development, Solomon Dalung era. Many cases of daylight emblazonment of grants from government and international sports bodies and swift denials have been the order of the day.

Just as it is in the entire polity, for those that directly and indirectly benefit from Solomon Dalung mismanagement of our sports nothing is going wrong. To them, the man from the Plateau is doing marvelously in sports administration. That is the way the system in Nigeria operates. If you dare raise a finger to call them to order, you automatically become an enemy. You are called unprintable names and slammed with blackout of assignment and sundry.

For very few professionals like yours truly, this job must continue to be pursued with the greatest vigour and honesty. It is on record that Dalung is one Minister that has soiled his hands in many sordid deals in his spirited bid to grab all around and within, a vain trait that has drastically tainted him in the eyes of sports enthusiasts.

My anger boiled over few days after www.dailysportsng.com ran an interview with the former NFA chairman, Alhaji Ibrahim Galadima now chairman Kano State Sports Commission who raised an the alarm on the missing IAAF $150,000 grant to the country. Remember that there have been several denials from Dalung, his aids and idlers branding people that raised the issue of the missing $150,000 IAAF grant with all sorts of names.

My anger was raised to high heavens few days after we ran the interview where Galadima highlighted that those found guilty in relation to the missing grant must be prosecuted.  The Minister of Sports, Solomon Dalung came out to admit that he is ready to replace the missing IAAF $150,000 grant for the Athletics Federation. I was shocked almost beyond my foundation that Dalung came out to own up on the issue he and his cohorts frantically denied when the news first broke.

Now he knows better. My worry also came up because this is also the self-acclaimed APC/ Buhari regime that said it is ‘fighting’ corruption, yet this and other earth quake corruption practices have been going among his Ministers and other top ranked officials in government.     

Now that Solomon Dalung openly said he is ready to refund the missing International Association of Athletics Federations money, I have few questions for him.

One: Who diverted the $150,000 IAAF grant in the first place?

Two: Solomon Dalung should tell Nigerians who is responsible for the missing grant. Three: Why did he deny the knowledge of the IAAF fund when the news of its missing broke out? Four:   Why was it that after the widely publicized interview by Ibrahim Galadima that Dalung found it convenient to come out to say he is ready to refund the missing IAAF grant. These and many more questions are begging for answers from Dalung.

My take here is that Solomon Dalung is guilty as charged as the head of sports in Nigeria. His often talk before thinking has again put him on the spot.  It further brought to the fore the kind of person Dalung is. It is curious that the Minister is a double standard person and this IAAF grant that was diverted into private pocket is another fresh point and the way and manner Buhari is ‘fighting’ corruption.

He has severally shot himself on the foot yet he is never touched or queried by the Presidency. He has been on the business of acquiring and acquiring everything on sight and has oftentimes gone out of his way to seek for it. Solomon Dalung has questions to answer so far as the missing IAAF grant is concerned. He must be told in unmistakable terms this time that enough is enough.          

He must say why he wanted to refund the money he earlier said he had no knowledge of. Dalung gave himself out and must know that this kind of embarrassment he again caused Nigeria in the eyes of the international community is damaging for the country. If you missed the interview granted by Ibrahim Galadima to Daily Sports, please read it in order to be refreshed and have firsthand information on Dalung’s hide and seek game.

Galadima calls for arrest of culprits in the IAAF’s ‘missing’ $150,000 grant

As news filtered in that officials of the Youth and Sports Ministry are making frantic efforts to refund the over-payment of $150,000 grant made by the world’s athletics body, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), renowned sports administrator, Alhaji Ibrahim Galadima, has called for the prosecution of those who misappropriated the fund.

Alhaji Galadima, the Executive Chairman of the Kano State Sports Commission, who spoke from his base in Kano yesterday, said: “The issue is not about returning the money to the IAAF but the embarrassment to the country.”

Continuing, the former NFA Chairman said: “The authorities should investigate, expose and sanction those who sat on the money because it is a disgrace to this country.” Galadima noted that the regime of incumbent Sports Minister Solomon Dalung “has been a disaster, going from one embarrassment to the other since it came on board.”

An inside source of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) disclosed at the weekend that “the IAAF instead of paying its usual annual grant of $15,000 to member federations, paid AFN $150,000 in error but an attempt to retrieve the money proved abortive because “some officials of the Sports Ministry shared the money.”

The matter was said to have been blown open when IAAF with-held further disbursement of grants to Nigerian athletes, prompted the current AFN Board to investigate the matter and found out that the action took place before the federation’s election in June when there was no Board in place following the dissolution of all sports federation by the Sports Minister.

I must confess that our social media handles have been busier nowadays. Let’s not relent in keeping it on that high tempo because it has made this page a must read every Monday.  We are on the right track in the business of informing, educating and entertaining our readers no matter whose ox is gored.  It is my belief that at the end of the day, we will outlive the likes of Solomon Dalung that came saw and could not conquer but rather sadly left athletes, coaches and sundry in severe pains. Our consolation is that history has dumped the kind of Solomon Dalung into its refuse dump. The missing IAAF grant is one of such regular cases in sports and the larger polity. It remains a sad commentary that Nigeria is a country with systematic inadequacies which has made it difficult for meaningful progress to be achieved.  We must change the system and get it working right. Let us keep our fingers crossed. Keep shooting. Till next week!!

Source Daily Sports

Posted March 19, 2018

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