EFCC should beam its searchlight on football administrators
Former minister of sports, Hon. Bala Bawa Ka’oje has called on the antigraft agency, EFCC to immediately beam its searchlight on Nigerian football administrators saying any institution that benefits from taxpayers money shouldn’t be averse to accountabili
What is your assessment of Nigerian sports since you left office as sports minister in 2007? When one views the state of sports today and compares it with when I was minister, one would not say that there is no improvement because I can see that a lot of positive things have happened especially to our professional football league. I initiated the development because it was during my time that sports started getting direct funding from the private sector. Over N3billion was put into the sports industry. We were also giving part of our allocation to the football league. I can say it has paid off because today, our league is becoming truly professional and developed. They are focused now and attracting investments from the private sector. However, one area that has not really changed is the elections into sports federations.
There is something I have noticed with the formation of the boards of the sports federations. There appears to be the same kind of thing people call clique or cabal, group interest kind of system whereby only a particular group of people can ascend to be members of the boards and that is not good. It is not healthy for sports development in the country. If you open up to allow others who might have a lot to contribute in terms of innovations, the better for the national football league or even NFF. However, if a clique continues to rule, it means there is no progress. Those people at the helms of affairs should realise that for you to have progress, there must be positive change and for some people to hold tight to positions for too long, it is unnecessary. They cause more harm than good.
What is your take on the scrapping of the National Sports Commission, NSC, by the minister of sports?
Well, I still stand by my earlier views because you know the issue of National Sports Commission didn’t start today. It started right from the military era when the military leadership then also felt that sports is an important sector and must not be neglected. They were thinking of the best way to approach sports development in Nigeria and that was how experts came in to advise the military to come up with a National Sports Commission. NSC is supposed to be a conglomerate of experts in sports administration. It is not supposed to be a normal commission for everybody as you have in ministries. It is supposed to be operated like a business institution. And it was unanimously agreed by the military and it was formed.
The NSC then contributed immensely to the development of sports in the country. Therefore, I do not support the scrapping of the NSC because if you look at the way sports is nose diving you will know that we have taken a wrong step and that is why some of us decided that we must come out to voice our own views regarding that backward movement. It is not in the best interest of our country, it is not in the best interest of sports development in Nigeria.
Most Nigerians are of the view that if there were an enabling law backing the NSC, the minister wouldn’t have just scrapped it the way he did. Do you think the decision should be reversed and a law enacted to protect the NSC?
In the interest of Nigerian sports, NSC should be brought back and the enabling law enacted by the National Assembly. So in essence what I am saying is that the executive should play their role, the national assembly leadership should also play their role. They should be able to say no to some of these things but because they don’t, they have left a room for a new minister or new government that wants to reduce the number of ministries or parastatals to have a reason to collapse the system. The negative implication will be disastrous to us like it is clearly showing today. We do not know the direction our sports is taking.
What were the major challenges you faced as minister of sports?
There were many. First of all, I will begin with the area we just discussed. I thought the national assembly have listening ears to hear and to look at things that are reasonable in terms of moving the country forward and act fast in order to create the way for us to be able to advance in the positive direction but that was very difficult. All my efforts to get the National Sports Commission bill passed into law were not possible. In addition, all my efforts to repel decree 101 and marry it with FIFA statues also met a brick wall. So it was big challenge to me and I was handicapped being a minister and not a member of the national assembly. I could not force the national assembly to do what they are not prepared to do. It was a major challenge.
Of course, the other challenge was that of funding. During my time, I embraced all sports. By embracing all sports it means you need to have enough money to be able to support the different sporting federations when they were going for their activities. However, funding was difficult to come by but I still give thanks to former President Olusegun Obasanjo for supporting me. Whenever I had problems and went to him, he gave me the needed support. Yet I could not achieve things I wanted to achieve due to the paucity of funds. And then there was the issue of lack of openness in terms of accountability in the NFF. I would have loved a situation whereby whatever the NFF is doing is made open because that is the only way that people would trust them. I wanted and I still want the NFF to be a body that can be trusted by the private sector, not only by the government. If they would achieve the success of being trusted by government and the private sector, they have achieved a lot. Why am I saying this?. It is because people would feel free to put in money to see to the progress of the sector. They know that the money they put in will be judiciously utilised. However, when things are done under secrecy, I mean total secrecy, it won’t encourage investors.
No matter what you do, they would not want to respond. Would you continue to be fighting people every day as if you have nothing else to do? So for me, I decided to change the leadership of NFF and I told them the need to be open at all times. Unfortunately, up till today, that is the problem of the NFF. Anybody who gets into that position is surrounded by these people who don’t want openness in the way the operations are carried out. In the end, the person is submerged and that is what is happening. It is not so long that I heard the minister asking the present NFF to account for some money. It means there is still no adequate transparency. And I do not see why there shouldn’t be transparency and accountability when public funds are being expended.
Would you therefore support calls by many for the anti-graft agencies to look into activities of administrators of Nigerian football and other sports?
I think it is high time they looked into football and sports sector in general because now that even the government has sort of come up with a new initiative for whistle blowers, this is time that people can come out and say the truth. They can go to EFCC and put their complaints in writing as far as they are sure they know what they are talking about and the EFCC too should swing into action to bring normalcy in the sector. As a matter of fact, all the organisations that are hiding information need to be dealt with. I do not see any reason any organisation in this 21st century should be allowed to be hoarding information which everybody wants to know but is making it difficult for anybody to know what is really going on. EFCC must not allow this thing to continue. Nigerians have the right to know how these monies coming in from federal government and other donors are being spent.
If you have another opportunity to serve as minister of sports would you accept the responsibility again?
Many people have asked me this question before. I only know how to manage things and I can bring in innovations to improve any human organisation. I wasn’t a sports person before I was appointed sports minister but when I got in there, I did my best to leave legacies. I put my managerial prowess into use and made the progress I made as sports minister. I can serve this country in any capacity anytime I am called upon.