Editorial
The Minister of Youth and Sports, Sunday Dare, seized a good opportunity to grandstand about a good cause recently. In response to his request for an estimate on cutting of the overgrown grass at the Abiola National Stadium in Abuja, the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEBP) sent his ministry a bill of N81 million. The minister quickly twitted about the invoice: “The ministry was given a bill. The ministry did not accept. It will be detrimental to spend such an amount. And it can be better invested…If we tell Nigerians we used N81m to cut grass, which is not even available, there will be an outcry. The funds are not really there for us and that is why we are partnering with private investors to bring back the key components of our infrastructure.”
It needs to be acknowledged that the minister has flaunted the right sensitivity about spending public funds. No minister in an anti-corruption government should agree to spend such a staggering amount of money to cut the grass of a stadium built on 29 hectares (72 acres) of land, more so that there are many other structures on the land. Even if the grass had turned into a forest, N81m would still have been prohibitive, regardless of whether the government could afford to spend such money. We applaud the minister for being cost-conscious as all public officers should.
We also commend the decision to promote the model of partnership or concession to guarantee sustainability of public facilities such as stadiums. It is still important to realise that proper maintenance of government-owned facilities has characteristically been a problem in the country, even when such realisation by previous administrations has not been followed through. For example, the National Stadium in Lagos has deteriorated to the point that it has not been useful for many years. In the last 10 years, the facility has served not as a stadium but as event centre for holding parties and other social events. It is in such a state that Kessington Adebutu was invited by the minister to serve as concessionaire.
Similarly, even the National Stadium in Abuja, renamed after Bashorun M.K. O. Abiola about one year ago, has also been in a state of disrepair, to the extent that a facility built with N53bn under 20 years ago would require N81m to cut its grass, even after attracting $1bn from Aliko Dangote for repairs, and despite other projects awaiting consideration from the ministry of sports.
According to the minister, many of the country’s stadiums are in bad shape. It is, therefore, appropriate that the sports minister has been active in promoting concession or partnership with the government as a means of ensuring that the stadiums under his watch are in position to serve the purpose for which they were built. Many countries are privatising sports facilities, especially that sports are fast becoming entrepreneurial activities. Facilities that can pay for themselves if outsourced to credible companies should be given such opportunity, if only to enable the governments—federal and state—to invest in the knowledge and skills. Such model can also free up some public funds on preparing sportsmen and women to attend international sports, such as the Olympics, World Cup, African Cup, and for promotion of sports within the country as regular cultural menu for citizens, similar to the way people in Europe, the Americas, and other cultures enjoy sports round the year, thus turning sports, like the creative industry, into sources of direct and indirect employment.
While congratulating two of the country’s billionaires, Kessington Adebutu and Aliko Dangote for their patriotic acts of generosity, we urge the government to support the ministry in its efforts to promote public-private-partnership model for building and operating efficiently sports facilities, wherever possible in the country.
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