The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

Let’s boo referee committee

Ade Ojeikere

THOSE who run our domestic football amuse me a lot when they try to explain their failures, blaming it on the existing systemic crises in the industry. They have forgotten so soon that they promised to effect the desired changes during their campaigns to get elected into office, having studied the trends from afar. Indeed, they have forgotten that they have spent the last decade hovering around past administrators in different capacities. Yet, opening matches began with advertised games moved forward at short notice.

Some of the principalities hindering the growth of the game are in the Dankaro House in Abuja. In fact, some members have turned the federation into their cash cows. In other instances an ATM machine. It is, therefore, understandable why many of them pride themselves as board members, knowing they have no other credible way of identifying themselves. They are in a hurry to flash the NFF board members’ complimentary cards.

Traditionally, the successes of FIFA and CAF rest with the calibre of people listed in their sub-committees who help to superintend over the running of the facets of the two bodies. One of such committees is the referees’ committee which is critical to both bodies’ operations, hence the inclusion of serious-minded personnel, not those angling for sitting allowances. Sitting allowances are paid by either FIFA or CAF depending on which of the bodies initiated such a meeting. It is, therefore, surprising how the organ which should utilise these referees, is being asked to pay for the sitting allowances. Such demands by the members, which were taken to the ridiculous level of not releasing referees to run the game for Week 3, should attract an immediate dissolution or query by the NFF.

Wait a minute NFF? Have the sub-committees been inaugurated? If no, then who were the committee members that met? Those who met to take such a decision should be removed from the committee now for pouring odium on the game. NFF should then inaugurate other sub-committees now that the league season has begun.

NFF’s executive board mustn’t sweep this shameful conduct under the carpet. This condemnable act jeopardised the conduct of genuine COVID-19 tests on the players, officials, match referees, and commissioners at this time when the Coronavirus pandemic is ravaging the world and killing people in quantum. No one can tell the collateral damage this has done to the girls and those who partook in those three matches and indeed all the week 3 fixtures because COVID-19 regulations were not observed. Truth be told.

Nigeria became the laughing stock in world football last week when it was reported in the media that both female teams arrived at their venues without the match officials, who ought to have been in town the previous day to conduct the pre-match formalities in the morning of the matches. It is at such pre-match meetings that the officials read the rules and regulations binding the game. They also direct the host federations on what they want to be done before, during, and after the matches otherwise, they would call off the game. Sadly, these sub-committee members were interested in getting their allowances paid by the federation’s women’s league board as if they were the ones who called for the meeting.

The shame in the conduct of the NFF Referees Committee not releasing the match officials’ list for the week 3 fixtures in the Nigeria Women Professional League rest with the fact that each committee is headed by an executive committee member, who should know what operates in such circumstances. Indeed, it is the executive body that picks members into the sub-committees, just as it is the federation’s responsibility to fund all meetings which oil the federation’s operations. Only the NFF secretariat can call for sub-committees’ meetings and do so by providing all the required logistics that the members need to hold successful meetings. If the provision for payment wasn’t made to settle their allowances, the chairman of the body ought to have pleaded with his members to bear with the federation. The chairman of the referees’ committee ought to have asked his members to write down their account details for payment in the future. Buoyant chairmen in the past would have paid the members their entitlements and collected the refund from the federation later. It isn’t right for the Women’s Professional League Board (WPLB) to foot such a spurious bill, except the body expressly stated so.

During the defunct Interim League Management Board (ILMB’s) tenure, its members requested the NFF to provide the list of its very competent referees who would run the league for the season which the federation obliged. The ILMB did that to stem poor officiating which had crippled the competition in the past. The ILMB then constituted a referees’ committee which was approved by the NFF to handle the critical aspect of the game. The ILMB then paid for the referees’ entitlements and ensured their contact with the clubs was reduced drastically. The essence of this noble initiative was to reduce tales of sharp practices appreciably. The defunct ILMB also paid for the referees’ transportation to the match venues and the hotels they resided. I digress!

The bigger shame is that the board members who head these committees also function in various sub-committees in FIFA and CAF, making them privy to how things are done in these higher football platforms. Not so for some of these board members who are not prepared to sacrifice anything for the good and development of the game. Why this committee’s refusal to do their job is condemnable, there is an urgent need for the NFF hierarchy to lay the markers on the table at their next meeting to avoid a repeat of the show of shame at match venues for week 3 fixtures. With such members, one isn’t surprised that the NFF is heavily indebted since the cash in the purse won’t foot all its bills.

The painful aspect of these members’ action was that the girls were made to spend an extra day at the designated cities, meaning they went home immediately after the games stinking in their sweats. Imagine those girls who received knocks during the game having to bear the pain through the tortuous Nigerian roads and the attendant hazards (kidnappers, robbers, etc). Indeed, in the three venues where referees hurried onto the pitch straight from the motor park and airports, the games had to be played at night, with most of them ending some minutes to midnight. Imagine the punishments on the girls who would have to wake up in the early hours to head home.

Agonisingly, these people tried to justify their action by alluding to the fact that it is what operates with the men’s game. What a pity. No wonder nothing good can come out of the domestic game, with such waste pipes existing in the system. It still amazes this writer why the sub-committee members didn’t opt for the virtual meeting which wouldn’t have involved any cost to them. The NFF executive members should as a matter of urgency decree that subsequent meetings on matters concerning the game must be done virtually until the vaccine to cure the deadly Coronavirus is found.

Sports is big business especially soccer. This idea of the NFF to be enmeshed in controversies drives away potential sponsors who wouldn’t want to associate their products and services with the federation. Already, the executive committee has made promised a lot of goodies for the women who are the best team in Africa, unlike their male counterparts who couldn’t win one game in the year 2020. Mention must be made of the Aisha Falode led board which broke the ice of playing league games with a take-off date which they stuck to. Falode’s board also didn’t allow the irritation associated with the referee’s body’s tomfoolery to disrupt the Week 3 fixtures. The fact that the fixtures were completed to allow for the next week’s games to be played is a welcome development showing how the game should be run.

Of course, one needs to wish readers of this newspaper a prosperous New Year after the dreadful Year 2020 and the Coronavirus pandemic. Please obey all the Covid-19 regulations. Use your face masks. Coronavirus is ravaging the world and is, therefore, real.

January 2, 2021
2020 – The good, the bad and the ugly

By Dayo Sobowale

It is easy to say good riddance to bad rubbish to a bad year any, day, anytime. A year that is gone is gone by the
first day of January of the following year. But only a suicidal person would say good riddance to bad rubbish to a raging pandemic that knows no borders or time and bestrode 2020 like a colossus or a raging   bull, in terms of the lives it took away globally. 2020 is gone but the pandemic is still raging globally.

Some one once said –‘time, you old gypsy man; will you not stay, put up your caravan, just for one day‘ Surely that can be said of both time and 2020 but the year is gone, but time, like a gypsy keeps marching on. This time however, both, time and the gypsy are embedded in the pandemic that has refused to go and is escalating when it is expected to subside. It is even more angry and murderous on the discovery of a vaccine to tackle it while those fighting it quarrel over who should get the vaccine panacea, first and last.

Today I pay a most reluctant homage to a pandemic that I wrongly thought would not last long when it broke by promising not to call it by its name until it has disappeared as speedily and miraculously as it reared its ugly head in far away China. I wrote on this column then that I would not call the pandemic by its name in the spirit of denying terrorists the publicity they crave for in killing innocent people, by not mentioning their names thereafter. I later however started ending this column with the rider – From the fury of this pandemic Good Lord Deliver Nigeria. Well, now in 2021 I still continue my attitude on both scores, but in addition, I beg this raging pandemic to leave humanity alone quickly in 2021, and let us continue our lives without the shadow of death hanging over everything, as it did so mercilessly in 2020. Amen.

Today’s title speaks for itself. The only mystery is the wonder of what can be good in a bad pandemic year like 2020. But God is merciful and I will show that later. But the strange events that characterized the year speak volumes on how bad it was. I will illustrate some events with my personal   experiences. I will also see how the pandemic intruded into many political and socio economc systems in a way not foreseen till the pandemic shaped and reshaped events with such malleability that simply beggars description.

Let me start with the good side and that is about Nigeria and the third world or the so called developing nations. Even Bill Gates had the cheeky impudence to wonder why the pandemic has not killed more people in Africa and the developing nations as projected. To me that is his funeral and it shows that he and the World Health Organisation–WHO-which made the projection are not God and cannot see properly even though they have good specialist, scientific eyes and minds. The good thing, unknown to these specialists   and agents of doom, is that Nigerians have been accustomed to the symptoms of respiratory diseases for long and this gave them immense cover and confidence and that explains the low deaths and the preponderant reluctance to wear masks. That is very apparent in most Nigerian capitals, the SW as I said last week and in Lagos and many parts of the North where people crowd together in very unhygienic circumstances and have not contracted the dreaded disease so far. That to me is the good side of 2020 for Nigeria far above anything else and I hope that continues and prevails till 2021 because it is not science that has saved us but the Grace of the Almighty God. So if you say loudly that God was a Nigerian in 2020 because of the low deaths against all the odds, I readily agree, and pray fervently that God continues to be a Nigerian in 2021 and beyond till the ugly pandemic disappears.

Surely a look at events in the US and the UK show clearly that God is not a sleeping God. The two nations think they own the world in terms of democracy, politics and science. But the pandemic has no respect for all these. The two powerful leaders in the two nations almost died from the pandemic. Here in Nigeria our president who was sick before the pandemic is hale and hearty and does not always wear mask. However two events in the UK and US show that the pandemic affected the political systems and their regional diplomacy and trade quite unexpectedly.

In the US the incumbent President Donald Trump lost power to the pandemic and not the Democrats. He is crying foul but the Democrats are waiting for the next president, their own Joe Biden to be sworn in by January 20, 2021. An aggrieved Republican lamented that Democrats played up the Pandemic not necessarily to protect Americans but to win the election through mail–in balloting. But the results have been certified and Democrats are telling the Republicans to be sportsmen and accept the results and let the train of power which derailed the Trump presidency move on, pandemic or no pandemic .

In the UK the EUand UK struck a last minute Brexit deal galvanized by the fear of the pandemic which escalated in Europe as both sided diddled over a trade deal. To show that all is not well on the deal or that many people are upset with the idea of Brexit which is now a reality , even the PM’s father is urgently seeking French nationality to protest. More than anything the pandemic made the post Brexit deal a possibility as the deadline of December 31 approached and the death rates soared in both the EU and the UK and health facilities were taxed to their limits on both sides involved in getting a deal done. As the Labour leader said in moving his party to support, any deal is better than no deal. But both sides face a pandemic that will not go away even though a vaccine has been discovered and the nations are rich enough to protect their people unlike Nigeria and others who have only God as their protector from the raging pandemic.

On the bad and ugly side again, the Chinese experience is worth looking at especially as the pandemic started from there. The Chinese will be glad that President Trump is leaving as that will give them relief on three fronts. He cannot call the pandemic a Chinese virus from political obscurity. Trumps trade tariffs wars are likely to come to an abrupt end with his presidency. Thirdly given Joe Buden’s son, Hunter’s entanglement with Chinese businessmen, the new president will be very careful on how to react to China in both Trade and diplomacy. The Hunter Biden corruption scandal so often dismissed as black mail by his dad, was one of the best ignored and    protected stories of the US 2020 presidential elections. CNN and others of the anti Trump media ignored a story which would have influenced the presidential elections massively against Biden and instead magnified the coverage of the pandemic and its mishandling by Trump. This paid handsomely for Joe Biden’s election and he will be sworn in as America’s 46th president this January 2021. Once again From the fury of this pandemic Good Lord Deliver Nigeria.

January 2, 2021
Between Obiano and ‘little’ Luli

Sentry

In what looks like a repeat of the battle between David and Goliath, Lilu community in Anambra State says it will not accept Governor Willie Obiano’s plan to allegedly force a caretaker committee on them.

The community said there is no need for a caretaker committee as elections for the leadership had been conducted one year ago. But the government says the said leadership is not in possession of a certificate and as such cannot lead. Neither the governor, nor the people of little known Luli community, is ready to blink.

In a letter signed by Ben Ezeaneche and others on behalf of Lilu Development Union, the community asked Obiano to issue the requisite certificates of recognition to the duly elected president general and his executive members. It said the union elections were successfully conducted on December 31, 2019, in accordance with the constitution of Lilu people and other relevant laws regulating such process in Anambra State.

However, the community said a caretaker committee “is foreign to our constitution, especially when there are substantive executive members of the town union, like in the instant case.”

According to the commissioner, the community must accept the government’s directive. But some elders are insisting little Luli will do no such thing. Who blinks first?

January 2, 2021
Who cursed Nigeria’s sports?

By Ade Ojeikere

Truth always stands out like a sore thumb. It only takes time to know its significance. Those who have spent taxpayer’s cash storming England to watch Anthony Joshua box or should I say defend his World heavyweight boxing titles did so to deceive themselves, certainly not the pugilist. The beauty of all these professionals is that they have structures within their camps that drive their processes. These structures ensure that only legitimate people or establishments benefit when the time to reward excellence emerges.

There isn’t any room for anyone to ambush the established processes, such as our Nigerian leaders. Such interlopers are kept at a distance, making them to share the moments after fights. These Nigerian hawks among others are left on the lurch when it is time to celebrate. I wrote here last week that the Nigerian government lost the opportunity to use Joshua’s likeness for his fatherland to drag the boxer to Nigeria, where he would be impressed by the hospitality he would get here to make critical pronouncements that would reinvigorate boxing, which was made popular by the late Dick Tiger Iheatu at one of the Olympic Games, a professional boxer who held the World Middleweight and World Light Heavyweight Championships. Tiger emigrated to Liverpool, England to pursue his boxing career and later to the United States.

Tiger was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1991. The Ring magazine named him Fighter of the Year in 1962 and 1965, while the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA) named him Fighter of the Year in 1962 and 1966. In 2002, Tiger was voted by The Ring magazine as the 31st greatest fighter of the last 80 years. What this simply means is that boxing has been a Nigeria forte, especially when one remembers Isaac Ikhuoria won a bronze medal at the Olympics. There was also Davidson Andeh, Peter Koyengwachie et al.

Instead, we chose to pigeon hole the meeting of Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari with a world champion inside a conference hall. Of course, Joshua prostrated before the President to the joy of a large government delegation waiting patiently to take their turns in photo shoots with Joshua. The essence of such an epoch-making ceremony was lost on the government officials who didn’t see the business side of such a symbolic event. Those who packaged the session ought to have come with Joshua’s manager who would whisper to them how best to make the event a showpiece to the president with the game (boxing) the biggest benefactor. Some people were eager to ascribe Joshua’s meeting with Buhari as their efforts, forgetting that such celebrities are entertainers who come with prizes, only if the organisers asked the relevant questions.

Read Also: The rush for Joshua

On Tuesday, Joshua’s manager Eddie Hearn showed those who organised the event in London how to celebrate stars. Joshua joined the legion of boxing champions who have expressed their fears over the dearth of the pugilist trade which brought them opulence and fame. Determined to give back to such a trade, Joshua made donations towards some boxing gyms, just as he nursed fears that many people may go out of business due to the second wave of Coronavirus pandemic.

The cash will be distributed to clubs via England Boxing, Welsh Boxing, and Boxing Scotland. Did I hear you say no mention of Nigeria? How can we when we are used to spending government money which is very cheap? Joshua’s image-makers would have seen through those who negotiated the meeting and allowed them to stew in their mess. Indeed, what struck this writer is the fact that sports isn’t seen from the altar of recreation as we do in Nigeria where certain governors tag the money-spinner ‘play play’ unlike in saner climes where Joshua learned his trade.

Joshua’s donations were made to the communities showing that the emphasis for sports to thrive rests in the hinterlands where talents abound waiting for any machinery to bring out their hidden talents. Sadly, in Nigeria, we develop sports from the top. If the governor or his deputy likes one or two sports, lickspittles around the government would make a scene out of the sports, especially when their principals are around. That isn’t sports development. Our governors and local government chairmen should learn from this Joshua initiative if sports must be a money spinner and the greatest employment platform for our youths who need to be engaged positively.

Joshua said: ‘’We need to bring attention to the boxing industry and how important grassroots sport is. I definitely think boxing gyms will go under (without help). It came to my attention when I read the article from Repton, about understanding the costs of what it takes to keep the gym open. Not only keeping the gym open but the income they have made independently to keep going and it’s been really, really tough.

‘’There are clubs who are struggling even worse. That’s why I feel it’s important to bring attention to this issue. Without the amateur system, the grassroots clubs, there are no Olympians and without them, there are no world champions in the country.’’

Joshua’s donation arose from the fact that many amateur gyms have been forced to shut down albeit temporarily due to the Coronavirus pandemic, making the youth venerable to embrace crimes in the absence of the training sessions at the gyms. Besides, Joshua also didn’t want them to hang up their gloves especially those that made be shut permanently, depending on the impact of Coronavirus in such areas or states.

Joshua is the latest high-profile boxing personality to voice his fears following that of his promoter Eddie Hearn and Northern Ireland’s former two-weight world champion Carl Frampton.

Joshua – who retained his world title belts with a ninth-round stoppage of Kubrat Pulev earlier this month – has made his donation to clubs via the three home nations federations.

“Boxing helped shape me, both physically and mentally,” said Joshua. “It is no secret that without boxing and the family created around my amateur gym, my life could have been very different.

“The sport has given me a lot and I want to help highlight the issues affecting grassroots clubs and do what I can to keep the lights on for those most in need.

“I am not using this as an opportunity to criticise the government for its lack of funding towards boxing – these are unprecedented times – however, I would like to use my platform to respectfully ask them to rethink their stance. Without the support, we will lose community hubs and potentially the stars of tomorrow.”

What gets this writer thinking is the blatant refusal of government officials to do the right things. Instead of rubbing minds with Joshua and his marketing team to learn about the rudiments of the game and its merchandising, they showcase their tomfoolery by name a street in his state after the pugilist. Can you beat that? Does Joshua live here? does even know where the street is located? Is it just enough to change the name of the street without allowing the recipient to witness the event? Imagine seeing Joshua on a particular street and the attendant crowd eager to catch a glimpse of their idol? Picture the marketing openings that would be sold to the corporate world and quantum cash to the initiators and government?

It would have made more economic and business sense if the Ogun state government could present a request that Joshua adopts two of their best boxers. The ripple effect of such exposure is that Joshua and his training crew would arrange for a visit to the state to fish for more of such boxers if truly the best is handed over to them for further development. As an Edo man, I’m’ worried that the late Brai Ayonote boxing gym is rotten away inside the National Stadium in Surulere, Lagos, yet Joshua, a Nigerian like they want us to believe is donating to gyms in Scotland, England and Wales. I’ve always asked who placed a curse on Nigeria? Whereas Joshua received a Member of the British Empire (MBE) medal, we chose to laugh our hearts off watching the world boxing champion prostrate before Mr. President. Come on, we can do better. Who has told us that Joshua would marvel over a street named after him when he wants kids of crime to embrace boxing in saner climes?

Joshua can provide our boxers, Ogun State’s inclusive with all the professional training needed to reach the top. It is no use making a ceremony out of Joshua’s visits to the country, we ought to let him see the boxing facilities in the state and the other 35 states and Abuja, the city which hosted the 8th All Africa Games. he would know where he can contribute. It would be a shame if at this point we are spending on AJ instead of getting resources and technicalities from him.

Joshua’s life underscores the power of using boxing among other sports to reform individuals. In 2009 he was put on remand for ‘fighting and other crazy stuff’. In 2011 he was suspended by the Great Britain squad after being caught by police in possession of cannabis. This transformation defeats the essence of immortalising Joshua, if that is what those who named a street after him wanted to achieve. What a country.

December 26, 2020
Smothered by an overwhelming sense of unhappiness

UnderTow

That in a nutshell is how Nigerians feel in 2020. In January, little or nothing forebode misery in the year. But before the first quarter was done, misery had crept in through COVID-19, that most debilitating of diseases that dispatches with unabating fury, that most cavalier of plagues that humiliates the rich and the poor, and levels the mighty and the weak. By December, well into its second wave, a recrudescence foretold by scientists and epidemiologists, it had become the most veritable Grim Reaper the world has known since the world wars. But nothing in COVID-19 prepared Nigerians for the march of the other Reaper, banditry, or cast such an overwhelming sense of helplessness, hopelessness and despair as insecurity. Month after month, and week in and week out, mass murder is committed all around the country on a scale that has paralysed and stupefied the nation.

The country’s unending troubles began almost inauspiciously as insurgency some 11 years ago, but were limited to the Northeast corner. In 2009, a group of zealots protesting the socio-economic condition of the country, which they viewed through their extremist religious prism, banded together under the banner of Mohammed Yusuf’s Boko Haram and took Borno State by storm killing, maiming and pillaging. At first, they received favourable hearing from a number of people hungry for religious purity; but the state quickly realised that the movement had some definite political undertones, especially considering their avowed objective to overthrow the decadent old order. In addition to a hated government holding the reins of office in Abuja during the Goodluck Jonathan presidency, sections of the populace saw and embraced the revolutionary potentials of Boko Haram until it grew into a full-scale insurgency that began to consume sympathizers and financiers of the movement.

Somehow, some parts of the North, particularly the Northwest and North Central, sequestered the insurgency in the Northeast and deprived it of the oxygen of martial and ideological following. Even then, the country was being bled relentlessly, and that bleeding has continued till today regardless of what form the bleeding takes. When the authority of the state is challenged so flagrantly in any corner of the country, if it is not quickly controlled, it is bound to spread to other parts in one form or the other. It did not come as a surprise then that insecurity has spread like wild fire all over the North in the form of banditry and kidnapping. As far as measurement goes, no one is sure today which is the more pernicious of the two evils, or whether more blood is shed through insurgency or banditry. Both evils have defied the state and dared the rest of the country, exporting their extortionate methods and nihilistic ideology to far-flung and previously peaceful states. The bandits were youths alienated and dispossessed; now they are wreaking havoc on the country and exacting revenge on a society that humiliated and scorned them.

Boys schools are raided for ransom and recruitment of child soldiers; and girls-only colleges are raided also for ransom and sex slaves. The insurgents and bandits no longer rally under any plausible religious banner; they have become purely mercantilist and predatory, pursuing and sating their fleshly desires with reckless abandon. No one believes or even cares about their occasional gestures to religious ideals. In 2014 they raided a girls-only secondary school in Chibok, Borno State, and carted away 276 students. In 2016 and 2017, after humiliating negotiations, the government paid ransom and retrieved some of the girls. As a sign of the country’s and leaders’ impotence, the other schoolgirls have not been heard from till today. But in Nigeria, lightning strikes the same place twice. In February 2018, the same Boko Haram forces which perpetrated the Chibok abductions, attacked and carted away 110 schoolgirls from Government Girls Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State. After a panicky and clumsy negotiation, all the girls but one, Leah Sharibu, were released in March of that year after a humiliating procession through Dapchi by the abductors. As a mark of the incompetence of the state, not to say the vacuity of the leaders, Miss Sharibu has been abandoned and betrayed.

Village after village in the Northeast has been pillaged by the insurgents. And now, because of unrelenting banditry, many states in the Northwest have become fragile and insecure under the weight of banditry. Governors and traditional rulers have cried out in frustration, and the highways have become so unsafe that travelling at certain times of the day has become an ordeal. Years of uncontrolled population growth, inattentiveness to regular, vocational and technical education, and corruption have bred an angry and impatient youth population. No one disputes the enervating reign of violence and evil in the region; what is in dispute is how to rein the vices in. Indeed, it seems that the state governments themselves have resigned to cohabiting with the evils, only fretful when the evils combine with a crisis like COVID-19 to create a lethal mix of troubles no one seems to have a clue how to resolve. Unsafe in the cities, unsafe in the highways, and unsafe in their homes, the people are in a quandary what to make of their lives and living.

But while COVID-19 was unanticipated, and its panaceas largely left to scientists to figure out, few expected that the government would resign to fate over banditry and insurgency. Sadly, the government has been as nonplussed as the people. In the case of the Chibok abductions, it negotiated half way, paid ransom, got back some of the girls over a two-year period, and then gave up altogether, perhaps overwhelmed by the cost of doing much more than it already did. In Dapchi, it also paid ransom, but for inexplicable reason it won’t disclose, it left a schoolgirl behind. And despite promising to get her back, the government has done nothing. Miss Sharibu has reportedly been married off to an insurgent commander. The government has accumulated military hardware, has superior number of troops, has a far bigger budget than the insurgents, yet a sizeable part of the Northeast has remained unsafe, and insurgents have easily penetrated and despoiled anywhere that catches their strategic fancy. If they wish to abduct any group of people tomorrow, they can easily hatch the plot and execute it with aplomb.

If the government’s response to Boko Haram has been desultory and largely ineffective, its response to banditry has been much worse. Boko Haram made the tactical mistake of fighting pitched battles and holding territories. They have suffered terrible losses so bad that they can hardly hold any territory today. They now limit themselves to terrorizing large swathes of land and exerting deeply injurious influence over many local governments. This tactical change borne out of necessity has served them well just as holding territories had been gratifying but tactically costly. Worse, the change has frustrated government forces and demoralised the people. Bandits, unlike Boko Haram, have been highly mobile, effective and incomparably lethal, in fact cheekily making certain highways inaccessible to travellers. Once their location is bombed, they move out, only to return a little later. Government forces have been unable to hold territories from which bandits were neutralised, and indeed have sadly reduced themselves to sharing with bandits control of the highways for certain hours of the day.

Appallingly, the federal government has had only one ace to play: military option. But that option is a failed option, a tactical manoeuvre that has proved predictable, beatable and unsustainable. There are no other options. Consequently, apart from planting themselves in obvious locations and camps, most of which are circumvented by the bandits, government forces have reduced themselves only to responding to attacks and picking up corpses. Banditry has, therefore, proliferated, as witnessed by the December 11 daring Kankara, Katsina State, abductions in which about 344 students were carted away almost unchallenged in landlocked terrains. The young schoolboys were recovered after ransom was paid, with the government waffling over the meaning of ransom and the identity of those who carried out the negotiations. Had the abduction been organized by Boko Haram itself, instead of its affiliates, the story would have been different.

The country now seems fated to pine away between the anvils of Boko Haram and bandits, much of the crisis playing out in the North, but a lot now manifesting even in the South. Since there is little coordination in the federal response to the country’s existential problem, the nihilists are likely to be more emboldened to organize and orchestrate more attacks. With each attack, more territory is yielded to the anarchists, while the country is left smothered by unhappiness. The question is not whether the insecurity crisis would ever be resolved, but when it would come to a head in an endgame that seems fated to tip the country over the precipice. The only option left unexplored is for the Muhammadu Buhari administration to ask for help; but those who have hijacked the administration lack both the competence to tackle the grave existential crisis confronting the nation and the wisdom to recognise its limitations and the need to ask for help.

December 26, 2020
Kwara: Between Otoge and Otunya

Sentry

On Saturday 14th November, 2020, former Senate President Bukola Saraki arrived Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, for the first time since the 2019 general election.

He had in February 2019 lost his bid to return to the National Assembly. Sentry gathered that the former Kwara governor was at his home town for the eighth-year Fidau prayer for his late dad, Dr. Olusola Saraki and the silver jubilee anniversary of the coronation of the Emir of Ilorin, Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari.

Truth be told, Saraki was welcomed by a huge crowd of supporters. Almost all pedestrian bridges and high rise buildings along the roads from the airport to his family’s GRA residence were taken over by eager onlookers.

Determined to utilise the political mileage offered him by the visit to the fullest, the younger Oloye rode in a motorcade all the way to his residence and the palace while people cheered.

Read Also: Not yet Uhuru for Saraki and friends

Since that visit, talk in Kwara, especially among supporters of the ex-Senate President and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has largely been about how come 2023, the people of the state will reject the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and reinstate Saraki’s political family in Government House with their votes.

According to some ‘Sarakites’ who boasted to Sentry, the Otoge revolution that swept away PDP and Saraki in 2019 is about to be replaced by Otunya, the movement that will restore both to power.

But chieftains of the ruling party will have none of such ‘idle talk’ as they describe boasts about an Otunya movement. Even some non-partisan residents of Ilorin brush aside the possibility of PDP returning to power in 2023.

“Is it because of the rented crowd you saw last month? Otunya to where? Come 2023, we will sustain the gains of Otoge by ensuring PDP is roundly defeated again,” one commentator said.

December 26, 2020
Apapa gridlock: More officers, more problems?

Sentry

During the week, Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, said 200 security officers would be deployed to clear the route leading to Tin Can and Apapa ports in Lagos State.

Workers’ unions at the ports had threatened to go on strike if the government failed to address gridlock on the route. But rather than elicit happiness from workers and people of the state, the minister’s promise of more security men has been attracting jeers and worries. This is because many are of the opinion that security men, rather than solve the problem, will only add to it.

Sentry gathered that the skepticism may not be unconnected with allegations that security personnel deployed to tackle gridlock over the years have always turned themselves to toll collectors, making brisk money from the melee while the tanker drivers continue to flout the rules.

As long as tanker drivers and other unruly motorists are willing to grease the palms of soldiers and policemen, the gridlock will not be tackled. So, the promise of more security may turn out to mean more problems for us on that route,” a worried resident lamented to Sentry.

December 26, 2020
An inspiring example

By Segun Ayobolu

All too easily most of us are wont to blame our persistent and protracted travails as a nation solely at the feet of an inept, visionless, venal and grasping leadership. Thus, Buhari, governors, local government Chairmen, national and state legislators – those in the public eye – are the objects of our unrelentingly scathing criticisms and deservingly so. The leadership no doubt shares the greater proportion of the blame for the ills that hobble any society particularly an underdeveloped entity like Nigeria whose potentials are perennially trapped. But is the leadership too not to some extent a reflection of the values that actuate the larger number of the followership?

The great political scientist, the late Professor Claude Ake, in an opinion piece published in The Guardian newspaper once admonished Nigerians to stop seeking political Messiahs to deliver them but that each should strive to find and manifest the political Messiah within the individual for the benefit of the collectivity. I do not know now if I accurately portray the point Ake was trying to make. But I think the import of his logic was that each of us must strive to be and reflect the change we so passionately advocate to others and the larger society.

Private leadership is as important, if not more crucial, than public leadership. The higher the number of individuals that are able to lead themselves to reflect the ennobling values of citizenship, integrity, civility and humaneness, in the private realm, the greater the possibility of the emergence of leaders of character, honesty and elevating compassion in the public sphere.

Given the perverse value system prevalent in our society, the preeminent preoccupation with the acquisition of material wealth by all and any means and at any cost, the dearth of empathy, the disdain for genuine and honest industry, the death of compassion and civility, those who guide and govern their lives by a higher moral compass cannot but elicit our admiration and inspire us to rise above the base and banal as well as seek and release the higher angels of our own nature.

The parent of means who refuses to procure leaked examination papers to enable his or her child to flaunt deceptive brilliance. The worker who refuses to dupe his organization and goes beyond the call of duty to achieve excellence in discharging his duties whether the boss is around or not. The taxi driver who returns valuable property that was forgotten in his vehicle by a passenger to the owner. The spiritual leader who insists on speaking truth both to members of his congregation as well as to power regardless of the financial implications for his ministry.

These gems of integrity exist in larger numbers in our society than we presume and the matter is worsened by the torrents of bad news that routinely drown the good in contemporary Nigeria. I think it was late in October this year that I received a short video recording on WhatsApp which showed a woman, Mrs. Harriet Joe-Imhana and her 19-year old daughter, Iziehi, paying glowing tribute to the cardiology team at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH). The daughter had just undergone a successful open heart surgery at the tertiary institution and mother and child thought it fitting to give a public testimony of their experience, which in itself is remarkable and usual in these climes.

•Harriet Joe-Imhanwa and her daughter, Iziehi

In the words of Mrs. Harriet Joe-Imhanwa, a retired school principal from Edo State, who runs an NGO in Lagos in memory of her late husband, in the video, “This is my daughter, she was diagnosed with a hole in the heart; that was in October, November 2019. And that was at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH). We did a trial test and it was confirmed there was a hole in the heart and she needed surgery. That was huge for us; in a country like Nigeria it was huge. We were referred to LASUTH and I was not particularly comfortable with government hospitals because I had my experience more than two decades ago with government hospitals whether it is federal, whether it is state and I didn’t want to have anything to do with them. I did my investigations among the private hospitals and the price was skyrocketing, inhibitive for us at that time in our financial situation. Finally, I decided to go along with LASUTH not by choice but because of the consultant cardiologist, Dr. Falase.”

Mrs Harriet Joe-Imhanwa continues: “We were referred to Dr. Falase and even when we did not have the money to come forth, he kept chatting my daughter up, encouraging her, checking up on her and I was amazed. Do we still have people like this in Nigeria? He called me up one day after the COVID-19 lockdown and he said: “Ah madam, why don’t you come up, we want to start surgery.” In fact, it was my daughter he called and I told my daughter, “please tell him we are not ready.” The next thing, he tried raising funds for us. When I saw his encouragement, I was encouraged. I said, is this happening in Nigeria? Then God opened a door for me and before we knew we got the money and I was surprised when they gave me the price. It was a little above half of what the best private cardiologist gave to me in Lagos so I decided to try Dr Falase. The surgery was scheduled for 12th October, 2020, and it was done and, lo and behold, it was very successful.”

It was at this point that the WhatsApp video recording came to an end. Luckily, The Nation newspaper of Wednesday, October 30, 2020, published the story and I was able to read the continuation of Mrs. Joe-Imhanwa’s story. She said: “My daughter woke up even before the time they thought she would wake up. I was asked to come into the Intensive Care Unit. I opened the door, and boom! It was like I had entered a hospital abroad. Is this in Nigeria? It was well equipped and neat that I was in awe. How come that people did not know about a place like this?”she queried.

The story continued, “She appealed to the Lagos State Government to keep the cardiology team in the country and maintain the facilities at the hospital. Harriet also asked Nigerians not to travel abroad for heart surgeries, saying they could be done at LASUTH and at cheaper rates. Her daughter, Iziehi, said…”Even when I was moved to the general ward, the treatment did not reduce; they were still encouraging me. Even when I did not feel like waking up on some days, they would tell me, ‘Looking at you alone, you are a miracle,” she added.

In the course of researching this story, I stumbled on another news item by Temitayo Ayetoto in the on-line edition of Business Day on November 4, 2020. It was about a 22 year old graduate of International Relations from Oduduwa University, Ile-Ife, Abiodun Omotayo, who was diagnosed with rheumatic heart disease, a condition in which the heart valves have been permanently damaged by Rheumatic fever. Although he was told that he would require N50 million for a successful surgery outside the country, the Kanu Heart Foundation referred him to LASUTH where, on September 28th 2020, a team led by Dr Bode Falase treated and replaced his damaged valve at a much cheaper cost. “I thank Dr Falase and his team for a job well done. LASUTH is a better place to be,” Omotayo said in a video where his thankful mother appeared.”

From his online bio-data, Dr. Bode Falase has been a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at LASUTH since 2006. He obtained his MBBS from the University of Ibadan in 1987 and obtained higher specialist qualifications in cardiothoracic surgery as well as Healthcare Informatics from the Royal College of Surgeons as well as the University of Bath. The President of the Association of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgeons of Nigeria (ACTSON), he has a passion to help make cardiac surgery more readily available and affordable in Nigeria.

On the video by Mrs Harriet Joe-Imhanwa, the Chief Medical Director of LASUTH, Professor Adetokunbo Fabamwo, told The Nation it was done without prompting from the hospital saying, “This is not the first time that we are doing open heart surgery with local staff. It’s only that she is the first person to give testimony. In the last one year, LASUTH has been doing open heart surgery with local staff without inviting expatriates or anybody and at rock bottom prices. We have the best cardiothoracic unit in Nigeria now”.

The evolution of LASUTH itself is a fascinating tale. Established as a model cottage hospital by the old Western Region Government on 25th June, 1955 to cater for the people of Ikeja and its environs, it grew into a full-fledged General Hospital serving as a secondary level facility. Under the administration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, it was upgraded into a well equipped tertiary hospital for the training of doctors and other allied health care professionals with state of the art equipment in July 2001. The hospital has continued to expand and make systematic progress under the succeeding Babatunde Raji Fashola, Akinwunmi Ambode and now Babajide Sanwo-Olu administrations. This is an inspiring example of how democracy can be the handmaiden of meaningful development.

December 26, 2020
Ideologies, pandemic and prosperity

By Dayo Sobowale

It is common nowadays to say that technology has made the world a global village. But it is becoming apparent that this ongoing killing pandemic has made our world more of a global village. This is because we know on a daily basis how many people die in nations which have been the destinations of our rich and mighty for health care as well as pleasure because the facilities for our well being generally are tragically lacking at home. The welfare state was the highest stage of human care and development after the Second World War when ideologies of the left moved a bit to the center and those of the right moved closer to the left. That was pragmatic politics that started in Western Europe and was transported somewhat, and some how by Colonialism to the colonies of the Colonial powers and nations like our Nigeria are beneficiaries of such fusion of socialist and capitalist values. How well we have managed them for the welfare of our people is another matter for another time. Today we look at the welfare state in this era of a pandemic that has killed more people in the prosperous, well known welfare states of the world We compare their battles to survive the pandemic which threatens their prosperity, and which has been projected to kill more people in the less developed world like ours. Instead the pandemic, mercifully, and unbelievably has spared our lives more than that of our former colonial masters.

It is easy to see that I am talking of nations like Britain in the throes of Brexit bluff and No Deal exit prospect; France, battling two extreme ideologies of the left and right like secularity and assimilation; the USA in a volatile and combustible transition as well as pandemic stimulus execution; and Nigeria in which the pandemic deaths have been meager comparatively, yet the economy is being run as if the death toll is similar to that of the three nations mentioned before, where the death tolls have been massive on a daily basis. Certainly we shall look at the comparative history of these nations to see how it has influenced their politics in this pandemic as well as their relative economic progress and development.

We start with Britain which has a high death toll but it is finding it difficult to close its industries in sports, entertainment as well as its schools. Britain has been saved to a large extent by its efficient National Health Service the-NHS. Even the PM Boris Johnson who barely escaped the pandemic with his life named a child born after the NHS nurses who treated him. But Britain’s woes nowadays stem from its successful running of the welfare state after the Second World War. But the cost of that and the influx of people from the colonies has overstretched British finance of the welfare state. It has been said in terms of history and prosperity, that Britain and the Allies defeated Germany in the WW2 but Germany became the winner in terms economic development after the war. Bereft of any army or Navy, Germany turned to the race of economic development and prosperity and made a success of it while Britain still maintained its war time army and naval fleet which has been a drain on its resources. It thought the EU was dragging it down and it could go it alone but Brexit has been compounded with the paralyzing effect of an unexpected pandemic and the British for now are wondering if they did not make a mistake in voting Brexit, but it is too late to change that decision.

We go next to France where the death toll of the pandemic is still soaring but which has other ideological problems of the left and right even though after the French Revolution of 1789, France apart from the might of Napoleon Bonaparte, can be said to be more left than right. France’s problems have been compounded by radical Islam and the national effort to make France’s Muslim population which is the largest in Europe more French than their ethnicity which is proving difficult. Macron called the problem Islamic Separatism and he wants to fight that to maintain French cherished values of Secularity and Freedom of expression. But France also has a large migrant population who are badly camped and not well looked after in a prosperous nation like France. So France is facing its past of colonial assimilation of French Arabs and Black men from the former colonies who are expected to be French first and respect French values of secularity and freedom of expression but President Emmanuel Macron has seen that that is an uphill task and the effect of it is global. Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan has branded Macron mad for defending freedom of expression in endorsing the depiction of the Holy Prophet in a cartoon in France. The rigors of integrating French Muslims is taking a toll on France’s economic resources and that has created the strong menace of Yellow Vests protesters who are ready to exploit any social issues or problems to attack the government and destroy public properties and utilities.

The US and the end of the Trump presidency has thrown up some ideological conflicts of its own. During the presidential campaigns Trump raised the spectre that a Biden presidency will move in the direction of socialism which in a way is true because the Democratic Party that Biden represents is more liberal and to the left than the Republican Party of Trump. Indeed in terms of capitalism and socialism compared, Republicans can said to more laissez faire than the Democrats. Big government has been the flagship of Democrats while less government and tax cuts have been the road signs of the Republicans. So one can say Democrats have been more sympathetic with the welfare state than the Republicans. But the pandemic has changed the ideological sign posts significantly. This week it was President Trump, a Republican President asking that the stimulus package to assuage the suffering of Americans should be raised to 2000 dollars from the 600 dollars proposed by the legislature. This is an ideological climb down and it shows the extent of division and hate in US politics. Again it is clear that if the vaccine had been approved before the election that would have boosted the reelection prospects of the American president but that is now history.

We now come to Nigeria where the pandemic deaths are under 2000 but where insecurity has made life brutal and short with Islamic terrorists, kidnappers, herdsmen and marauders dominate the Northern landscape of the nation. The Governor of Borno State lamented bitterly openly recently that the military has not justified the huge expenditure of the Nigerian state on security with its inability to secure the nation’s territory. He was lamenting on a visit to a village 20 kilometres from Maiduguri, the Borno State capital. According to reports the Governor said that if the military cannot secure 20 kilometres from a state capital then it is not up to the task of defeating Boko Haram. He said he did not see any check point or military presence in his journey of 20km from Maiduguri

With regard to the pandemic it is clear that most Nigerians especially in the South west don’t believe it is real. Indeed they mock those wearing the masks religiously. But one thing is clear Nigerians know where the pandemic palliatives are stored and that was where hoodlums and thugs raided during the Stop SARS riots. Palliatives should be given to people at the time of need. That is the government objective of making state money available for those losing income and earnings in the pandemic. It is a lofty welfare strategy for cushioning the economic effect of the pandemic. To store them in known places to be looted during unrests and protests defeats government welfare objectives of making life easy for its citizens during this pandemic. Once again From the fury of this raging pandemic Good Lord Deliver Nigeria.

December 26, 2020
The rush for Joshua

Ade Ojeikere

Nigeria is truly a huge joke. We have many jesters in high places, little wonder one Nigerian once sang Nigeria jagajaga. How apt were the wordings of the song. This singer had to run away from the country because he was being haunted for daring to splash mud on one of the largest countries in the world. With a huge population, it is easy to find jesters replacing themselves at the pinnacle of governance. Otherwise, what is it that Nigeria has contributed to the emergence of Anthony Oluwafemi Joshua as a world boxing star? Is it the motley crowd who throng England whenever he fights, leaving at home the bosses of the fistic trade in their states?

Is it also the governmental delegation which provided the platform for Joshua to show that he had a proper upbringing by prostrating before president Muhamadu Buhari in London? Or is it the government team that arranged such an epoch-making event as the meeting of the World heavyweight champion with Mr. President, leaving at home the country’s sports minister? Shouldn’t such an event have held in Abuja with Mr. President decorating Joshua with a national honour, like the Queen, did in England when she decorated Joshua with the Member of the British Empire (MBE).

Had Joshua been made to visit Nigeria then, he could have made certain declarations about the fistic trade in the country which would have helped develop the game here. Joshua’s influence in the boxing world is massive. His presence with any NABA delegation to the corporate world would translate to instant cash or such requests approved with the speed of light.

Clips of Joshua training with our boxers would open the doors of sponsors who would want to utilise that marketing window to advertise their products and services. Such visuals are news items that would attract traction on social media. Joshua’s identifying with Nigerian boxers would help change people’s perception of the country in this recession period. Joshua’s presence at the hitherto Boxing Day activities on December 26, would have been a box office, even with the Coronavirus pandemic. I still don’t understand why the Nigerian government has failed to realise that the biggest public relations tool it can use to mirror the country properly to the world is sports, given its massive followership. Guess what, it comes for free. All that you need is to ensure that the industry thrives with our sportsmen and women attending and distinguishing themselves in big sporting events where Nigeria’s anthem is sung before they are decorated with their medals or trophies. Do our government know what it is for the world to stand still in sporting arenas listening to the rendition of our anthem before events and at medals’ presentation? The ripple effect of Joshua’s romance with boxing albeit sports could re-engineer the working of the industry in the country. Sports is business everywhere else but Nigeria. Again, we have missed the Joshua opportunity because some people wanted to be credited with the events.

Until Joshua came into the limelight after a near horrible past, we didn’t know that he is a Nigerian. When he had a brush with the British laws over drug-related offences arising from his early exposure to social ills to fend for himself, he wasn’t celebrated as a Nigerian here nor did the English accept that he was one of them. Such mischievous tags as Nigeria-born bla bla began his story in most newspapers’ reports unlike now when he is English and his fights are tagged Battle of Britain, ahead of the much-hyped fight against Tyson Fury fixed tentatively for May 2021, with staggering figures put at £200 million and gate takings put at £500 million.

Suspended from Britain’s boxing squad and sentenced to a 12-month community order including100 hours’ unpaid work, Joshua admitted that his conduct brought shame on his family, friends and those within his sport, promising to change his ways. Those who know Joshua attest to the fact that he is an accomplished footballer and athlete who could run the 100m in 11 seconds. Joshua began boxing few years ago at a local club after his cousin, Gbenga Ileyemi, recommended the sport.

‘‘The arrest changed a lot. It forced me to grow up and to respect my responsibilities. I’m not happy that I did what I did and there’s no way that kind of thing will ever happen again, but in a way I’m glad it did because it woke me up. I was just like a lot of young lads. It was all about how I looked, my clothes, clubbing, girls. I wasn’t with the best group of people.

‘‘I go running on Saturday nights now, not clubbing. I understand that if I’m to fulfil my potential then it’s all about hard work. It took me a while to realise this, but since last March I’ve never looked back. And you know what? I’m so much happier as a person, too,’’ Joshua told the international media.

This writer has been shocked by the applause from Nigerian government officials since Joshua knocked out Bulgarian boxer, Kubrat Pulev, in the ninth round of their world title bout at the SSE Arena, Wembley, to retain his WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, and IBO heavyweight titles. Joshua’s state governor, Dapo Abiodun continued from where his predecessor, Ibikunle Amosun began when he said: “AJ’s victory gives us, Ogun State people immeasurable joy, as the IBF, WBA and WBO titleholder retained his place at his outing against Kubrat Pulev yesterday (Sunday December 13).

“So, this is to congratulate, on behalf of the good people of the Gateway State, our very own Anthony Joshua on the world-celebrated victory that has brought us pride and a justification for our investment in sports and youth development.” We said Mr. Governor but it would be very nice if you can make Ogun State the new Mecca for boxing in Nigeria. We wait.

“I join thousands of Nigerians who watched the fight last night to congratulate Anthony Joshua. His victory yet again confirms the superiority of Africans especially Nigerians and how far our sportsmen have gone in recent years.

“On behalf of His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari, I hereby convey the goodwill message of the Federal Government and the good people of Nigeria to him. It is imperative for him to understand how much the government and the people of Nigeria are proud of his achievements as our son”, Lawan said.

Again, Mr Senate President, could you please tell Nigerians how much was voted for sports in the country’s budget? Shouldn’t the national Assembly fashion out sports can be given lump sum as seed money such that it can be run as a business not a recreational activity as it seems here. Paltry sums for sports can’t deliver any dividend for the game and the country.

Mr. Senate President, visualise Joshua holding the National Sports Festival’s torch and trotting towards the Games’ bowl to light up the torch and the attendant crowd around him on his way up, then you would appreciate why the sports minister and the Edo State government, headed by Governor Godwin Obaseki, should be supported to get the world champion in Benin City to actualise this novel dream.

The talk that Joshua didn’t participate in the National Sports Festival is bunkum if we must raise the profile of the Games. I had the unique privilege to carry the London 2012 Olympic Games torch around Birmingham, London, with several world beaters such as the late Muhammed Ali et al. I wasn’t an Olympian before I did that. So what stops Joshua from lighting the Edo 2020 National Sports Festival’s torch inside the Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia stadium in Benin City in March, with pomp and ceremony?

Sports and its ancillary parts would grow in geometric projections if our administrators think outside the box. And this includes copying the way things are done in other climes.

Mr. Senate President, how much is the government budgeting for the Olympics in 2021 and the World Cup in Qatar in 2022? Serious minded nations aren’t talking about budgets but counting in their mind’s eyes the number of medal they would get at the Olympics, for instance. Mr. Senate President, sportsmen and women are among the highest paid professionals. Serena Williams, Cristiano Ronaldo, Tiger Woods, Lewis Hamilton, Usain Bolt et al are some of the big earners. They achieved this feat because they were exposed to sports as kids. In fact, Serena’s dad groomed his daughters for stardom. No one is shocked by the phenomenal achievements of the Williams’ sisters -Venus and Serena.

For any commodity to have value, it must have a price. You ask, how much is any sport worth in Nigeria? Keep guessing. A company will place its goods or services on sports if there is massive followership, since the firm needs to reach as many consumers as possible. Firms key into sports to enhance their corporate image and clientele, which they won’t want to tarnish on the altar of sports sponsorship. This is why they seldom support Nigeria sports because most sports federations have not cultivated the culture of accountability.

Food and beverages firms as well as other sponsors see in the fans who throng the venues a window to market their goods and services.

December 20, 2020