NFA: Restructure Babayo Shehu C'ttee First, Minister Told
By Ayodeji Fashikun
Football technocrat and staunch advocate of non-governmental management of the game in Nigeria, Captain Kamaldeen Olatunde, a retired military officer, has called on the Minister of Sports, Colonel Musa Mohammed (rtd), to first of all restructure the committee he has saddled with the task of restructuring the NFA. Olatunde contends that the committee has an unwieldy size.
Olatunde, who spoke from his Jos base yesterday on phone to THISDAYSports said, "it is ironical that the committee to restructure the NFA is in the first instance a negation of the same job it is expected to carry out with 17 members. Their charity should have started from home."
According to the two-time Sole Administrator of the defunct Kwara Bombers FC of Ilorin, "the population of 'experts' needs to be drastically pruned down. Where they not at one point or the other a part of the NFA structure? To me, what is it that the Minister wants to achieve? Is this same job he is giving to 17 people not what the nation saddled Patrick Okpomo with the last time? Where is the report he submitted?"
The staunch believer in the private-sector management of football added that: "The likes of Okpomo and Adokie Amasimaka were only included to give some measure of credibility to their plans. Is the Minister serious about turning that place around? If he is, the first casualty should have been Decree 101."
He charged further: "He should have enforced a revisit of the Nathaniel Idowu committee report that gave birth to the Pro-League and in addition, Okpomo's report. Why are we dancing round the bush? Let all the clubs first be mandated within a deadline to become limited liability companies and all forms of government financing and control be left out and see the impact the game will bring to Nigerians.
"Check the Babayo Shehu Committee, are they not the same people who have over the years evolved what the NFA has become today? We sincerely need a clean break and not a recycle of the human beings in the industry as if we are bereft of ideas as a people," he postulated.
The frank football administrator added, "the Minister may have good intentions but I think he is a hostage of some 'experts' in his Ministry. They toss the Minister to do their bidding and not the nation's best interests."
He upbraided the national Assembly's Sports Committees as being "lame ducks."
"Why have they not brought anything of importance to bear on the floor of the parliament. At no time has sports been on the front burner of the parliament's discussion. The media should help beat them into line."
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