The road much travelled
by Banji Adisa
MONDAY’S turn of events is not unexpected. We’re back on a familiar road that we, as a people, have travelled often. One wonders whether we have collectively lost our sense of values, the form that wordsmith Prof. Wole Soyinka, a Nobel Laureate, would see as moral recession. Incidentally, we never get weary of such travel although the past efforts have not taught us much or have hardly brought out anything worthwhile. The people are, instead, inflicted more pain.
It was not surprising therefore the decision of the government to investigate the books of the Local Organising Committee (LOC) of the just concluded FIFA Under-17 World Cup fiesta. According to Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, the exercise would assist the government to determine whether all funds spent or were claimed to have been spent were in accordance with the laid down guidelines on expenditure. Fine, all we are saying is that the proposed probe must not end up as another wild goose chase. The country is tired of probes of which reports would end up in the dust bin or would be kept in the coolers for as soon as the uproar subsides and the dust settles. As usual, the report finds its way to the archives.
Nobody has been accused of fraud or found guilty yet, so let’s give the officials the benefit of doubt, for now. However, if the searchlight reveals what is being suspected, culprits must be made to face the law. If anyone is found culpable, the state must first recover whatever is misappropriated and the interest due on the money, besides the penalties prescribed by the law.
I must confess I am beginning to have some faith in the system if the Georges of this world we see as untouchables in our midst are cooling their heels behind bars – in our lifetime! That singular conviction of the PDP topnotch may be a proverbial drop in the ocean but it goes a long way in a corruption-ridden system as this. (I hope it is not too early singing redemption songs)?
We may as well ask for the umpteenth time what happened to the probe report of the finances of the All Africa Games, COJA 2003, which many see as the mother of all mismanagements in sports competition organisation, monumental in nature according to an elderly observer. The report has never seen the light of day, let alone punishing anybody for some misdemeanor. In similar vein, so much noise was made about fund (mis)management after the world youth championship a decade ago – Nigeria ‘99.
A deduction can be safely made here that the sports industry must be very lucrative indeed for free public money, if probes are always instituted after each tournament the country hosts. (Is that why some of our colleagues in the media fight tooth and nail to be part of those committees anytime a major sports competition is about to be hosted by government)?
With the latest development, government may have to look more closely at the sports industry. Could it be that availability of uncontrolled funds is why some people have turned the sports ministry to a no-go area for competitors for office? They have seemingly turned themselves into tin gods or have turned the place into a cult-like enclave?
Naturally you would expect misgivings about finances whenever an international sporting event is staged, especially because we distrust ourselves and particularly because many of us see our choice to positions of responsibility as public fund managers as the opportunity to turn our fortunes around for good, forever. Service to the people is no longer the watchword – it becomes a secondary issue.
I believe the government has taken the right step, considering the circumstances about the hosting of the competition – the government’s initial reluctance to be lured into accepting a N35 billion project we were told it would cost to host the world for a cadet tournament. Cutting the bill to nine billion naira by President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua did not even deter the organizers. The cut was accepted unconditionally, with both hands as they say. Let us for a moment imagine that the N35 billion or something close to that was approved! The free-for-all party would have been interminable.
By the time the global youth championship started, government was forced to accept additional bills to avoid Nigeria being labeled a failed state in organizing an ordinary youth competition. By then, government’s situation had become like a mounted tiger the rider dare not dismount – the world was already here and the inspired youths were already chasing the round leather ball in search of honour for their countries. The released fund shot up to about N12.1 billion.
Trust Nigerians. There were loud murmurings about unpaid bills or services by the LOC. This might have forced the sports minister to write formally to the LOC chairman and to threaten that no further releases would be entertained until previous disbursements were retired. Somebody must have smelt a rat somewhere and quickly moved to check a possible large-scale fraud. That was about two weeks already into the youth fiesta.
That was not all. It was revealed that even many of the committees and the sub seats of the LOC were yet to be fully funded for their activities to make the tournament hitch free. The LOC was in default to the tune of millions of naira to the committees and sub seats crying for funds to avoid shame.
A number of questions are bound to be asked on the untidy operations of the LOC. Were the sub seats meant to be starved of necessary funds by some influential persons in the LOC to give the impression that they are good account managers when there were services to be rendered by their appointed officials overseeing the units? Were the rules being followed in withholding money at certain stages of the show to check abuse? With the hiccups experienced in logistics during the games, what purpose would the funds serve after the event?
Again, if the sub seats were being denied funds, why was the LOC asking government for more money (after the first tranche of N9 billion) when it had not exhausted the previous allocations? I think the vice president and his team of investigators have a lot to do to unravel this money matter, knowing fully well that there might be attempts to cover up tracks even if the best auditors in the world are employed to assess the expenditures. The most important thing is that the country must have back the unspent allocations.
Queues at filling stations
For goodness sake, how long will the citizens cope with the pain of dry pumps at filling stations across the country, in a land of plenty? The irony is that even in non-oil producing countries, consumers do not suffer this hardship that is forced into our throats at every turn. Worse still, buck-passing would never allow you to determine where the truth lies. Is it the fault of the NNPC or the DPR(Department of Petroleum Resources)? To think that all this is happening in a country that has a leader is symptomatic of insensitivity.
It’s only in a country of shylocks that at the speculation of a date to commence government’s planned deregulation, fuel stations that still have sizeable stocks close shop in anticipation of more gain. It is only here that some warped minds calculate that fuel station gates should be closed to motorists on the eve of the conclusion of the Under-17 World Cup because the government can announce its decision to deregulate the market since any fear of strike by the labour movement in protest is removed.
By the way, can’t the government stop dilly-dallying over the so-called deregulation?
November 18, 2009
Tags: corruption, FIFA U-17, Nigeria, soyinka Posted in: Banji Adisa
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