Gimba’s probe of corruption
Since his appointment as the Sports Minister and Chairman of the National Sports Commission more than a year ago, Niger State-born lawyer, Alhaji Abdulrahman Gimba, has not endeared himself with Nigerian sports lovers.
Not once has he made any visionary statement on sports but his tenure is renowned for the endless crises between him and his key Directors.
Their relationship is like a bird that perches on a dangling rope; there is no respite for either. This has been the state of Nigerian sports since President Umar Yar’Adua came to office in May 2007.
However, highly successful coach, Kadiri Ikhana’s bombshell, which The Grandmaster was the first to highlight in this column on June 1, 2008, has provided Gimba the impetus to make a move which may catapult him into national reckoning. Remember, on the eve of his winning the 2008 Globacom Premiership League title, with Kano Pillars, Ikhana decided to call it quits with Nigerian football because CORRUPTION had eaten too deep into the system.
Ordinarily one would have expected a responsible and responsive Nigerian Football Association, the only body recognized for running football in the country, to take up the gauntlet as Ikhana is a highly respected and result oriented coach.
The NFA did nothing of such. Their affiliate, the Nigerian Football League which ran the league competitions, took up the challenge, and with disarming candour decried the unwholesome behaviour of some corrupt referees, which was well known to anyone who follows football in Nigeria.
But to the NFA, see no evil, speak no evil and the evil continues to swallow Nigerian football. So a month after Kadiri Ikhana opened the Pandora Box, and the NFA shirked their responsibility by not acting on it, the nation’s sports authorities, the NSC, have rightly stepped into the thorny issue by setting up a six man Committee, headed by retired Brigadier-General Dominic Oneya, a former NFA Chairman, and former Military Governor of Benue and Kano States.
The three terms of reference are: to investigate the claim (should have been allegation) of bribery and corruption of referee in the just concluded edition of Premier League conducted by the Nigerian Football League; to identify those involved; and to carry out any other investigation regarding the conduct of the 2008 Premier League as it relates to the subject and make appropriate recommendations.
The Committee has up to July 17 to submit its report, that is less than a month. And this is where I have a problem. How can the Oneya Committee unravel in three weeks corruption in Nigerian football which has become embedded for decades? Are they magicians? Or is the Committee set up to achieve some hidden agenda?.
Four of the members, Oneya, Col. Maharaja Mamudu (rtd.), former CEO of NSC; Lawyer Godwin Dudu-Orumen, and Journalist Andrew Abah are well known to me and I can vouch that they will do a good job. If they unravel the voluminous bribery ring in the Nigerian league, Nigerians and posterity unborn will forever pray for them.
The third term of reference gives the Committee wide scope to identify other issues militating against absolute transparency in our league. And with two legal minds, Maharaja Mamudu and Dud-Orumen the Committee should proffer solutions.
But has the Sports Ministry got the power to enforce Oneya’s Committee’s findings? If it is discovered that the NFA are the stumbling block, can the Ministry take any action on them without courting the wrath of FIFA? I believe the answer is simple.
If the NFA are found wanting the solution is to convene an extra ordinary congress where a vote of no confidence will be delivered on the leadership and new elections held. FIFA will not raise a brow.
We have come to a stage in Nigerian sports where all the round pegs in square holes should be removed, as there are too many incompetent people heading our various sports associations.
Not surprisingly, Gimba focuses only on football, what about other sports? There are two types of corruption – financial and moral. Bribing football referees to win matches is one form of corruption, age falsification where 27 year-old plays in a 17 year old World Championships, and the country triumphed, is moral corruption. We are experts in both.
Sports Minister Gimba has not spoken out against our penchant for immorality in football, especially against age cheats. He celebrated wildly when the Under 17 won the World Cup in Korea. Can he swear on oath that his boys, the Nigerian team were all under 17? So we all expect the Dominic Oneya Committee report in earnest and pray that it may be the turning point in Nigeria’s quest for a clean global sport glory.
Pele and gun point robbery
PeleThe expression – a
prophet has no
honour in his own country – should actually say a sports star. Here in Nigeria our sports stars from Segun Odegbami, Mary Onyali, Obafemi Martins, and now to Emmanuel Okoduwa are regular victims of men and possibly women of the underworld.
In Europe, footballers who earn mega bucks have been targeted for burglary and a few with deep pockets, spend huge amount of money to protect members of their families from kidnapping. The latest victim of crime, Pele the Brazillian soccer legend, was held at gun point by youths and robbed, near the city of Santos, where Pele played all his club football.
Pele was too ashamed to report the crime to the police. If the youth did not see Pele win the 1958, 1962 and the 1970 World Cup for Brazil, they surely must know him as their country’s Sports Minister a few years ago. Why did they attack such an icon? Granted crime rate in Brazil is one of the highest in the world, should there be no honour among thieves?
It is however possible that the young criminals recognized Pele but went ahead to humiliate him for some of his perceived wrongdoings. In some quarters in Brazil and outside, Pele is seen as self conceited, vain glorious, selfish and inward looking personality who has not done enough for humanity.
On the other hand, Maradona even though afflicted by drug problems, which are common to super stars, has made tremendous contribution to the emancipation of footballers and the oppressed especially the southern Italians during his playing days in Italy.
Whereas Muhammed Ali and Mardona have been invited by the Oxford University to deliver papers, in recognition of their service to humanity, Pele has not, because he is seen as a stooge of the capitalist world public relations stunt. And that is the reason no crime syndicate will rob Muhammned Ali in the United States, nor any one think of robbing Maradona in Argentina.
But Pele who voted against his country’s bid to host the World Cup, and who told the whole world that Brazil would not win the 2002 World Cup, which they won, under Coach Scolari, the anger of the Brazilian youths may take some time to abate.
June 24 and Hogan Bassey
Did you remember
that last Tuesday
was June 24, exactly 51 years that Hogan Bassey of Nigeria battered Cherif Hamia of France in Paris to win the world featherweight boxing title?
It seemed like yesterday as I vividly recall how our ears were glued to the radio sets, listening to the blow by blow commentaries and when the referee stopped the fight in the tenth round to save Hamia from further unnecessary punishment, the whole of Lagos erupted into the streets in wild jubilation.
Yet June 24 which should serve as a memorable date in our sports calendar, passes off every year, and Hogan Bassey, the first African world featherweight champion, seems forgotten.
Elsewhere in West Africa, the Senegalese adopted a day in September named the Battling Siki Day, to commemorate the 1922 victory of their boxer, who won the world light heavyweight title by knocking out the French great, Georges Carpentier, in Paris. Battling Siki, real name, Louis Phal, later moved to the United States, joined the rollercoaster world of the wild and was murdered after 23 fights.
Nigeria’s Hogan Bassey had a more distinguished boxing career. Born in Calabar in 1932 as Okon Asuquo Bassey, he moved to Lagos at the age of 11, started amateur boxing at 15 and turned pro at 17. having won all the pro titles in Nigeria and West Africa, Britain was the next inevitable port and after climbing the ladder rapidly his fight for the British Empire title against Billy “Spider” Kelly, which he won by knockout, propelled him into the world ranking.
In those days for an African to get into the world ranking you had to cross the Atlantic and head for the USA to meet formidable opponents. By the time Bassey landed in the USA, the much dreaded world champion, Sandy Saddler had been badly injured in a motor accident and abdicated his throne.
Elimination bouts were arranged, Bassey scaled through and emerged to meet the European champion, Cherif Hamia, whom he nearly decapitated in the June 24 1957 fight.
As world champion, Bassey defeated Mexican Ricardo “Pajarito” Moreno, American Willie Pep and Carmelo Costa before losing the title to American Davey Moore on March 18 1959, in what was described as “an unusually vicious and bloody battle.”
Five months later Bassey sought to regain the title from Davey Moore, but the eye cut he suffered in the first fight re-occurred and the referee stopped the fight in the eleventh round.
Hogan King Bassey retired and devoted many years to coaching Nigerian amateur boxers. It was his professional exploits that inspired Dick Tiger to win world titles, and similarly the likes of Rafiu King Joe to fight Davey Moore for the world title.
He passed on in Lagos January 26 1998, his remains buried at the National Stadium, Lagos, but shouldn’t the nation do more to immortalize him? For a start the Nigerian Boxing Board of Control (NBB of C) should set aside June 24 for some kind of commemorative activities which may include international boxing contests. It is not too late.
