Enough politics with National Sports Commission

The Nigerian sporting confraternity was thrown into shock four years ago when it received the news of the scrapping of the National Sports Commission (NSC). No cogent reasons were given for the decision of the Presidency to downgrade the commission to an ordinary department in the Ministry of Youth and Sports headed by a director. But it was deduced that the development was a fallout of the merger of the sports and youth ministries by the Buhari administration.

For the record, the NSC preceded the ministry of sports. Established in the early 70s by the Gowon regime, the commission was designed to be the engine room of Nigeria’s sports. Its pioneer director general was the late Isaac Akioye, arguably one of the best technocrats known to our sports. He was a seasoned academic and an expert in physical and health education, who elevated the nation’s sports to an enviable pedestal at the global level.

He was also the brain behind the introduction of the biennial National Sports Festival in 1973 which was a regular event throughout his tenure until he left the commission in 1981. The NSC was without a director general until 1985 when the late Babayo Shehu, regarded as a perfect replacement for Akioye, was appointed.

The scrapping of the NSC was seen as not only ill-advised but also ill-timed. It was also a victim of the power play in the ministry. The existence of the director general and a permanent secretary in the new set-up might appear odd. But the best the Presidency should have done at the time was to excise the commission from the ministry and subsume it under the Presidency as it was the case in the past before the Obasanjo military administration created a full-fledged ministry of sports. Even then, the NSC still functioned as a parastatal of the ministry as well as the implementer of the policies formulated by the government.

For instance, in all states of the federation, the sports councils exist parri passu with the ministries of sports, while some directors of sports are even answerable directly to the state governors that take sports very seriously.

The incumbent chairman of the Senate Committee on Sports, Obinna Ogba, hit the bull’s eye when he said four years ago that the decision to scrap the commission would pull the nation’s sports backward by 30 years. He stated that the NSC should be allowed to remain as a parastatal under the Ministry of Youth and Sports and lamented that the Presidency did not deem it fit to carry his committee along in taking the decision to scrap the commission.

He had also assured that when the Bill legalising the NSC now languishing in the Senate was passed into law, the commission would come back to life again.

However, four or so years down the road, the Bill has been trapped after passing through the second reading. In our previous editorial written on March 24, 2016, we raised a fundamental question: “Under what instrument has the commission been operating in the past?”

It will be recalled that the NSC went into oblivion for some years until after the Sydney Olympic Fiasco in 2002 when the Obasanjo government saw the need to breathe life into it shortly before the 8th All-Africa Games staged in Nigeria in 2003. The overall performance of Team Nigeria at the jamboree justified the return of the critical organ.

The scrapping of the NSC has been a bad augury for Nigeria’s sports. We cannot be seen as a serious country if the sports affairs of Africa’s most populous nation are conducted by a mere department in the Ministry of Youth and Sports run by people who know little or nothing about the complexities of the task they are saddled with.

The jettisoning of the commission was also perceived at that time as a setback to the nation’s sports coming about five months to the 2016 Olympic Games billed for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The scrapping of the NSC was a recipe for failure at the 2016 Mundial.

Only recently, Senator Obinna again gave the same update on the state of the Bill as he did four years ago when an official of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) paid him a courtesy visit at the Senate. The stagnation of the Bill after passing the second reading is a great disservice to our sports.

The committee should wean itself from what many have perceived as a legislative lethargy and speed up the process of getting the Bill passed without any further delay. The chairman should stop sounding like a broken record. Rather, his committee should break the record by working assiduously to pass the Bill as a gift to the Nigerian sports family in 2021. Without the NSC in place, our sports are like a body without a soul.

Enough politics with National Sports Commission

The Nigerian sporting confraternity was thrown into shock four years ago when it received the news of the scrapping of the National Sports Commission (NSC). No cogent reasons were given for the decision of the Presidency to downgrade the commission to an ordinary department in the Ministry of Youth and Sports headed by a director. But it was deduced that the development was a fallout of the merger of the sports and youth ministries by the Buhari administration.

For the record, the NSC preceded the ministry of sports. Established in the early 70s by the Gowon regime, the commission was designed to be the engine room of Nigeria’s sports. Its pioneer director general was the late Isaac Akioye, arguably one of the best technocrats known to our sports. He was a seasoned academic and an expert in physical and health education, who elevated the nation’s sports to an enviable pedestal at the global level. He was also the brain behind the introduction of the biennial National Sports Festival in 1973 which was a regular event throughout his tenure until he left the commission in 1981. The NSC was without a director general until 1985 when the late Babayo Shehu, regarded as a perfect replacement for Akioye, was appointed.

The scrapping of the NSC was seen as not only ill-advised but also ill-timed. It was also a victim of the power play in the ministry. The existence of the director general and a permanent secretary in the new set-up might appear odd. But the best the Presidency should have done at the time was to excise the commission from the ministry and subsume it under the Presidency as it was the case in the past before the Obasanjo military administration created a full-fledged ministry of sports. Even then, the NSC still functioned as a parastatal of the ministry as well as the implementer of the policies formulated by the government.

For instance, in all states of the federation, the sports councils exist parri passu with the ministries of sports, while some directors of sports are even answerable directly to the state governors that take sports very seriously.

The incumbent chairman of the Senate Committee on Sports, Obinna Ogba, hit the bull’s eye when he said four years ago that the decision to scrap the commission would pull the nation’s sports backward by 30 years. He stated that the NSC should be allowed to remain as a parastatal under the Ministry of Youth and Sports and lamented that the Presidency did not deem it fit to carry his committee along in taking the decision to scrap the commission.

He had also assured that when the Bill legalising the NSC now languishing in the Senate was passed into law, the commission would come back to life again.

However, four or so years down the road, the Bill has been trapped after passing through the second reading. In our previous editorial written on March 24, 2016, we raised a fundamental question: “Under what instrument has the commission been operating in the past?”

It will be recalled that the NSC went into oblivion for some years until after the Sydney Olympic Fiasco in 2002 when the Obasanjo government saw the need to breathe life into it shortly before the 8th All-Africa Games staged in Nigeria in 2003. The overall performance of Team Nigeria at the jamboree justified the return of the critical organ.

The scrapping of the NSC has been a bad augury for Nigeria’s sports. We cannot be seen as a serious country if the sports affairs of Africa’s most populous nation are conducted by a mere department in the Ministry of Youth and Sports run by people who know little or nothing about the complexities of the task they are saddled with.

The jettisoning of the commission was also perceived at that time as a setback to the nation’s sports coming about five months to the 2016 Olympic Games billed for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The scrapping of the NSC was a recipe for failure at the 2016 Mundial.

Only recently, Senator Obinna again gave the same update on the state of the Bill as he did four years ago when an official of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) paid him a courtesy visit at the Senate. The stagnation of the Bill after passing the second reading is a great disservice to our sports.

The committee should wean itself from what many have perceived as a legislative lethargy and speed up the process of getting the Bill passed without any further delay. The chairman should stop sounding like a broken record. Rather, his committee should break the record by working assiduously to pass the Bill as a gift to the Nigerian sports family in 2021. Without the NSC in place, our sports are like a body without a soul.

Leave a Reply