One Year In Office: Some of Sunday Dare's Wrong Decisions

One Year In Office: Some of Sunday Dare's Wrong Decisions

By Editor

When the present minister of Youth and Sports Development, Mr. Sunday Dare came into office, many stakeholders were happy especially the Sports Writers Association, SWAN, an association responsible for the reportage of sporting activities across the country but little do they know that they just met their waterloo.

Information available to us proved that Mr. Dare was a practicing journalist and one would have expected that he would treat his constituency very well but it is the opposite his colleagues are experiencing presently.

It is said in the local parlance that, “Na man wey know man dey kill am,” what it means is that, it is the man that knows you and your secret that will eventually harm you.

Dare smartly takes advantage of the division in the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) at the national level which also reflected on the FCT chapter of the association that covers the activities of the ministry. Unlike what it used to be where every sport journalist covers the ministry, the ministry has the list of who among the sport journalists that they always invite while others are left out.

The painful part of it is that the ministry do not invite the FCT Chapter of SWAN to their events.

This has led to many journalists receiving queries on several occasions while some have been relieved because of their inability to get first-hand information or stories from the ministry. Journalists are denied access if they are not invited to the ministry hence turning the ministry which is government property to his personal property.

Due to this action, the association has been divided and members are at logger-head and no longer in talking terms especially those that are seen or labeled as Dare’s or ministry’s journalists. And to add salt to insult, recently he abandoned the association members during a tour of the stadium when the FCT Minister, Bello Mohammed paid a working visit to his office. Also, journalists were denied access to cover the unveiling of signpost of the renaming of National Stadium Abuja after MKO Abiola on June 12, 2020.

Secondly, when the Abuja National Stadium was built, different gates were created and one of the gates was Media/Press gate. The other gates are President’s Entrance or Gate and another one is the Minister’s Gate which leads directly from the minister’s office to the gate.

Every minister that has been visiting the stadium, have been using either the Minister’s Gate or the Media Gate without any problem but when Mr. Dare became the minister, he stopped everybody including the media men from making use of the gate.

The security men at the gate told our correspondent that they were ordered not to allow anybody to pass through the gate again except the minister hence people are forced to drive round the stadium before they could gain access to the stadium while those without cars are forced to trek long distance.

Meanwhile, before the demise of veteran journalist, Olajide Fashikun, he started a project called Nigeria Sports Development Fund, NSDF, which is for an athlete to be adopted by wealthy and great personalities across the world. His target was for athletes to be adopted and sponsored so as to start preparation in earnest for Olympics, this according to him is to help athletes win medals for Nigeria in the upcoming Olympics and other International Meets. Shortly after he launched the project in Ondo state, he fell ill and died. Before his death, he actually ran the project alongside Sunday Dare's assistant, Mrs. Mary Onyali who incidentally is the present Special Adviser on Technical Matters to the minister.

There are allegations that the adopt-an-athlete which Mr. Sunday Dare is presently implementing is the project of late Fashikun.

However, there is nothing wrong in implementing somebody’s project especially when the person is no longer alive but courtesy demands that recognition be given to the initiator whether dead or alive rather than claim to be the brain behind the initiative.

And the worrisome aspect is that stipends were given to some ex-internationals’ parents or children and the person whose initiative he is implementing is not recognized probably because he died as a journalist. But we forgot so soon that Fashikun was an athlete before he became a journalist.

And still talking about implementing somebody’s initiative, a journalist recently threatened to sue the minister if he goes ahead to bring somebody else to implement the e-sports which was his idea.

The acclaimed president of eSports Federation of Nigeria, EFN, Mr. Agbor Clinton, also a journalist, during a press briefing recently, insisted that his led board is the only recognized body by the international body, adding that any interference from the sport ministry will attract severe sanctions from the world ruling body.

He also noted that the eSports Federation which came into existence in 2017 is fully registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission in line with the federal government directive and also with the Nigerian Olympic Committee (NOC). ”We are calling on the youth and sports loving President Muhammadu Buhari to please call Sunday Dare to order not to destroy the game in Nigeria. And that the minister should not inaugurate any interim E-sports body and that a committee be set up to investigate role played by Dr Ademola Are. We are the board recognized by the Confederation of Africa eSports federation (IESF) with documentation at 98.5% completed.”

What stops the minister from carrying out an investigation first or confirm from the international body before inviting somebody else to implement somebody’s idea?

As if that was not enough, recently, another journalist, name withheld suggested to the minister that a Principal and Headmaster Cup been revived to catch the young ones at tender age so as to beat age cheat. He quickly swung into action and announced to the world without inviting the initiator to get additional information or even acknowledge him.

That is unfair and this will force people to keep their ideas to themselves and this is one of the reasons why many people died with their ideas because of people like the minister who don’t give recognition to initiators of ideas.

Meanwhile, it is unheard of that in this era of ours where people are already going into the moon and planet, the minister will mount a signage and commission it. It is an embarrassment not only to this government but to the entire populace of Nigeria both within and outside the country.

When the commissioning was first announced, many thought there was a new project within the stadium or the renovation of the stadium and even at that, how can you commission something that has already been commissioned long ago, this is laughable.

How can you commission a signage when the scoreboard and the pitches of same stadium are in terrible shape? How can you commission a signage when the stadium is bushy and the roofs of some facilities are almost falling off? What happen to the promise made to the House of Representatives members that came to inspect the National Institute of Sports, NIS hostel which is abandoned long ago? If that was completed and commissioned, that would be a reasonable thing to do.

Lastly, a book called National Sports Policy was launched recently and according to the Confederation of African Football, CAF Safety and Security chairman, Christian Emeruwa, a policy was put in place with about 80 stakeholders participating but there was no contributions from key stakeholders like the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria, SWAN, the Supporters’ Club, the Secretaries of Federations, the Federation Chairmen, amongst others. “If these people mentioned are not contributors, then who are the so-called 80 stakeholders?” Emeruwa asked.

This is a big shame and those advising the minister. If the major stakeholders are not participants in a national policy, then that cannot be called a national policy. This is definitely not National Sports Policy but rather the Ministry of Sports Policy. With this action, it has shown that the sports ministry does not have direction.

Culled from NewsHunters.com.ng