I plead guilty to spending most of my TV time in front of the DSTV facility. Add HI TV and I am sentenced for life.

If I was not guilty, how could I have followed the famous El Classico in Spain, that juicy once in a lifetime occurrence that saw Real Madrid and Barcelona going for each other’s jugular, four times in a space of two weeks?

If I did not, how could I have come across the opening of a can of worms by the famed Jose Mourinho? Depending on whose camp you are, Some have called it sour grapes. Others say he is just bellyaching knowing that for once he has met his match and the Copa Del Rey not withstanding, no matter how hard he tries, Messi’s Barcelona is more bite than he can chew.

In all this I can see a salutary effect for the great Man U. Good Heavens! Did you see how the Reds demolished Schalke? After the Germans took Inter to the cleaners, the perpetually aggrieved band of Chelsea and Arsenal supporters started singing Nunc dimitis. Ordering for our coffin to be constructed in advance.( Liverpool only pray negative when we run towards the inevitable 19th league title)

The boys of Sir Alex shunned domestic distractions went to Germany and in one of the best European showings I have seen in three years, played football to the delight of mature ball watchers, came out victorious, an arm and a leg booked for Wembley.

It is on foreign TV that I follow the exploits of Spanish tennis sensation Raphael Nadal who, despite the threats of a certain Djokovic is making millions out there swinging a racket to and fro as easy as it can be done breaking records in the process.

It is on foreign TV that I was captivated for over a month as the Cricket World Cup took centre stage building diplomatic bridges and keeping the world captivated while it lasted.

Where else could I have seen so much Rugby as in South Africa, when Rhinos, Cheetahs and Lions take on human form and strut their stuff to the delight of a full house?

What about golf. That gentleman’s game that has seen scores of contenders struggling to occupy the throne left vacant by Tiger Woods without success?

It was also on Foreign TV that I stumbled on the visit of a certain Paul Okoye, Nigerian born who was in the country to popularize American football.

Friday April 19 I bought a copy of Daily Sun Newspaper and rushed as usual to the sports section and was glad to have three pages worth. But wait for this. Three pages of football without ONE, I repeat without ONE story from any other sport.

Thanks to the Sun, Friday is also the day I write this column and the newspaper helped me set the tone for this week’s article. What I have publicly said about the Sun applies to all other Nigerian media on sports, including my beloved Vanguard.

On a daily basis, we are fed so much about Chelsea wanting to sign Lukaku! Who is he? Yes who? And Lille in France mourning an injury to a player……

Let us even assume that I wanted to read some football, then I would have preferred a detailed analysis of how Sunshine Stars prosecuted their CAF Confederation Cup match and their chances going into the second leg this week end in Burkina Faso.

I believe Nigerians have not been sufficiently told why Kaduna United on the other hand did not play their own match given the unfortunate Tunisian excuse of insecurity in Nigeria, ironically in the same week end that a team from Burkina Faso came here, played and left without any incident……

From my encounter with the Sun last Friday, I was rudely reminded of the ailing situation of sports in this country. My colleagues in the media can quickly rise to their defense. They are eager to ask me which sport is there? That if the sport existed, they would have covered? This is not the time for that argument.

What is glaring is that for the past one month as the Nigeria Football Federation is on the ball, playing all manner of competitions across the various age groups, we have not read, heard or seen anything else ( Not that they existed before now.)

When was the last time I was invited to either the opening or closing ceremony of a basketball, hockey, swimming, taekwondo, weightlifting, judo, boxing, tennis…..competition? Three or four years ago? Yet when the epileptic Nigeria Premier League decides to go on forced break, the press shouts blue murder and screams to high heavens, the same press that has forgotten that other sports have died and are waiting to be buried.

The funny part of this whole arrangement is that once in a while, I read stories of these sports queuing up at some foreign embassies applying for visas for some trips abroad ! Woe betide that embassy that says ‘no’. That is when we are remembered and recruited to make some noise and castigate such “unpatriotic and racist embassies”

At the risk of jumping into rash and hasty conclusions, this is what we get when we distribute leadership of sports associations to friends and loyalists . When sports are not run by those who have passion for it, when sport is handled with the same civil service mentality that guarantees salary at the end of every month not withstanding work output and rate, we remain where we are.

When we continue to put sports ministries under the supervision of politicians, when we continue to neglect technocrats and professionals so shall we continue to have instances where Association chairmen beg you to “….. give me one tenth of what you give football and I will produce world champions” Sir, madam, who, will give you? Why don’t you go out and get it?

Pray, has any of our sports bosses heard the story of Ade Aderinokun who came to Volleyball and revolutionized the sport, so much that the ministry was not very comfortable with his independence and pushed him out?

I have it on good authority that the current Goodluck Jonathan dispensation is for autonomy in sports. The egg heads around the president have suddenly realized that all Government need is to woo private investors to sports with an enabling environment and the industry stands to boom especially in the area of job creation and the meaningful engagement of our youths.

I can’t wait.

ADIEU MAURICE UDOSEN EDOHO-EKET.

Last week, I lost an ally, a close friend, a professional colleague, a brother.

After the fabled ‘brief illness’ Maurice Edoho Eket died last week throwing the serene Eket Community into deep mourning. I knew how much he was looking forward to the elections with the founding of his incisive magazine EKET VANGUARD FOR GODSWILL AKPABIO. Very vocal and outspoken, he was in the vanguard for the emancipation of the ‘Eket Nation’ he believed Eket deserved a better deal in the politics of Akwa Ibom State and said so at every opportunity, some time threading on toes in the process.

Last week at the dawn of his anticipated era, just as Governor Akpabio was coasting to victory, Maurice former Editor of MOBIL COMMUNITY NEWS departed our shores, not opportuned to stay alive and join the victory chorus now sweeping through the state, advantage Eket Nation.

He died and left behind an aged mother, his wife and three young kids.

Adieu Maurice. The struggle continues from where you left off.

See you next week