By Patrick Omorodion

The Holy Bible tells us that before you remove the log in someone else’s eye, you must first remove the speck in your own eye. And I remember my grandmother also saying that if one points one finger at someone, the rest four are pointing back at him. Put in another way, the pot calling the kettle black.

I am using these clichés to describe the recent jab at the Youth and Sports Minister, Barrister Solomon Dalung by the Governor of Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole. Governor Oshiomhole had said that the sports minister is not showing commitment in the development of grass-root sports in the country.

His annoyance is a result of the minister’s absence at the 2016 Okpekpe 10km Road race which held in Okpekpe last weekend after an invitation was extended to him. His words: “Today we don’t have the privilege of hosting the Minister and I think that was a shame. Nigerians in rural areas are the forgotten majority, the minister must not sit in the comfort of an office and sermonise sports. We must live by example, that’s why I came to show that when those young men are running, we elders can run too.”

On the account of the minister’s absence from the Okpekpe race, after he was invited, I agree with the governor totally. If the minister was not going to make it because of his tight schedules, he should have sent a top management staff like the permanent secretary or a director to represent him.

That is the only fault I see there. The race is an activity under the Athletics Federation of Nigeria, AFN which was fully represented. It normally would brief its parent ministry, through the Federation of Elite Athletes Department, FEAD, of this even at a later date, I presume.

However, Governor Oshiomhole has no moral right to accuse Dalung of not showing commitment to grass-roots sports development when he is also guilty of the same ‘lack of commitment’. For the Governor’s attention, the Okpekpe Road race is not a grass-root sports programme as it does not directly impact on the young talents that abound in Edo state and Nigeria in general.

The Okpekpe Road race, as good and laudable as it is, is an international event aimed at elite athletes who have already made their marks in long distance races or closing to making their mark.

The beneficiaries are mostly foreigners from Kenya, Ethiopia and other east African countries who dominate long distance races in the African continent and the world at large. If Gov Oshiomhole truly wants to make the race a grass-root programme for Edo and Nigerian athletes, he should have introduced one for schools where the raw talents abound. From here, the future stars would be discovered and groomed to challenge the Kenyans and Ethiopians.

Apart from the Okpekpe road race, an initiative of Chief Mike Itemuagbor, Governor Oshiomhole should tell Edo people which other area of sports he has shown interest in the past eight years. Under him, Edo is no longer number one or second to her sister state, Delta with which they alternated the position in the past but a distant third or fourth these days.

The state athletes struggle to attend national competitions and don’t attend at all in some cases, mostly due to lack of funds to prepare them for the events and participation also. The Samuel Ogbemudia stadium which used to be a Mecca of sort, for athletes of the state and other states alike, is a ghost of itself as it hardly hosts any sports events these days.

From football to athletics, handball, gymnastics and cycling which Edo was known for, the state lacks athletes in her area of strength as most of them have gone to seek the proverbial greener pastures in states that sincerely caters for their welfare.

Even though the northern part of Edo state has similar weather and topography with parts of the north of the country known for long distance races, Edo state is not known for such races and therefore cannot benefit much from the Okpekpe Road race.

Kudos must go to Governor Oshimhole for using the Okpekpe Road to put the state on the world map with the race now on the IAAF international calendar as well as using it to showcase the state as a potential tourism destination in the nearest future.

What Oshiomhole should have done was to liaise with the sports minister to see how they can collaborate to use the Okpekpe Road race to encourage the potentials the country has in the area of long distance races to challenge for honours with the Kenyans and the Ethiopians since other countries are now catching up with us in our area of strength, the sprints as well as wrestling, weightlifting and table tennis.

Edo state under Governor Oshiomhole could be said to have been in a coma, sports-wise, for eight years now. He did his best in the area of infrastructural development for which he has received encomiums from top Edo leaders like the revered departed Benin monarch, Oba Erediauwa, Uku Akpolopolo and two-time former Governor of the Midwestern and old Bendel State, Dr Samuel Ogbemudia.

Dr Ogbemudia is definitely not a happy man today, seeing the legacy he laid in sports being destroyed over the years by succeeding regimes after his over three decades. That is why Oshiomhole should have held back his criticism of Barrister Dalung because both of them are birds of the same feather when sports is mentioned. For him though, sports is part of his many worries but for Dalung, sports and the youths who eat, drink and live sports are the only reason President Muhammadu Buhari appointed him a minister.