Sport Guard
By Patrick Omorodion
MANY factors have contributed to why sports in Nigeria have continued to nose-dive but unfortunately most people have continued to put the blame on poor funding. Nobody talks about maladministration or even fraud, treachery and betrayals.

Former Athletics Federation of Nigeria, AFN president, Dan Ngerem once said that the Nigerian league was worth more than the money sponsors throw at it, stressing that if well organised and administered, the league could attract up to N2 billion. Many didn’t understand him.

Last Sunday, the Nigeria Premier League came to an end and Rangers capped a fruitful season with a resounding 4-0 win over El-kanemi Football Club of Maiduguri in front of a mammoth crowd, unprecedented in recent history of the league. The league title was returning to the Coal City after 32 years. And it was being celebrated that the team would pocket N40million for their effort.

But the prize money could have been bigger than that if there was no betrayal and treachery the way the league sponsorship and broadcast rights have been handled by people put in charge to run the game.

Some of us know the scheming and back-stabbing of some administrators over the league administration since the return of democracy in Nigeria. The story of two communication firms scampering to sponsor the league and the scheming that ensured one was dumped for another is still fresh in the mind of those of us who were and are still admirers of Kano-born sports administrator, Alhaji Ibrahim Galadima. Alhaji Galadima had concluded discussions with one firm and was waiting to put pen to paper to get the contract running when he was stopped by presidential fiat and the league has never recovered from that folly.

When the Nigeria Football Association, NFA, yes that is the body recognised by Nigerian laws to run football, thought it wise to run the league professionally, at least by Nigerian standard, it floated the Nigeria Premier Football League, NPFL. That body has now changed its colour like a chameleon severally from NPFL to Nigeria Premier League, NPL to League Management Committee and then to League Management Company. But a funny thing is that all these bodies are built on fraudulent foundation which the previous government failed to see or just turned blind eye to.

During the trying days of the league when the managers had no money to run it, one man took a risk to put his money when the Broadcast right owners, the NTA had problems with the organisers, when he was not sure he would make anything from the venture. While that was on, he was again approached by the mangers of the league to help out with his funds when the organisers felt the title sponsor was no longer meeting its obligation.

The League continued to suffer until Davidson Owumi stepped in as its Chairman and decided the League must have some fresh air of financial injection. Again they ran to this man. Niyi Alonge is his name and he runs Total Promotions. Owumi was removed unceremoniously and his place Chief Ramson Baribote took.

A bid was called for the title sponsorship and Alonge’s Total promotion made a bid. So many things happened and because the organisers were not transparent with the bidding process, it ran into a hitch which remains a subject of litigation till date.

Chief Baribote himself ran into troubled waters with his fellow administrators who shoved him aside. He would not let go and proceeded to court. In order to free itself from legal complications, the NFF under Alhaji Maigari started what could be termed the biggest fraud in Nigeria’s football history.

That was after Maigari’s predecessor, Sani Lulu Abdullahi had changed the name of the football ruling body, from NFA which the law of the land recognises and the government funds, to the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF. The Maigari Board swore to an affidavit, claiming that they were a private organisation which
only gets support in form of grants from the government, that NFA was non existent.

And during one of the court proceedings, an Abuja court ruled that the NFF was illegal and that only the NFA is known to the Nigerian law. That the government should not deal with the NFF excepts it just wants to give them grants. The Attorney General of the federation added teeth to this judgement when he advised that money should not be disbursed any longer to the NFF.

At that rate, Nigeria could have missed the 2010 World Cup but the Director General of the National Sports Commission at the time, Chief Patrick Ekeji, himself a former footballer, advised government to give them a window so that money would be released for the World Cup? That is why till today, government gives money to the recognised NFA but the NFF spends it to run football.

So to run away from the legal tussle it had with Total Promotions, Maigari said, NFA was not the same as NFF and created a League Management Committee, LMC which later transformed into a limited liability company, League Management Company, LMC.

From Chief Oyuki Obaseki to Davidson Owumi and Rumson Baribote and later Alhassan Yakmut as Executive Secretary, they have all written at one time to commend Total Promotions for supporting the league, yet the NFF claims that the body which signed a contract with Total Promotions has winded up and therefore the LMC which is a different company should not be troubled with the contract its forebears signed. That is why Maigari, why he lasted in the NFF signed at different times as NFA Chairman, NFF president and another time signed as NFA president on contract papers and on court affidavits.

Only last week, a faction of the footballers body came out to wrongfully claim that it, in conjunction with the EFCC, has helped to ‘recover looted’ funds from broadcast rights from Total Promotions. But I overheard an official of the LMC denouncing the footballers body. No money was looted but in fact the money has been domiciled in an account waiting for collection by the LMC which cleverly refused to collect it for obvious reasons.

So much dirty dealings in football management and Total Promotions is holding the administrators on the scrotum. However, if the Buhari government really means to fight corruption in the country, so many of these so-called football stakeholders will go to jail. But again will the judiciary play its role? The story is still unfolding.