By Patrick Omorodion with Sport Guard
Dear Comrade Governor,,

I write to tell you that when I wrote in my column a couple of weeks ago, “What’s Oshiomole’s Score Card?”, I never intended to impugn on your personality as your Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Peter Okhiria made it look in his rejoinder which I graciously gave a lot of space in the Vanguard of November 26, 2011.

Like Tunji Oyeleru, our ace photojournalist who died in the course of supporting your labour campaign around the country in 2006, I have always supported your fight to give the Nigerian worker good life, so I was happy when you assumed office as governor of Edo State, at least to free the people from bad governance they have been subjected to since 1999.

But in supporting you, I am not one to hide my feelings or the truth from you like some other people may want to do, hence this letter to tell you the home truth about sports in Edo State and how you have fared.

First, Mr. Okhiria felt that I insulted your Sports Commissioner by calling her a novice even when she is a university graduate. The Commissioner could be a Ph.d holder and still be a novice in the field of sports.

She exhibited this in her discussion with me after the piece I wrote when she claimed that Rivers State beat other states in the National Sports Festival to most of the medals in cycling because they used machines for the races as opposed to bicycles. What she didn’t know was that while the bicycles Edo athletes brought to the festival were obsolete, their Rivers counterparts brought the state-of-the-art cycles or if you like, the standard cycles for such events.

When Okhiria said the Edo athletes were ferried to Port Harcourt with luxury buses, he didn’t state that they were mixed with some rickety commercial buses hired also and that most of these buses went back to Benin only to come back at the end of the festival to pick the athletes. This was done to help the officials who made the arrangement save some money for themselves.

On the fact that the Commissioner may have been appointed on the prompting of. a Godfather, Mr. Okhiria said I was insulting you. If her appointment was never influenced, then I ask what is her track-record in administration that gave her the job ahead of other well grounded Edo-born administrators scattered all over the country and in the Diaspora. Please Edo people will want to know.

Your CPS also claimed that Edo may have placed 3rd at the festival because other states poached their athletes by offering them mouth-watering monetary offers. If I may ask, how on earth will you want your athletes to stay put at home without jobs. If you wanted to retain them, you should have provided jobs for them.

On the issue of poaching Mr. Okhiria mentioned, Edo State is as guilty as other states. This defeats the philosophy of the former governor of the old Bendel State, Dr. Samuel Ogbemudia of grassroots sports development which made Bendel state the envy of other states so many years ago. So if Edo State wants to return to those glorious days, emphasis should be on development rather than promotion through participation and hosting of competitions only.

The issue of Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium is just like the more you look the less you see. I want Mr. Okhiria to tell me where in the serious world is synthetic pitch preferred to natural field. The Emirate Stadium where his preferred Arsenal club (he doesn’t support Insurance of Benin) play, what do they have there, a natural grass turf. The same goes for all other stadia across Europe, home of good and profitable football.

The idea of synthetic pitches in Nigerian stadia came up as a result of football contractors who once held Nigeria on the jugular with the approval of FIFA. That was their arrangement for Nigeria to be allowed to host the FIFA U-17 World Cup in 2009. If you care to find out, most of the synthetic pitches , I don’t know of the Ogbemudia Stadium, where handled by these football contractors, most of whom have been disgraced out of FIFA here in Nigeria and in the Caribbeans.

Comrade Governor, if you remember, a match involving Nigeria’s U-23 team and visiting Tanzanian team scheduled for the Ogbemudia Stadium was shifted by one day following a heavy downpour on the Saturday of the match as a result of the pitch being water-logged. What manner of construction was done there.

Sir if you don’t know, the Ogbemudia Stadium cannot host field events like Shot Put, Javelin, Hammer, Discus etc, because of the artificial turf. What is a stadium without these events which are part of athletics for which Edo State is known for. So much for a “standard synthetic turf’’ which Mr. Okhiria described in his rejoinder.

I want to praise you for what you are doing with Shaibu Amodu but I dare say that Amodu will be limited to football, his area of specialty. The same thing should be done for other sports for Edo State to really be seen to be combing for young school talents who are the future of sports.

As I write this, I am sure that Edo athletes who won medals at the Garden City Games are yet to be paid the N5 million you promised them while I still maintain that the amount is too small to be shared by all the medalists. I will advise that the payment should not be tied to the N10 million promised by President Goodluck Jonathan which may not come until after his tenure ends in 2015. They say a bird at hand is worth two in the bush. Pay them yours while that of the President may follow later.

Elders say that only a brother can face his brother and tell him that he has a mouth odour. Yes, I say this because of your penchant to host national teams on behalf of the Nigerian Football Federation, NFF. For your information you are not doing the country any good but officials of the NFF. These matches have been budgeted for and if you host, the money budgeted for the matches will go into the pockets of some officials. That is the reason they always fight to get into the NFF by hook and crook, not for the development of the game.

Sir, the earlier you stop hosting these matches and start using the money for the benefit of Edo athletes, the better for the State and Nigeria at large. So it is the wish of all that you do for sports what you are doing in all other sectors. God bless you.