By Abdulrasheed Hammad
PLAY!YA, in collaboration with Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism, (PTCIJ), and Heda Resource Centre, organised a one-day conference for journalists on Sports Governance Crisis and Sports Underdevelopment in Africa.
The online conference was held yesterday in a zoom meeting. The event is aimed at examining major structural problems of African sports that link to grassroots experiences and insights into national and international sports administration with broader social, political, and economic realities to better understand the challenges at hand.
The organisers noted that the conference would provide an opportunity for sport practitioners, experts, and sports lovers to analyse the complex interrelations and birth recommendations for the development of the sector. The conference is a follow-up conference after the training workshop organised last year in Abuja on investigative reporting.
The moderators of the session are Stephanie Adam Doughlas and Eze Alloysius.
The panelists of the training include Roberts Kampe, a freelance investigative journalist based in Germany, Mrs Ruth Ajayi, a coach in Lead City University, and Olukayode Thomas, a veteran sports journalist with Premium Times.
The Godfather of online journalism, Mr Dapo Olorunyomi was ably represented by Mr Adedeji Adekunle, the Deputy Director, (PTCIJ).
Excerpts of the questions by the moderators and answers by the panelists follow:
Adedeji Adekunle: “I am here to represent Mr Dapo Olorunyemi who is unavoidably absent. He is enthusiastic about what we are about to get into. He expressed his apprehension on the importance of a sports framework to sports development. He knows how important it is in the general development framework of a country like Nigeria which is really dominated by a high youth demographic. He is happy and ensures we are part of the training. He is looking at the deliberation and insights that will come from the training.
Opening Remark: Mr Lanre Suraaj: “I commend PLAY!YA, PTCIJ, and Heda Resource Centre for bringing this very innovative idea to look at the issue of accountability in the sports industry. The bitter truth is that Nigeria is still far away from a rightful position in the world of sport. It is basically because we do not have the good leadership that is required and when we have challenges in leadership and the followership are not able to influence the process and the situation. We are also culpable due to missing good leadership.
It is on this note that we want to appreciate the organisers for coming up with the great idea and at the same time pledging the support of the Heda Resource Centre for this initiative and we want to see how we will take maximum advantage of the beneficiary of this training so that we can have more of these to make an impact in the world of sport.”
The moderator, Stephanie Adam Doughlas: “The reason that led to this training was that last year, there was a workshop for sports journalists in Nigeria and that is because while a lot of journalists focused on other sectors in Nigeria, the sporting sector is always lagging as nobody is torch lighting or highlighting the irregularities happening in the sporting sector. Of course, whether you love football or you love sport, you will know that there are a lot of irregularities over the years.
Of recent, Nigeria was at Tokyo 2020 Olympics and recent was in the 2020 world championship but you could tell that there are a lot of irregularities around that we are not talking about. We are talking about all the components of the sports sector.
Last year, some of the observations were that corruption is the major factor responsible for the underdevelopment or crippling of sport and youth development in Nigeria. Some of the observations is that corruption goes beyond financial corruption which includes nepotism, undue influence, interference of state politics in Nigeria, illegal betting, conflict of interest and so much more and as a result of that conversation, we thought it is the best way to put this together and have a conversation about the sporting sector not just in Nigeria, not just in Africa, but the whole world.
That is why you noticed we have great panelists, a combination of great resource persons.”
Panelists Share Their Experience In Sport Sector
Mrs Ruth Àjàyí: “I was once a female footballer before becoming a coach, but being a coach is not palatable. There are inequalities in Nigerian sports sectors and this is because most of the ladies don’t want to venture into football or sport generally, especially where it comes to schools setting. We are still lagging. Those that are there some years back are still there now. The problem is that we don’t focus on grassroots and that is what is causing a lot of problems.
The majority of the stakeholders put in the sports sector are not in the field. Somebody that studied Economics, Agric, managing sports ministry. Sometimes, you would propose a good thing to them, you would see them not accepting it especially if it doesn’t favour them. Some of the European footballers we see start from the grassroots. All these problems lie in the hand of the government and NGOs. If we stop politicising sport in Africa, we will get to where others have gotten today. We have sacrificed a lot but ladies of today don’t want to sacrifice again.”
Mr Robert: “I am happy to speak at this conference. The sports organizations here have the privileges and the so-called autonomy which they repeatedly claimed for themselves not only national but also at the international level. For example, the big scandal in sport are not uncovered by organisation themselves and is usually the responsibility of the journalist to report all abuses. I am a journalist from Europe and I know that I have more freedom in reporting than you do. I have already been refused entry into some countries in the FIFA conference. In 2018, we reported on forced labour in Korea and Russia.”
Mr Kayode Thomas: “In the next few days, there would be an election into sports federation in Nigeria and the foundation and development of the industry will be based on who you elect into the board of the federation. We have managers in sports who were selfless and are ready to do things for the sport and they want to move it forward. If you look at 60th, 70th, and early 80th, we were so good in the sport that the world sees Nigeria as the next thing to happen to sport to dethrone the America and European but declination began from the late 80s till today.
This is because we have been able to have some list of bad people at the head of the sports federation and we will also be having the same list. The election is near and I have not been reading stories in the newspaper or online TV analysing the character that wants to take out the sport to the next level. In Nigeria’s sport today, we have millions of crises and we need men and women who have integrity and have what it takes to take the sport to the next level.
Even if we have sports facilities, but we don’t have good running the sport in Nigeria, it would still fail. I am waiting for analysis because nobody is looking at the integrity of the contestants. We have so much talent that is wasting away and all of them are in the grassroots at the community level, inter-collegiate, primary school, we do not have sport there today. We need good people who will actually develop the sports industry from the grassroots.
The government doesn’t need to give Nigeria a world cup match and because every match played in the world cup goes with three million dollars. I challenged the then sporting director then and told him he is a scammer, and he threatened be would sue me. We journalists need to be questioning them.”
Moderator: “How do we reposition the Nigeria sporting sector making reference to the embarrassing issues that happened in Tokyo as regarding our athletes?”
Mr Kayode Thomas: “It is so simple, Europeans, Americans, there are criminals everywhere, but when they do something that is against the law, they get punished which is not happening in Nigeria. People go away with murder. Last year on November 18, I wrote an article that our athletes would be disqualified from participating in the Olympics because they haven’t done what needs to be done regarding testing. When I wrote this article, Dare wrote bad articles about me.
About 10 athletes in Nigeria were disqualified out of 20 that were kicked out in the whole world. Has anybody been queried? Has anybody been sanctioned? We have a long way to go.
The media that are supposed to do things are also not ready. If the media are working, we would not be here today. We need to ask them as a journalist what is their plans. If they are sanctioned, it would serve as a deterrent to others.”
Moderator: “Does the maiden Aisha Buhari cup promote women football in the country? Is that the best way to go about it?”
Mrs Ruth Àjàyí: “It is a good idea, but they do it in a wrong way. This Aisha cup is played by so-called professionals. I think it should have been better if they consider those at the amateur level that are coming up. We all know those that participated and we know what they can do.
I am so surprised seeing ladies that have been playing for ten years still in that cup, they have made it already. When somebody is doing something for six years and she is not improving, she would be be discouraged.
We have a lot of gurus that are good in football but they believe that if they don’t have legs or sponsor, they cannot get to the national team. We have some girls in amateur that can play more than Azizat Ozoala but how would they know? It would have been a grassroots competition and not a national one.”
Moderator: Private Sectors investing in sports activities, how is the money being used?
Mr Olukayode Thomas: “When we used to do well in sport, sport is actually with the private people like Lekan Salami, MKO Abiola, Pa Achebe, Abdulsalam from Kwara and private company investing in athletes. In the last 20-30 years, the best tennis tournaments are from Nigeria.
Facilities are good, and we have facilities all over the country. But Jamaica didn’t have the sports facilities that Lagos possesses and they have not achieved what Jamaica has achieved. This is because Jamaica has good managers. We need a system where people are punished. If you don’t have good managers, it would still fail.”
Moderator: “How free is your freedom as a sport journalist in Europe considering the event that happened in Berlin when you were denied access to one of the sporting activities?
Robert: “It is somehow problematic here to get officials’ statements or interviews with high-ranking sport who don’t want to talk to us. Well, I am not the only person who was denied access. A colleague of mine was also denied access to China. In a couple of months, like in 2020, it was impossible to go to China to report.”
Mr Chidoh Muma: “It has been an engaging and stimulating conversation. One of the things that are of interest to me is robust whistle-blowing in sport and I think it is a wonderful intersection when it is related to sport. As an organization, I am the Coordinator of the Africa Centre for medium and Information Literacy.
We have Whisle-blowing project that has been running for years and we have been looking for a possible areas to expand it. We have been working with government institutions and we are thinking of expanding the scope to a corporate banks and financial institutions. It is important to explore Whisle blowing with the sport.”
Question
Jonathan Essien: “As a sports journalist with various areas, can we report in the vacuum in terms of corruption of sport in Nigeria without any hindrance from the government?”
Mr Àjàyí Thomas: “If I am corrupt, and I am making money and you want to report me, would I allow you to do that? There would always be hindrances. People want to protect their atrocities. If you are to report me, I am going to intimidate you and I will use everything against you. It is not easy to change from bad to good because there would surely be obstacles.”
Closing Remark: Mr Eze Alloysius: “I want to thank everyone especially all our resource persons, they have done wonderfully well. We appreciate PTCIJ and PLAY!YA. Special thanks to Stephanie, I am really impressed and appreciate it.
The problem we are having in sports in Africa today didn’t start today and would not end today. It is a process that started many years and it would take a couple of years to end it. The most important thing is to show interest in developing it and invest our energy towards it.”
