SEGUN ODEGBAMI: Sports ministry versus sports federations – war after the Olympics? – Newstrends
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SEGUN ODEGBAMI: Sports ministry versus sports federations – war after the Olympics?

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The Ministry of Youth and Sports Development obviously tugged at the tail of a tiger last week when the minister announced the dissolution of 31 National Sports Federation boards. It followed up almost immediately with the inauguration of caretaker committees to take care of the administration of the federations until after the Olympic Games coming up from July 23 to August 8, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. The Minister’s actions took everyone by surprise, particularly the board members across all the sports that must have been preparing for what had become a 4-yearly ‘jamborèe’ to the Olympics. It did not matter that many of them had no athletes in their sport that qualify to participate, or not. The minister’s intervention halted their vacation. Many affected stakeholders started thinking that the world was going to end and started to prepare for the war of all wars in sports. They asked: how dared the minister dissolve independent boards two months to the Olympics? It now appears to be all smoke and no fire. The minister played a very deft hand with his cards. He pulled the ‘Joker’ in the pack and checkmated all possible opposition. How? Most of the key Presidents of the dissolved federations (except Athletics that is fighting to the ‘death’ with the sports ministry) were offered places in the Caretaker Committees established to temporarily replace their boards until new elections are held after the Olympics. The presidents, therefore, lose nothing. Indeed, as individuals, they actually gained a great deal – the guaranteed opportunity to go to the Olympics, plus being a part of preparing the grounds for their own possible re-election. In appointing them into the committees the minister may have provided a soothing balm to quench what could have been a raging fire by those that would have fought against the timing and justification for the dissolution. Indeed, a handful of those left out of this new arrangement, those that were not recalled to be a part of the caretaker committees, started to put up some fight that never gained any momentum. Writing under the umbrella of a non-existing Committee of Concerned Stakeholders, they signed and sent a petition to the Minister of Sports threatening fire and brimstone, requesting that the minister rescinded his action within 48 hours or be prepared to face their wrath through protests that will disrupt woŕk in the ministry, or necessitate a legal ‘battle’ in the civil courts. They insisted that the boards’ 4-year tenures still had some months to go, and that the dissolution by the Minister was a clear case of ‘government interference’ in the internal affairs of their ‘private’ organisations. Does government ever go back on its vomit? What kind of unregistered private organisation can make government do the unthinkable? The federation’s statutes are not even domesticated and drafted into Nigerian laws, so where would they even start their fight from? Who funds most of the federations’ programmes, anyway? Can they actually claim independence and non-interference from their biggest benefactor? Their fire was quenched even before it started. To even make a mockery of the entire exercise, shortly after their protest-communique was released, some of those listed as signatories to the petition publicly disclaimed it and were wearing broad grins of satisfaction on their faces at the inauguration of the caretaker committees. That step by Mr. Sunday Dare, the Minister of Sports, deflated the already flighted balloon of the frustrated board members and their supporters. It was a masterstroke, a political movè that effectively checkmated the main opposition. The wind was cut off their floundering sail. The Minister has survived the initial threat and danger. He will now go to the Olympics in relative peace.

He, however, leaves behind, a festering sore, a handful of aggrieved persons that would require careful handling. He would need to apply wisdom and diplomacy to successfully wade through the waters that his decisions have surely churned. He would now have to navigate unclear terrain that lie in his path? What would be his roadmap into the future after Tokyo 2021? That is the inevitable war that will come and that he will have to fight. He has plenty to chew on his plate, plenty of unfinished business.

There are a few things he should be thinking about: to quickly establish a new structure that will clear the air on the relationships that should exist between his ministry, sports federations and the Nigeria Olympic Committee; the structure shall define the different roles and responsibilities within those relationships and hopefully put to rest the matter of ‘interference’ that always comes up when roles are in conflict. Already some aggrieved members have surreptitiously sent a petition to their international federations with that charge. Fortunately, even though the charge should not be dismissed, off-hand, by the minister, it will not have any effect on Nigeria’s participation at the Olympics this summer.

Federations play only supportive roles to the ministry and the NOC enroute the Olympics. They play no official part in the registration of participants, and the responsibility for the training and welfare of the athletes is also entirely that of the government through the sports ministry. So, any claim of interference has no locus and can’t stop anything. Fundamentally, the Olympic Movement and International Sports Federations are two different bodies that only cooperate during the Olympics to the extènt the Olympic Committee chooses to involve the international sports federations. Their relationship has also been frosty, limited and guarded, the areas of collaboration being often at the discretion of the IOC. They do not interfere in each other’s business but are always exploring areas of subtle cooperation. This is particularly true with the two biggest sports bodies in the world, FIFA and the IOC. The claim by some stakeholders that Nigerian athletes’ performance will be hurt by the dissolution of boards holds no substance. The athletes are as distant from the goings-on in the boardroom as Mars is from Jupiter. Incidentally, two thirds of them do not even have any athletes going at the games.

The minister’s next challenge, post the Olympics, would be to ensure he is not caught in the web of ‘illegality’ when he finds that he has to extend the official tenures of the boards that he ‘sacked’ because the caretakers cannot meet the timelines in the statutes used for the last elections. The minister might find himself doing exactly some of what he sacked the board for – indirectly legitimising elongation of tenure. Nothing was also said of the role of the caretaker committees in preparing the grounds for conducting fresh elections, even with incumbents serving in the committees. So, how will there not be the accusation of the vexed issues of an extension and of favouritism? Meanwhile, the ministry cannot conduct the elections itself, cannot also design thè statutes for the federations. To do either would tantamount to glaring and brazen interference. After the Olympics some of the international federations will start to react to the claims referred to them by aggrieved members, and the peace that the minister sought in dissolving the boards may become elusive. In short, I don’t see how tenure elongation will not happen with the present arrangement. I don’t also see how those members that are retained in the committees will not be considered as being favoured since the committees may superintend over the process of fresh elections.

Will there be level ground for fair elections? All the boards have now seemingly accepted the Minister’s prescription. The athletes are now rightfully in the care of the Ministry with a rather laid back NOC whose role is to register the athletes presented by the Ministry and to lead the delegation to Tokyo. Otherwise, the NOC are absolutely powerless in the present situation. Their obligations to the Games fulfilled, they become bystanders, waiting for the Sports Ministry to take the lead on all other issues clearly not in the charter of the Olympic Movement to which they belong. For decades, conducting acceptable elections into sports federations have been the bane of peace and progress in sports. Abuse and manipulation of the process, acting with impunity and misùsing the privileges of incumbency have made every election a theatre of crisis and even litigation. In some cases the government has actively participated in precipitating the chaos. But in a situation where the government is deeply rooted in the activities of federations by providing a secretariat, logistical support in staff and facilities, funds for most of their events and programmes, it is hard to separate the thin lines between power and responsibility. Most federations are unable to secure any level of independence that they are entitled to by their constitutions. It has truly become a matter of the piper dictating the music. This is a knotty issue that is not peculiar to Nigeria. It is common and recurring in several once-communist countries as well as most Third World countries where nothing works without governments.

For decades, this has afflicted Nigerian sports development – the conflicts in who does what, who funds what, the mechanisms of control and supervision, and the limits of government’s interventions. The turnover of sports administrators through the decades also created its own problems for the sector that is now full of personnel with limited experiences and understanding of the complexities of the sports environment.

This has diluted the quality of end-product (the athletes) and sustained a crisis in the sector. Too frequent changes and a cyclè of leadership drawn from sectors outside sports, have also added their toll by diminishing the richness of a passed-on-knowledge-base that would have sustained consistent policies and growth. That’s why a country with so much acknowledged potential in human capital and resources, that should be a world superpower in sports by now had it followed its foundational trajectory after Independence in the 1960s up to the early 1990s when the ship started to rock and roll, can no longer find its bearing for almost 3 decades. Successive ministers, unfamiliar with the terrain, have been forced to grope from one concept to the other, going around in circles, always courting crises and never finding an answer until they leave office and things worse off than when they met them. This trend must stop. It can, of course, start with the current minister who has demonstrated a commitment and courage to reset the button of sports development. He has the perfect opportunity to do so now. He must start to think and plan for sports beyond the Tokyo Olympics. He cannot and must not base the future on what happens in Tokyo. Thats dangerous yet thats what he appears to have done by setting the achievements of Atlanta ’96 as his Tokyo 2021 benchmark.

I pray he is lucky and his dreams come ro pass. My humble take is that Tokyo 2021 is already a settled matter. Nigeria can only do as well as the preparations that the country inputed into the athletes. I do not, therefore, expect a medals haul. The period after the Olympics matters more now. Genuine and lasting change can start with the presence of right leaderships in the ministry of sports itself, in sports federations, and in the NOC. These can all be influenced by the Sports Minister, carefully and diplomatically deploying the tools he has as the supervisor over all of sports in the country. I urge the Miniater not to discard or treat with levity the idea of the return of the National Sports Commission.

Time was when the technical arm of the National Sports Commission, with all their world class coaches and other personnel, handled all the preparations of all athletes to the Olympics, funded the entire preparations, participation and logistics, and worked very closely with the NOC. At that time, Federations borrowed coaches and their other essential personnel from the NSC to use for their national team assignments. That was the structure that did not put the burden of developing sports on the shoulders of independent federations.

That basic operating formular did not fail and can be restored as most experts have proposed for decades now. Once again, the national federations will have their full authority only over their own domestic affiliates, sports programmes and sports properties – the clubs, the domestic leagues and championships, regional and continental Club competitions, and academicals. On a final note, I reiterate that the Olympic Games, the Commonwealth Games, and the All African Games are all under a dispensation that the federations cannot control or fund. These are the end product of the sports ministry’s primary purpose – sports development. They are all international competitions and testing ground for athletes across all sports. They are the measure of the sports ministry’s woŕk and success.

The federations must cooperate with the sports ministry, or stay clear and face its own primary objectives. They cannot eat their cake and still have it. They cannot get funding for the programs that belong to the ministry and insist there shall be no accountability or interference. They have hard choices to make. Until they do so they will have no peace and will always be objects for the Sports Ministry’s interference. Mr. Sunday Dare has a huge challenge on his hands from August. It could also present a perfect opportunity to conceive a new dawn for Nigerian sports. As he prepares for the ‘war’ after Tokyo 2021, my prayer is that this period of his greatest challenge becomes the period of his greatest triumph! Quote: ‘ There are a few things he should be thinking about: to quickly establish a new structure that will clear the air on the relationships that should exist between his ministry, sports federations and the Nigeria Olympic Committee’

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Binance Executive drags NSA, EFCC to court, demands public apology

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Binance Executive drags NSA, EFCC to court, demands public apology

Binance executive Tigran Gambaryan has taken legal action against National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu and the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), alleging violations of his fundamental rights.

In a filing dated March 18 and presented by his lawyer Olujoke Aliyu from Aluko and Oyebode Law Firm, Gambaryan sought redress before Justice Inyang Ekwo, requesting five reliefs.

Similarly, Nadeem Anjarwalla, Binance’s Africa regional manager who escaped custody on March 22, initiated a separate suit before Justice Ekwo.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Gambaryan and Anjarwalla, in the suits marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/356/24 and FHC/ABJ/CS/355/24, had sued the Office of NSA (ONSA) and EFCC as 1st and 2nd respondents.

Gambaryan, a US citizen overseeing financial crime compliance at the crypto exchange platform, alleged that his detention and the confiscation of his international travel passport violated Section 35 (1) and (4) of the 1999 Constitution, constituting a breach of his fundamental right to personal liberty.

He further requested the court to order his immediate release and the return of his passport. Additionally, he sought an injunction preventing further detention related to any Binance investigations and demanded a public apology from the respondents, along with costs incurred.

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Gambaryan stated that he visited Nigeria on February 26 alongside Nadeem Anjarwalla, representing Binance, in response to invitations from ONSA and EFCC. Despite attending the meeting as requested, both were detained afterward without formal charges.

During the court proceedings, T.J. Krukrubo, SAN, representing Anjarwalla and Gambaryan, informed the court of the respondents’ absence despite being served. Krukrubo also mentioned their notice of withdrawal of legal representation for Anjarwalla, filed on March 26.

Justice Ekwo noted the withdrawal of legal representation and adjourned the matter to April 8 to allow the applicants to seek new representation and give the respondents an opportunity to appear.

In Gambaryan’s case, Krukrubo stated that although the processes were served on ONSA and EFCC, they still had time to respond. He requested an adjournment, indicating that the respondents’ deadline to file their applications would expire the following week.

Consequently, Justice Ekwo scheduled the next hearing for April 8 to continue proceedings.

Meanwhile, the Federal Government will arraign Binance Holdings Limited and its two top officials, Tigran Gambaryan and the fleeing Nadeem Anjarwalla, on April 4 on allegations bordering on tax evasion.

Binance, Gambaryan, and Anjarwalla, listed as 1st to 3rd defendants respectively, are expected to be arraigned before Justice Emeka Nwite of a Federal High Court (FHC), Abuja on a four-count charge.

Anjarwalla, who had been in detention alongside Gambaryan, was said to have escaped from lawful custody. He escaped on Friday from the Abuja guest house where he and his colleague were detained.

Binance Executive drags NSA, EFCC to court, demands public apology

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FG shuts KFC outlet that ‘humiliated’ Gbenga Daniel’s wheelchair-bound son

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KFC outlet at MMIA, Adebola Daniel

FG shuts KFC outlet that ‘humiliated’ Gbenga Daniel’s wheelchair-bound son

The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria has shut down a branch of a popular food outlet, KFC, at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos  State.

FAAN stated this on Thursday in a statement signed by its Director, Public Affairs and Consumer Protection, Mrs Obiageli Orah.

The statement, titled, ‘FAAN shuts down KFC outlet at MMIA,’ noted that the food outlet violated the Lagos State law on People with Special Needs, Part C, Section 55 of General Provisions on Discrimination.

The statement added that the directive followed a social media report by a Passenger with Reduced Mobility who alleged discriminatory treatment he received at the airport.

It read, “In line with Lagos State law on People with Special Needs, Part C, section 55 of General Provisions on Discrimination which states that “A person shall not deprive another person of access to any place, vehicle or facility that members of the public are entitled to enter or use on the basis of the disability of that person”, the management of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has closed the KFC facility at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos with effect from March 28, 2024.

“This is as a result of a social media report by a Passenger with Reduced Mobility (PRM), alleging discriminatory treatment he received at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos.

“The MD/CE of FAAN, Mrs Olubunmi, Kuku intervened swiftly by deploying a management team comprising the Director, Public Affairs and Consumer Protection, Mrs Obiageli Orah; the Regional Manager South West, Mr. Sunday Ayodele; Ag. General Manager Public Affairs, Mrs Ijeoma Nwosu-Igbo and the International Terminal Manager, Mr. Kerri, to investigate the allegation.”

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FAAN said, “It is based on the findings of the team that FAAN has shut down the KFC facility at the MMA, where the incident occurred.

“The authority has instructed that the KFC Management should tender an unreserved apology, in writing, to the affected PRM and a policy statement of non-discrimination be written and pasted conspicuously at the door post of their facility at MMIA before it resumes operation.

“FAAN uses this medium to express our unreserved apology to the affected Passenger with Reduced Mobility and assures all airport users that we shall continue to work tirelessly to ensure that the rights of every passenger are not infringed upon.”

The victim of the maltreatment, Adebola Daniel, son of former Ogun State Governor, Gbenga Daniel, recounted his experience at the KFC outlet of the airport in a series of tweets posted on Wednesday via his X handle, @DebolaDaniel.

Daniel, a wheelchair user, described his ordeal as “the worst sort of public humiliation” he ever had.

The Ogun State-born noted that it all started during his planned trip to  London from Lagos via a Virgin Atlantic airline.

He stated that in years past, while he was quite familiar with security and immigration processes, being a frequent traveller, he would visit the Oasis lounge of the airport to wait for his flight.

However, because “the lift to the lounge has been out of service,” for the past three years, he decided to find “solace” at the KFC outlet in the airport, alongside his wife and his three brothers, whom they were travelling together.

“Today I chose KFC – what a colossal mistake,” he bemoaned.

His tweets partly read, “Being disabled often rolls over my spirit, leaving behind a trail of shattered dignity and forgotten humanity. Nowhere more so than in Nigeria.

“I have never been the type of person to make a fuss or complain about my disability. My approach has always been ‘laissez-faire.’ Ultimately, it is what it is. It is a part of my identity and like everyone else, I have my days of self-doubt and confusion as to how/if I fit in society.

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“To be disabled in Nigeria is to be undesirable, unwelcome and unaccepted. As I’ve said before, it’s a lonely, scary and isolated place.

“Never has this been more true than it has ever been today when I faced the worst sort of public humiliation that I have ever experienced. To think that this happened at an international brand @kfc @kfcnigeria at an international airport – Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos – is unthinkable.”

Daniel stated that he “arrived at the airport as normal for my Virgin Atlantic flight to London. I’m a frequent flyer and I’m extremely familiar with all due processes at Murtala Muhammed Airport. Years ago, after all security and immigration formalities had been completed, I would normally go to the Oasis lounge to wait for my flight.

“For the past three years, the lift to the lounge has been out of service so I’ve often found solace in other establishments, sometimes lounges, sometimes restaurants such as @kfc @kfcnigeria.”

Daniel stated that as they were about to sit, a lady who is “apparently the manager” called out loudly, “No wheelchairs allowed.”

He added that upon hearing what she said, one of his brothers, Taiwo, asked what the lady meant, but “she refused to listen to reason and stood her ground that at @kfc @kfcnigeria Murtala Muhammed branch, wheelchairs and wheelchair users of all shapes and sizes were not permitted in the premises and we should leave immediately.

“My siblings and wife became instantly irate and proceeded to debate her position with her, ultimately cumulating in raised voices and strong verbal protests. If there’s one thing I hate more than anything in this life is to create a scene. I detest it. I do not like to draw attention to myself and as such I began pleading with my people that we should just leave.

“My wife took some video footage and my brothers took some pictures. There were at least five other witnesses at the scene, who tried to intervene as things unfolded. Eventually, our party departed to another lounge upset and quite frankly pissed off.”

Daniel stated that he wouldn’t let such an incident slide, adding that as another of his brothers alongside his wife met the lady at another time, she stressed “that the business does not allow wheelchairs into their premises,” while they took an audio record of her statement.

He recalled the lady saying that “she recently just transferred to that branch, it is something that has been drummed into them.

FG shuts KFC outlet that ‘humiliated’ Gbenga Daniel’s wheelchair-bound son

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DHQ declares prof, 7 others wanted over killing of soldiers in Delta

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DHQ declares prof, 7 others wanted over killing of soldiers in Delta

The Defence Headquarters (DHQ) has declared eight persons wanted including a professor over the brutal killing of 17 soldiers and officers in Okuama community of Delta State.

Those declared wanted are Prof. Ekpekpo Arthur; a woman, Mrs Igoli Ebi; Reuben Baru; Akata Malawa David and four other persons

Director, Defence Media Operations, Maj. Gen. Edward Buba, announced this on Thursday at a briefing in Abuja.

Buba urged traditional rulers and other stakeholders particularly in the Niger Delta to help in fishing out the wanted suspects.

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