Tag: Mallam Shuaibu Gara

Former Gombe FA boss Mallam Gara Shuaibu has revealed that if Nigerian football must progress then it must be administered the way Rotary Club and Red Cross Society are managed in Nigeria.

Shuaibu revealed this while responding to questions from Journalists on the HOT SEAT of the NIGERIA SPORTS CENTRE group anchored by Akeem Busari on December 1, 2020.

“You cannot tell me we don’t have gentlemen managing Rotary in Nigeria”. "They have general meetings without chapters and they render account applying the principles of good governance, accountability, transparency, prudence". "Same thing applies to Red Cross, and there are so many examples like that. So why can’t we apply same with football he queried.

Shuaibu who spoke extensively on the matter observed that NGO’s such as the Red Cross and Rotary International do not depend on government for grants but football became so due to the corruption marred in it.

“The crux of the matter is that corruption has been the bane of Nigerian football and sports at large”. “If we don’t deal with it, we cannot move”. “And the way to deal with it is take it away from the hands of government and treat it as a full private sector”.

“When someone ask question about the finance of Nigeria Football Association, you can be given anything". “And when you try to hold them as an institution in a court, they will run back to their big brother (FIFA)". "Then they will remind you of the non-government interference and FIFA may threaten us with a ban”.

On managing Nigerian Football by law, the former Gombe FA Boss started by asking a question:

“Why must we run or manage our football by Law in Nigeria"? “Football establishment started as a decree and then transformed into an Act which is still a source of confusion and a source of concern, and that has really retarded our movement”. "In the 60’s when the first meeting of stakeholders was conveyed in Lagos, it was meant to be an NGO".

“It is not that the administrators or supervisors of sports in Nigeria don’t know these things”.  “They know, but they claim ignorance for selfish reasons”.  “If you look at FIFA in Switzerland, it is a non-governmental association”.  

"Some years ago the Senate Committee on Sports held a public hearing about the review of the NFF Act in 2004". "I was invited and I asked them, why do you want to establish football by law"? "What happened to Basketball, Cricket, Handball, and others"?

"They said they are coming to that. Till today, they have not given any satisfactory answer on that". "So if you want to establish football by law, it should affect other sports. But globally, Sports is private sector driven and not to be established by law and not to be put under government control.

They can only provide policy direction, infrastructure if need be, to support their social responsibility to the state or citizens“We need to deregulate football in Nigeria”. “Allow stakeholders to choose among themselves their trustees as an NGO registered in the CAC”.

When prompted to access the Amaju Pinnick-led administration in the past six years, Shuaibu said:  

“The last six years of Nigerian football has been of mixed-feelings". “It has been a period where we have seen a lot of confusion, allegations flying around, mismanagement, institutional insubordination, divisions and polarization” he started.

“So on a score of 100 per cent, I can tell you that it has never been this bad". “I am being sincere and the reasons are not far-fetched”. “We are still in a moment where when it appears we are going forward, we suddenly start going backwards”. "And this is because football is under the control of government in Nigeria".

So the Pinnick led administration has been a beneficiary of this terrible situation and as much as that has not been treated, no administrator in Nigerian Football or Sports will come and succeed without taking it off government control or without respecting the sovereignty of Nigeria as a country.