Article published in The Nation Newspaper
28/07/2010
Please give INEC the N55b or just $0.3b from out unspent N400+b budgetary excess or from our foreign reserves of $30+b for a credible new clean Electoral Voters Register. Now that would be the real democratic legacy of the Jonathan Years. Meanwhile President Clinton, ‘retired’, has finally publically announced what we have known and said at many opportunities for a long time on the well trodden and foreign grant circuit. There have been and still are are too many conferences, too much paperwork, too much unneccesary research too soon and too many HIV-AIDS four wheel drive jeeps and not enough simple IEC-Information, Education and Communication- material, like 30m posters for HIV-AIDS public enlightenment and treatment opportunities for those in danger of and with HIV-AIDS. Simply incorporating IEC messages in the existing advertising space of millions of miles of public packaging like cartons, pamphlets, billboards and containers the messages could be spread cheaply. Forget fatigue. Does anyone get fatigue from in-your-face soft drinks and soda adverts? Ask how many of the 1million classrooms in your country, Nigeria, have a readily accessible Teaching Aid HIV-AIDS Poster in every classroom not to mention every market kiosk, home and hostel? Too few. Why should an international HIV-AIDS donor like Bill Gates, DFID, UNAID, US-PAC give a country money to buy ‘free’ airtime HIV-AIDS messages to protect the country’s own citizens. Shame!
The revelations about the abuse and misuse of huge amounts from the NNPC account and the ‘secret’ FIFA/ NFF/NFA $1-8m are frightening. But we must attempt to rebuild Nigeria even if ‘they’ will destroy again and again and again.
That four month deadline for a Sports Blue Print should use the slogan-‘ A sports medal uncompeted for is a medal and national honour lost’ or ‘ A sport uncompeted for is 1000 jobs lost’. The team should consider the following:
1. Research all sports and establish a Master List and Reintroduce all sports including canoeing, shooting and marksmanship–track, field and team- into all schools. Facilities, stopwatches, whistles, equipment like hurdles, pole vault, javalins, shot putt, Sports kits, space, time in afternoon.
2. Reintroduce regular budgeted compulsory competitions including all sports at LGA, Zonal, State and national level.
3. Encourage Youth Centres with sports facilities in every ward, LGA, and state to be a template and two way conduit pipe for talent discovery. Instal standard national Training Schemes for each Sport –Academies.
4. Institute a LGA, State and National Talent Scout Scheme. Put it on the budget and payroll. It will be money better spent than now.
5. Strenghten/reorganise the current Coaching Scheme in the same way. LGA, State and National. Have a coaching hirachy in the budgetat each tier
6. Institute inter-ward and inter-LGA sport to information and training in each sport to and from the grassroots.
7. Insitute an Athletes Log Book including exercises, dietry advice, training regimes with space for monitoring, mentoring, times, positions and potential and projections.
8. Establish a Long Term All Sports Planning Committee, 5-10 years to raise early warning and awareness nationally and not the week before events and to surf the web locally and internationally to find suitable programmes to join exchanges and competitions.
9. Widely publish the various Sports Diary Of Coming Events 2010 -2013, three to four complete years ahead of schedule to allow athletes mature to meet their peak performance for particualr events. We know when the next Olympics and FIFA World Cup are but not when the next all state football Cup and marathon will be. There are no emergency meetings in sports anywhere. Everything is known well in advance.
10. Training, training, training Competition, competition, competition all needing budgetary allocation,
11. Employ and equip nationwide an army in teams of Dietitians, Nutritionists, Physiotherapists, Psychologists, audiovisial staff.
12. Recruit Corporate Nigeria to supply at speciall reduced cost ‘Extra-dietary Sportspersons Supplimentary Nutrition.
13. Initiate a Sport Pyramid Scheme for each sport by age and sex where each athlete can be named and followed as progress is made.
14. Use a Sport Ladder for knockout single person sports similar to that for boardgames like tennis, scrabble, chess,
15. Follow the political infrastructure of ward, LGA, State, for ease of monitoring and comparison of budgeting and funding sports at each level.
16. Follow rural/ urban planning: house, street, neighbourhood, village, town, city state pyamid for each sport
17. Follow institutional planning: Primary school, Secondary school, youth clubs, sports, clubs, for each sport
18. Follow and Single out tertiary institutions: Polytechnics, Colleges, Universities etc for screening and sports scholarships and for every sport by age and sex.
19. Internet based websites for flow charts and planning
20. Make generous budgetary provision to utilise all universiites for zonal and then specialised Holiday Sports Coaching for orgainised selected mass sports camping for selection of teams A-D from proven athletes recommended by their schools, sports authorities, etc.
21. Grid search the country for talent in each of the sports and at each position in team sports.
22. Engage Corporate Nigeria perhaps wholely or in a Public Private Parnership to instead of making instant millionaires, spend some of that money on establishing and maintaining funded public space internet www Sport Data Bases for each sport by age and sex with updates for time, distance and other improvements and preferred position played. Such a database will be a ready and accurate reference for recruiters, coaches and talent scouts.