Sports Associations are set up
by private individuals with a common interest in a particular sport. They
register (or not) the association as a corporate body with the Corporate
Affairs Commission. They operate the association’s activities within the ambit
of the laws of Nigeria, conducting their affairs without the interference of
any external or internal Third parties. They write their own constitutions and
set up structures to guide their day-to-day activities for their members.
That is the common template for the founding and running of all
the sports associations.
The associations then go ahead
to affiliate to any international body they choose and freely conduct business
with them independently. Unfortunately, they can’t operate in isolation of some
critical stakeholders, and, therefore, necessarily expand their membership base
by collaborating with other relevant organisations that affiliate with them in
order to achieve their mutual objectives. These are clubs, players, coaches,
referees, physical and health education specialists, sports medicine
practitioners, marketers, and so on, all relevant stakeholders including
government agencies.
Collectively, this assembly make up the membership of sports
associations.
The board of the association
usually comprises equal representation by each of the different key-members.
From amongst the board they elect their leadership. From the total membership
of the organization also they set up their working committees.
The system worked very well and without crisis, for decades.
Incidentally, governments at
national, State and Local Government levels, through their sports
councils/ministry, are direct stakeholders in every Sport by virtue of the
essential roles they play within the national sports development architecture.
In the associations, governments often provide the office space and a Secretary
for a secretariat, the sports facility or infrastructure for the competitions,
vehicles and other logistical needs, and some subvention funds. In many
instances and places, government agencies even own and run clubs that
participate in the competitions of the association.
Of all these make governments legitimate stakeholders and
qualified members of the sports associations. That qualifies the Ministry of
Sports to have a representative in the board of all the sports associations.
Not to recognize this fact is a fallacy.
Indeed, in many countries
around the world, particularly Third World and Socialist countries, governments
cannot be separated from sports. The International bodies know this fact and
also know to accommodate these cultural and political peculiarities in relating
to the associations.
For several decades before and after Nigeria’s Independence in
1960, there was no problem with that arrangement. International sports bodies
to which the national associations were affiliated understood the peculiar
circumstance very clearly, and steered clear of any issues about governments
being involved in the business of their domestic sport. They see them as
stakeholders, and not as third-party interlopers.
Indeed, it is not even the business of International bodies to
monitor how their member associations conduct their day-to-day business. The
associations may even choose to sleep with the devil provided their activities
are not in breach of the rules in the constitutions of the international
bodies.
For national associations, the singular challenge then was that
the sports ministry often used their exalted position as supervisor to install
whoever they fancied as Chairperson of the association, and publicly claim it
is a directive from the Presidency. That meant the entry of politics into the
fray. That also meant installing persons not often versed in sports matters to
head sports associations. We experienced that many times in the history of
several associations.
The only way to halt that trend was to introduce new processes
for electing the leadership. That meant tampering with the established
constitutions and introducing new methods for electing Chairmen for the
association. That meant an inevitable clash with governments.
That is the genesis of the crisis in Nigerian sports
associations/federations elections – the fight over who controls the lever of
power through the instrumentality of the constitution of the associations.
Fresh articles within constitutions that had to do with
elections were either introduced, or old ones tampered with. Either way, they
became instruments of manipulation to favour particular interest groups.
A former director in the sports ministry became a master at that
game. That’s how he became the most powerful sports administrator in Nigeria’s
history, using his position to inject all manner of articles into constitutions
of associations in a classic case of ‘wuru wuru to the answer’.
This has become the new trend in the past almost 3 decades. The
result is the unending protests and crisis before, during and after association
board elections.
Fed up with the crisis, some stakeholders started to a campaign
to shut out government’s involvement in Nigerian sports. That cannot work and
will not happen for the near future.
Every sports association can fund and run their domestic
programs without major challenges. From amongst themselves they can raise the
needed funds through levies, participation fees, and the several marketing
opportunities they can create and exploit to run their programs and
competitions, and to participate in international competitions involving their
members without problems.
But when they go outside their primary mandates and take on bigger
roles and responsibilities that are not theirs, they run into the problem of
funding and the need for government involvement and inevitable control.
International competitions, plus the statutory roles of sports
development and events at grassroots and elite levels, are the primary
responsibility of the government ministries – Education and Sports,
particularly. But, in their inordinate quest to gain access to cheap government
funds that they never account for, associations inscribe into their constitutions
roles they have no authority over. They hide behind the single finger of their
international body for legitimacy, and spew conflicts.
The associations cannot take over those responsibilities and ask
government to fund them. They want to eat their cake and still have it. They
cannot take government funds and debar government from having a say in their
activities.
I read one of the two constitutions of the Nigeria Basketball
Federation that is at the heart of the crisis in the association presently. The
association has written into its constitutions powers it does not have. It has
completely usurped the roles and responsibilities of the sports and education
ministries, plus the roles of other independent groups and associations within
the basketball space in the country.
The 2017 and 2019 constitutions of the NBBF are both faulty in
narrow intentions. They should be set aside and a new document put together by
a neutral body of knowledgeable and experienced persons. A level playing field
for all must then be created for fresh monitored elections.
The Sports Ministry, being the supervisory body for all of
sports in Nigeria, must step out with courage and determination, carefully and
wisely navigate through the several minefields of ‘interference’ to set Nigerian
sports free from the asphyxiating threat of a ban by international sports
federations.
The Ministry must also not infringe on the primary domestic
activities of sports associations. It must hand over a template of a
constitution that reflect every members role and responsible whilst capturing
governments objectives for sports in the country.
A few tips will help here:
Every board must have equal representation by its members,
including government.
The membership of the board shall elect its Chairman.
Elections should not be moved to State capitals, but must be
conducted in the headquarters of the sports federations.
Tenure of boards should be reduced to a single term only, like
several professional bodies.
Government representatives on boards will not contest for
Chairmanship, but will be automatic Vice-Chairmen because of their strategic
role in every association.
That will make the whole process simple, inexpensive, easy to
manage, less prone to manipulation and devoid of external influence and corruption.
There will also be no Ghana-Must-Go bags full of illicit money, no clandestine,
nocturnal meetings in hotel rooms, and no public campaigns with posters and
hired lobbyists.
Every association is independent, and ‘independence’ does not
mean the absence of government. Government is the biggest Stakeholder in
Nigerian sports and it cannot be willed or wished away from its administration.
All must accept and embrace that reality and work with it.
Those are the issues the Sports Minister must address. He must
be courageous to take the right decisions from the position of the government
being a legitimate Stakeholder in Nigerian sports, to guide the penning of new
constitutions for the sports federations that will take sports into a new era
of peace and progress.
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