Gara Gombe urges Buhari to cleanse ‘rotten’ sports sector

Former Gombe State Football Association Chairman, Ahmed Gara Gombe, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to beam his searchlight on the sports sector, which he said has been held down by corruption.

Speaking in Lagos yesterday, Gombe lamented that Nigerian sports have become an avenue for people to enrich themselves, adding,

“we need the type of restructuring going on in the oil industry in our sports.

“The National Sports Commission (NSC) is rotten and until the cankerworms in that body is removed, the constant complaints of lack of funds will not cease.”

Aside the NSC, Gombe said the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has made the country the laughing stock in the international community, adding that the body is behaving as if there was no government in Nigeria.

“Before you hear anything about Nigerian football, people living in London have already known about it.

“Take for instance the appointment of the new coach. The coach is a Nigerian, the NFF belongs to Nigeria and the job he will do is for Nigeria, but they went to London to negotiate the contract and even posted the contract on Facebook from London.

“The Nike deal was negotiated and signed in London when the Super Eagles are resident in Nigeria. And I want to ask, did they follow due process while getting the kit sponsor? Everybody is behaving as if Nike is doing Nigeria a favour even when there is no financial benefit from the deal.”

Gombe also kicked against the agreement to host the Sierra Leone African Nations Cup qualifier against Cote d’Ivoire in Nigeria, saying the decision has put the lives of Nigerians in danger.

He added: “A Nigerian, Dr. Stella Adadevoh, fought with her life to save the country from the Ebola scourge by ensuring that Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian, who had the ailment, did not spread it in the country.

“Here we are barely a year after endorsing Sierra Leone, a country that cannot host any game due to the Ebola scourge to bring their games to Nigeria. This NFF wants to kill all of us,” he said.

The former Special Adviser to Kano State Government on Sports argued that things would continue to go wrong in the NFF until the board members allowed the technocrats to run the federation.

“The board members are supposed to be policy makers and advisors, not full time workers of the NFF. But they don’t allow those employed to do the job to run the federation because most of them see the federation as an easy avenue to make money,” he said.