Solomon Dalung’s embarrassing gaffes

Dalung    Picture: Daily Post

 A primary school kid knows that a square peg cannot fit into a round hole. Yet this administration keeps trying to defy logic in its effort to force clueless administrators to man strategic positions.

Solomon Dalung, Nigeria’s minister of sports, is a square peg and sport is a round hole. They can never fit. The 52-year-old minister is a lawyer and he once worked in the federal prisons, rising to the position of Assistant Inspector of Prisons. He has never been involved in sports. But surprisingly, he was appointed sports minister.

Because he is in alien territory, each time he opens his mouth, he ends up embarrassing the country. His archaic posturing is not only shocking but also highly disturbing.

A few months ago, he said on a radio programme in Lagos that athletes don't need to train for long before major tournaments, to the consternation of athletes and sports lovers.

I wonder if Dalung thinks the hordes of medals the likes of USA, Britain and China won at the Rio Olympics were by happenstance. It took years of training and dedication.

Last week Dalung decided to give another interview. This time it was to the Voice of America. Again he stood logic on its head, saying there was no need for Nigeria to participate in the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifiers because the Super Eagles have no chance of winning the tournament. Seriously?

The Plateau State born administrator said Nigeria’s participation in the qualifiers was a “waste of money.” Nigerians, he said, are “suffering from hunger and we don’t have money for such things.”

According to him, Nigeria should only participate in what they can win – such as the African Cup of Nations (AFCON), Olympics and Commonwealth Games.

He didn’t stop there. He also accused FIFA of bias.

“Conspiracy in the World Cup is too much. There is the issue of bribery and favouritism; there is also the issue of corruption before you are even given the hosting rights. That is why, even if we try many times, once it gets into the politics of the game, we can never win,” he said.

In this one interview he managed to make a lot of gaffes. Firstly, football has never featured at the Commonwealth Games. Unfortunately our dear sports minister doesn’t know that.

Dalung says Nigeria is too poor to participate in the World Cup. Countries such as Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Burundi and Eritrea are far poorer than Nigeria. In fact they are Africa’s poorest countries. Yet they don’t hide behind “poverty” to deprive their footballers of a chance to play at the World Cup.

They have a very slim chance of qualifying, let alone winning the global tournament. But they keep on trying. That is because sport is not just about winning. It is about taking part and doing your best.


Dalung wants us to focus on AFCON. But he forgets that it took Nigeria years of participation before we finally won the trophy in 1980. And we didn't win the biennial event again until 1994 – 14 long years later. The next time we lifted the cup was in 2013.

There were conspiracy theories about our heartbreaking and controversial losses to Cameroon, especially because CAF president Issa Hayatou is a Cameroonian. We even lost to Cameroon in our backyard in 2000. But we didn’t claim partiality or hatred and give up. We kept trying, and finally did it.

Before 1996, Nigeria had never won a single football match at the Olympics. So it was highly unlikely that we would do well in Atlanta ‘96. But the boys defied the formbooks. They refused to read the script. They dropped their fear of football superpowers Brazil and Argentina to win the ultimate prize.

If past administrators had Dalung's mindset, they would have stopped the Eagles from participating in these competitions. And we would have been the worse for it.

Sports boost a nation’s image. Football has done a lot more for Nigeria’s image than all our diplomats put together. Many people from across the world know about Nigeria not because of the United Nations but due to our exploits on the field.

The minister says there’s no money to fund football. Does he know that FIFA pays each country that qualifies for the World Cup about $5 million? Convert that to naira and the amount becomes mouth-watering. And does he know the fate of the country if we suddenly pull out of the World Cup qualifiers?

The country would be banned and fined. Then we would have to dole out that money he claims we don’t have.

Instead of saying there's no money to waste, Dalung could use his high office to explore areas of sponsorship for the Super Eagles, one of Africa's most exciting teams. Many reputable organizations have sponsored the Super Eagles in the past and better and transparent organization would bring in more sponsors.

Against all odds, Nigeria is doing extremely well in the 2018 World Cup qualifiers. The Super Eagles sit pretty on top of the group that was tagged the “group of death.”

This is not the time to talk about withdrawing from the World Cup. As the minister of sports, Dalung should do his utmost to encourage the players instead of dampening their spirit with his mind-boggling negativity.