Afolabi Gambari
Contents
When Mallam Shehu Dikko was announced by President Bola Tinubu in November 2024 as Chairman of the reconstituted National Sports Commission, he came across as a technocrat who was appearing in the sports sector for the first time. Any casual observer would have been forgiven for being unaware that Dikko had, in fact, been in and around the country’s sports for nearly three decades previously, especially as chairman of the League Management Company and nominal vice president of the Nigeria Football Federation.No sooner did he assume office than he was literally swooped on by a multitude of people who turned his office into a sort of pilgrimage centre, there to shower praises on him as the “best man that Nigeria needs for the country’s sports turnaround”. Photoshoots became the order of the day, all queuing up to take turns. It was quite impossible to really know who was exploiting whom for public acclaim between him and his swarm of visitors. What was clear was that the visits were a continuous exercise – all summed up as “goodwill”. If Dikko said anything concrete as he welcomed the pilgrims, it was to say “President Tinubu is determined to harness the full potential of the sports economy in Nigeria”. Virtually nothing was original to him, even as the president’s agenda was not explicitly stated, at least for record purposes.Dikko soon latched onto something: he said he was “committed to building a sustainable sports economy in Nigeria”. He said it was a journey that “has now officially begun”. He quelled the impression that he was a newcomer in the sports sector: “In 2008, I was a consultant to the House of Representatives and was responsible for the drafting of the National Sports Commission Bill.” He declared that he was only back “to implement the work” he helped to initiate.But he attracted much applause when he declared, “We have to first change our mindset from the fixation of just competitions and winning medals and come back and fix our domestic sports development.” He added: “When we set the foundation right, the results and the winning of medals will naturally come sustainably, and that should be the new mindset.” Specifically, he said: “Competition is what we call ‘consumption’ because we just take scarce resources and burn out abroad without any impact on the domestic sports development ecosystem and the Nigerian economy.” For effect, he said: “We have to go back to ‘production’ which is deliberate sports development, where we set the structure right, set the framework and put together good parameters to have a sustainable sports development which will naturally give us a solid sports economy and indeed guarantee competitive participation at all competitions and medals.”He did explain “sports economy” glibly, so it was hardly understood in the context in which it was explained. Likewise, as he said, he was determined to ensure that sports contribute to the country’s GDP, considering the sector has for many years operated in the manner that puts “receiving” far above “giving”. Nonetheless, he pledged that his era as the NSC boss would assiduously “invest in purposeful world-class infrastructure that will provide an enabling environment for growth, and the infrastructure must be deliberate with maintenance culture and span from world-class infrastructure for professional sports to community infrastructure to drive grassroots sports and mass participation across the country”.He also said his administration “will focus on treating sports as a national asset with entitlement to special privileges, regulations and concessions to drive growth and development”. Therefore, he said the NSC would also “work on legislation and regulations to set the framework to enable the industry to grow effectively, like what happened in the communications industry some years back.”Among what he said would be his “immediate action points” would be a restructuring of the NSC to align it with its new mandate to create a foundation that attracts private investment in sports and infrastructure that targets “improved performance”.Still in furtherance of the “production” aspect of his agenda, Dikko disclosed his plans to “collaborate with experts and partners” with a view to developing a framework that supports sports growth through creating policies, strategies and laws that protect and promote development. Perhaps, it would be hasty to assess Dikko’s NSC administration at only one year of existence. But since progress on “production” should be measured, there has appeared a veering off towards “consumption”, as if the “production” itself had been merely put forward as a smokescreen in the first place. Consider the deliberately wasteful attempt to secure the centenary 2030 Commonwealth Games hosting right. Despite the evident weight of disadvantage against Nigeria’s bid for the games, which was further worsened by the eventual winner of the bid, India, which had a stronger proposal and infrastructure, the NSC persisted in giving Nigerians confidence of securing the hosting right, which was obviously targeted at the “consumption” that Dikko stated was no longer in the interest of Nigeria.
When Mallam Shehu Dikko was announced by President Bola Tinubu in November 2024 as Chairman of the reconstituted National Sports Commission, he came across as a technocrat who was appearing in the sports sector for the first time. Any casual observer would have been forgiven for being unaware that Dikko had, in fact, been in and around the country’s sports for nearly three decades previously, especially as chairman of the League Management Company and nominal vice president of the Nigeria Football Federation.
No sooner did he assume office than he was literally swooped on by a multitude of people who turned his office into a sort of pilgrimage centre, there to shower praises on him as the “best man that Nigeria needs for the country’s sports turnaround”. Photoshoots became the order of the day, all queuing up to take turns. It was quite impossible to really know who was exploiting whom for public acclaim between him and his swarm of visitors. What was clear was that the visits were a continuous exercise – all summed up as “goodwill”. If Dikko said anything concrete as he welcomed the pilgrims, it was to say “President Tinubu is determined to harness the full potential of the sports economy in Nigeria”. Virtually nothing was original to him, even as the president’s agenda was not explicitly stated, at least for record purposes.
Dikko soon latched onto something: he said he was “committed to building a sustainable sports economy in Nigeria”. He said it was a journey that “has now officially begun”. He quelled the impression that he was a newcomer in the sports sector: “In 2008, I was a consultant to the House of Representatives and was responsible for the drafting of the National Sports Commission Bill.” He declared that he was only back “to implement the work” he helped to initiate.
But he attracted much applause when he declared, “We have to first change our mindset from the fixation of just competitions and winning medals and come back and fix our domestic sports development.” He added: “When we set the foundation right, the results and the winning of medals will naturally come sustainably, and that should be the new mindset.” Specifically, he said: “Competition is what we call ‘consumption’ because we just take scarce resources and burn out abroad without any impact on the domestic sports development ecosystem and the Nigerian economy.” For effect, he said: “We have to go back to ‘production’ which is deliberate sports development, where we set the structure right, set the framework and put together good parameters to have a sustainable sports development which will naturally give us a solid sports economy and indeed guarantee competitive participation at all competitions and medals.”
He did explain “sports economy” glibly, so it was hardly understood in the context in which it was explained. Likewise, as he said, he was determined to ensure that sports contribute to the country’s GDP, considering the sector has for many years operated in the manner that puts “receiving” far above “giving”. Nonetheless, he pledged that his era as the NSC boss would assiduously “invest in purposeful world-class infrastructure that will provide an enabling environment for growth, and the infrastructure must be deliberate with maintenance culture and span from world-class infrastructure for professional sports to community infrastructure to drive grassroots sports and mass participation across the country”.
He also said his administration “will focus on treating sports as a national asset with entitlement to special privileges, regulations and concessions to drive growth and development”. Therefore, he said the NSC would also “work on legislation and regulations to set the framework to enable the industry to grow effectively, like what happened in the communications industry some years back.”
Among what he said would be his “immediate action points” would be a restructuring of the NSC to align it with its new mandate to create a foundation that attracts private investment in sports and infrastructure that targets “improved performance”.
Still in furtherance of the “production” aspect of his agenda, Dikko disclosed his plans to “collaborate with experts and partners” with a view to developing a framework that supports sports growth through creating policies, strategies and laws that protect and promote development.
Perhaps, it would be hasty to assess Dikko’s NSC administration at only one year of existence. But since progress on “production” should be measured, there has appeared a veering off towards “consumption”, as if the “production” itself had been merely put forward as a smokescreen in the first place. Consider the deliberately wasteful attempt to secure the centenary 2030 Commonwealth Games hosting right. Despite the evident weight of disadvantage against Nigeria’s bid for the games, which was further worsened by the eventual winner of the bid, India, which had a stronger proposal and infrastructure, the NSC persisted in giving Nigerians confidence of securing the hosting right, which was obviously targeted at the “consumption” that Dikko stated was no longer in the interest of Nigeria.
As if the NSC was not subdued at losing the Commonwealth Games right, the commission still launched another bid to host the 2031 African Games, offering “readiness and capacity to stage another world-class continental festival” and saying Nigeria “has demonstrated exceptional organisational capability by successfully hosting a series of major international sporting events”. In a swift turnaround, the commission stated that its action to get attracted to “consumption” while it has yet to take the “production” to an appreciable level, despite Dikko’s pledge, is “guided by a forward-looking vision to harness sports as a catalyst for national development”. Granted that hosting major sporting events would boost Nigeria’s international visibility and impact greatly on the hospitality, transportation, tourism, security, merchandising and event services, would it still have been proper to put the horse before the cart rather than the other way round, concerning building infrastructure? After all, India had beaten Nigeria to the 2030 Commonwealth Games hosting rights only because it did the first thing first. If Dikko does not consider Nigeria’s bid for the 2031 Africa Games as a wasteful venture that stands his “production” gospel on its head, he can as well admit that he did not mean what he said at the beginning of his leadership of the NSC.
