In the wake of the scandalous failure
of the Nigerian Olympic team in the just concluded London Olympics, the Lagos
State chapter of the Action Congress of Nigeria has called for a full scale
investigation into the farcical and the possible sack of top officials of the
Sports Ministry. The party says a situation where public officials preside over
huge official rots and are allowed to stay in office bodes more resounding
disaster for the country if the trend is not checked.
In a release in Lagos, signed by the
Lagos State Publicity Secretary of the ACN, Joe Igbokwe, the party said that
Nigeria’s failure to feature in the comprehensive medal outing despite the huge
fund spent for the outing which turned out to be a wasteful jamboree. It
insists that the operations of all federal ministries and parastatals must be
thoroughly cleansed to avoid similar national embarrassments in the future.
“For the avoidance of doubts, what
happened during the Olympics is not an isolated case. Our failure at the
Olympics is a micro picture of the general state of rot and decay that
continues to ravage Nigeria, especially in the last thirteen years of corrupt,
insensate and mediocre PDP governance. The failure of the sports ministry is
writ large in all the ministries and speaks of the geometric decline the
country and all its sectors suffer at present. We see this type of failure in
every sector of the country; be it roads, health, electricity, petroleum,
education, agriculture, security among all other public sectors in Nigeria.
“We believe that the Olympic flop is
outstanding because it happened in the full glare of the world and in
competition with other nations of the world. It is so glaring because the
failure could be readily measured from the outing of other nations, who did not
go to the games with even half our contingent or spent a fraction of the money
we wasted on that exercise. But we all know that it is not removed from the
general picture of things in Nigeria at present where virtually every sphere
and sector of Nigerian life at present.
“Lagos ACN wants the sordid outing at
the Olympics to be a starting point towards addressing the thick stench of
decay and rot that is threatening to eat away the life of the country at
present. We want a comprehensive probe of the embarrassing Olympic outing to
kick start more detailed probes of the activities of the Sports Ministry and
such other ministries as Works, Education, Petroleum, Agriculture,
Power, Industries, Health, Transport, Environment, Justice, and
infact all federal ministries where the impression is gaining deep roots that
yearly budgets are shared out among ministry top officials.
“On the Olympic flop, we want a deep
probe into the level and depth of preparations that go into Nigeria’s
participation in any sporting event so as to determine if such is germane for
the country’s often expensive participation in any competition. We charge the
government to put in place a durable sporting template that would be trusted to
discover, prepare and adequately train Nigerians for any competition and we
make this recommendation in view of the continued decline of Nigerian sports
that had seen the country eliminated in all major sporting competitions
especially in the last one year.
“We demand such comprehensive,
actionable probes of all federal parastatals where Nigerians feel nothing more
than official stealing take place. We demand that such probes must be acted
upon and a credible anti-corruption template be put in place to stem the overwhelming
rot that is presently looming over the conduct of official business in Nigeria.
“Lagos ACN charges the Jonathan regime
to sit up and arrest the current geometric decline of Nigeria, as exemplified
by the sordid London Olympic outing, by ensuring that incompetent operatives of
his government are fired and replaced with competent and credible people that
are trusted to arrest the current slide of the country. We want quick and
decisive action on the steady decline the country is experiencing in every
sector of governance and we believe that time has come for Nigerians to stand
up and demand for the arrest of that decline from those that govern them.”
No comments:
Post a Comment