Sports Minister Solomon Dalung
The newly-appointed sports minister, Solomon Dalung, has said that his top priority is to eradicate corruption in sports before he can push for extra funds in the budget of the sports ministry.
In this exclusive interview with Aderonke Bello he assured Nigerians of sports development with emphasis on grassroots sports and schools games. The ex-university lecturer also revealed his intentions to increase the welfare package of athletes in Nigeria.
How do you want to translate your administrative experience into sports administration?
Dalung: I am a retired prisons officer with 25 years experience, I have also served as a personal adviser and adviser emeritus to the late president of the Federal Republic Of Nigeria, Late Chief Solomon Lar, subsequently, I lectured in the university of Jos for a period of seven years in international law, I am a lawyer by training and I produced great men as lecturers some of them are even executive governors of states today. I have been a chairman of my native local government and subsequently I have engaged myself in human rights advocacy, social justice and as an anti-corruption crusader, so I coupled it up with joining politics in contemporary times.
Well, having exposed myself to all these, I am familiar with basic Nigerian system whether from the creative system where I started up to the intelligentsia, academic system or down to the local government, the grassroots administration or up to where I am as a minister today of course, I served in the transition committee that took over power and handed it over to President Muhammadu Buhari. So, I believe my experience is sufficient enough to be translated into my new responsibility as a minister of youths and sports development.
How close are you to sports affairs?
Dalung: But, I have not been too close to sports generally, specifically but I have also been too close to football especially letting into the internal wranglings that has characterised the football and the issue of corruption that is also so not pronounced. I think sports should be taken holistically that is the essence of trying to promote national unity and integration lest we forget football contribute, sports ministry is more of less like an embassy it relates with other countries of the world.
What exactly will be your focus when you finally resume office?
Dalung: I am not going to focus specifically on anything neither don’t want to lay claim to monopoly of knowledge, the best way in public administration generally is to create the opportunity for the key actors with whom you intend to govern so that you can derive from their reasoning and thinking on how their own opinions, their believe in the system can be managed better. There are several sports federations and Solomon Dalung can’t have knowledge than all the federations, we need the stakeholders engagements involving even donor agencies and sponsors, we come together and cluster and talk about ideas and come to con-census as to the best way with which sports can be generally administer in Nigeria.
You said you want to combat corruption, what are your plans for fighting corruption in sports?
Dalung: You see corruption in Nigeria is like cancer, and it is quite deadly and it has destroyed almost everything we have as our heritage and the take off point to fight corruption is the body language of the champion of the war against corruption, the present body language is very clear as a person, my body language to corruption is very clear but on assumption of office I intend to read the riot act and the act will be all those who have been perpetuating corruption in the ministry should take note that I can only be guilty of corruption of collecting justice, if it is justice I am ready to go to prison whatever small quantity of justice you bring as bribe I will collect it, but anybody carrying anything whether dollars, bribe or whatever name, while leaving his house he should also inform his wife where they should meet him very very important, so nobody should attempt to corrupt my mind because an attempt to corrupt my mind is an invitation to romancing with the law and the best I can do to you is to assist you to romance the law and I want to be understood clearly that my mission is to distribute justice and nobody should try me, I will welcome anybody who wants to partner with me, we must operate within the confine of laid down rules, anything outside the score of rules is unknown to me and any other human being, so corruption is a number one enemy and if I just perceived that it is within the environment and the most lather weapon must be used to secure such environment because its going to be there I will appeal to Nigerians to please make sure nobody attempts to bring bribe except justice.
How do you plan to develop sports in Nigeria?
Dalung: If the river is dry, the well is also dried up so grassroots development of sports is the appropriate take off point of development in establishing sports in Nigeria. We must encourage and invest in grassroots because that is where we can produce and its a source of raw materials for sports, if you are establishing a company where the resource of raw materials is 5,000 miles away, so the final product will be very expensive for the final consumer I think in my approach to the administration of sports in Nigeria, we will emphasise heavy investment and encouragement in grassroots sports so that we have the raw materials that we can develop.
It takes us back to schools its sad that even the curriculum of sports education have been abandoned in schools.
Will you work with schools?
Dalung: Definitely, because of our interest in grassroots sports development there will be nothing wrong in sponsoring a memo in the curriculum of physical and health education in schools because that is our interest it affects our participation and our role on development, it is like denying us key components of what we needed in the grassroots industry of manufacturing our sports men. We will sponsor a memo to the Federal Executive Council, and once we get the blessing of course ministry of education will key into it and it becomes a policy which they will work on, it’s not a difficult thing.
What about the welfare of athletes, how paramount will it be in your administration?
Dalung: Discussing the welfare of athletes is like discussing disease of sports administration of course every administrator or sports person has its entitlement embedded in the budget in whatever he is giving, so we will ensure that we are going to have an intelligence unit that will monitor the payment of allowances for athletes or players or sports men or women anywhere they are featuring so at the end of the day when we are receiving reports whether there is an agreement or disagreement of course law will come in to knock someone who is supposed to be given $1000 was given $100 what happened and where went the balance, we are only doing this not to witch-hunt anyone but for the records and at the end of the year we are able to tell Nigerians we are given this in the ministry and we send this and players will resemble the monies spend on them not like when players will be returning they will look like refugees, issue of welfare is never in doubt anybody that represent his country has entitlement and will ensure nothing happens to the entitlement of these patriotic Nigerians who have served the country.
Naij.com: Will there be more money for the sports ministry, are you going to push for more funds,and also for the timely release of funds?
Dalung: I have a lot of difficulties in answering this question, where we have corruption and it becomes very difficult to say whether the budget was small or normal but in the process of administration and in the budget, something went wrong, the truth whether the budget of sports is small can only be addressed when corrupt tendencies inherent in the system is minimized but at the end if it is true the budget is small, we will make a case. The national assembly will see reason with us knowing too well they have presented the budget very well. If you present a budget that is downloaded with a lot of interest for administrators and other management staff against the background of the welfare of the sports men, we have to check if it reflect the reality of the situation that is why we can say for how the budget and spending when I am sure fully briefed of what the situation on ground is.
Please tell us about your family life?
Dalung: I know God and I fear God and my believe is that he created us. I worship in the church, I am a liberal christian. I am married with a wife and about six kids and my parents are all living.
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