Mr. Solomon Dalong, Minister of Sports and Youths Development on Wednesday declared full scale war against all kinds of financial fraud against sports administrators, revealing that he was a victim of the financial fraud perpetrated at the NFF Glass House.
Dalong therefore, warned sports administrators not to come visiting him with any form of envelop as bribe, stressing that it is no longer going to be business as usual.
Dalong explained that he was among the Federal Government delegation to the 2002 Africa Nations Cup where they were promised $7000, only for the football federation to pay them only $400, shortchanging him and others by $6,600.
“Corruption has indeed destroyed everything we do in this country and that is why we think that the best way to approach it is to come out and wage war against it. This corruption was not only limited to sports alone but every social system,” The Eagle Online quoted him as saying.
“Once we are able to minimise corruption in the industry, we will go far. The best way to do it is to provide transparent leadership. The body language of the leader should be very clear. The major predicament is when a minister declares that he wants to fight corruption but yet brown envelops are smuggled into his resident at the midnight, there is no way he can wage war against corruption.
“It is not possible because those bringing brown envelops have vested interest in the system. It is either that they have strangulated the system and want to be protected or they are planning to beat the system. Every whistle blower must be very careful because you cannot say that you don’t like the system yet you are practicing corruption.
“That was what was on ground but I think, we will try to make the difference. We will insist that anything meant for a particular purpose should be utilised for that purpose. Anybody who has done us proud should be rewarded. Anybody who deserves entitlement should be given the entitlement. Let me say that corruption will be tackled headlong.
“I am a victim of all those frauds they do in the sports industry. I went to Mali in the 2002 Africa Nations Cup on a federal government delegation. I want told in Abuja here that I was entitled to an extacode of $7,000 but I was given $400.
“I was given $400 and I have to metamorphose from a refugee in Mali to organising international launch from my friends to safe me to be able to survive and return to this country. Meanwhile there were children of people in government playing with Dollars. “Why we lost that match in Mali was because of the tradition of a player making some concession of $2,000 from his allowance of $5,000 to the team before he will be featured. Those who did not comply were denied appearance for that match. I don’t know if Jesus or Mohammed has touched them to change.”
The Eagle Online
