Dangote & Goodluck splashed out Nigerian Footballers
The mind-boggling cash gifts splashed out on the national football team players and officials that won the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations in South Africa early in February by the Federal Government is a wrong way of incentivising those who have done the nation proud.
It
is excessive and perverted as there are standards of rewards for
successful athletes in more sober climes where public funds are handled
with the utmost sense of responsibility and accountability.
Rewarding
success in sports or in any area of human endeavour – as the Goodluck
Jonathan Administration did with the Super Eagles by giving each of the
23 players a cash gift of N5m, the head coach N10m, assistant coaches
N5m each and other officials N2m each (totalling N150m of taxpayers’
money) – is to send a dangerous signal to youths that it is only sports
that can guarantee them unmerited instant financial reward. This is
unhealthy for youths – and the future of the nation. Our youths should
rather be encouraged to take pride in wearing the national colours.
The
excessively generous cash gifts to the team failed every standard of
good governance. It is only a lax state that throws money around. In a
world of lightning-fast change, governments are faced with serious
challenges, including space exploration, education, epidemics and even
terrorism. That explains why some countries, including the United
States, have in place innovation and competition strategies to encourage
people to aspire to be the best. How many times has our system rewarded
academic excellence of those who graduate with First Class degrees with
scholarships? Of course, no state has the capacity to fund this kind of
reckless financial expenditure, certainly not Nigeria, where it is
difficult for many state governments to pay a minimum wage of N18, 000 a
month to workers in the public sector.
It
does not meet the practice in sports across the globe where a standard
bonus system is put in place before major tournaments. For example,
countries like Russia budgeted and gave $135,000 and the United States
$35,000 to gold medallists at the London 2012 Olympic Games. It was –
and is still – the standard practice. Athletes from those nations knew
beforehand what to expect. This was not a case of
“as-the-spirit-directs” financial misapplication that the Nigerian
government is sadly thriving on, over-celebrating a euphoric victory
that will do little to impact positively on the run down domestic
football league, where players are supposed to be identified, nurtured
and moulded for the international arena.
For
AFCON 2013, the Nigeria Football Federation had already agreed with the
team a just reward package. Each player was entitled to $5,000 for
every drawn match in the group stage, and $10,000 for every win, while
the coaches were guaranteed double that. At a stage, the NFF had to
increase the bonus for the group match against Ethiopia to $15,000,
while that of the quarterfinal against Ivory Coast was upped to $20,000.
This is apart from the extra bonuses guaranteed for qualifying from the
group stage to the knockout phase. With the reward of more than $2m
from wealthy individuals like Mike Adenuga, Aliko Dangote and Tony
Elumelu, the Presidential reception and the national honours awarded to
the team (as it was done in 1980 when the Green Eagles won the AFCON
trophy as hosts), the Federal Government has no cogent reason to be
doling out scarce public funds to the Eagles and their officials again.
The
Federal Government, the Lagos State that also outrageously gave the
team N54m and Delta State that similarly rewarded them with monetary
gifts, have to understand that doling out money to professional athletes
does not provoke patriotism in them. The Federal Government has to
admit that the N155m (plus the N5m that was given to the Supporters
Club) is an illegal act since it was not budgeted for in the 2012
Appropriation Act or in the 2013 Budget. The likelihood is that neither
Lagos nor Delta included the largesse to the team in its budget.
How
can a serious government engage in illegal expenditure and, at the same
time, complain of padded budgets by lawmakers? It is only a different
side of a coin. This shows that the federal administration is not
disciplined in running the affairs of the country, ruling by rule of the
thumb, and not by rule of law. This is sad. It only further depletes
the treasury of a nation that is already in crisis. The National
Assembly is also to be blamed for this illegality. If our lawmakers were
alive to their responsibilities, they should have made the government
to account for all its extra-budgetary spending, which is an impeachable
offence.
If
the Jonathan administration is serious about transforming Nigeria, it
should take a leaf out of the book of a country like Britain, which
hosted the London 2012 Olympic Games. The British Olympic Committee’s
policy for the Games was that financial rewards were not capable of
motivating athletes to win medals. Instead, it believed that
representing Britain was enough incentive to make athletes excel. In
spite of coming third at the end of the Games – a huge achievement for a
country that was far behind third-placed Russia in the Beijing 2008
Olympic Games four years earlier – the United Kingdom did not change its
policy by recklessly handing out financial rewards to its victorious
athletes.
The
British policy is not much different from that of American presidents,
who host successful National Basketball Association, National Hockey
League and Super Bowl (baseball) champions in the White House without
giving any monetary reward. Nigeria, which once had a “handshake” policy
in sports, can copy this laudable move by disciplined governments as
part of efforts to change the orientation of youths. There was a time
when it was an immense honour to represent Nigeria, and athletes took
pride in wearing the Green-White-Green. This sort of motivation cannot
be earned by giving money; it can only come when every Nigerian is made
to have a sense of belonging in his or her country through the right
environment and orderliness in its affairs.
Punch Nigeria