Former Sports Minister, Sunday Dare has said that the decline of sports in Nigeria was not destined but borne out of neglect of the sector by successive governments over the years which did not see sports as business.
Dare, now a Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu made the assertion Wednesday in Lagos at the launch of Godwin Dudu-Orumen’s book, Sports, Politics and Power, stressing that what the book offers Nigeria today “is both memory and warning: that greatness is not an accident; it is the sum of vision, discipline, and deliberate investment.”
Represented at the ceremony by Dr. Henry Nzekwu as the Book reviewer, Dare stressed that for the country to return to its golden era in sports, it must start doing what Dudu-Orumen many years ago, “advocating accountability long before it became national policy. He was building academies long before they were understood as engines of national development.”
“The decline we witnessed later was not destiny; it was neglect ….. if Nigeria must rise again in sports, it must return to the fundamentals that shaped Dudu-Orumen’s early years — structure, youth development, honest governance, deep knowledge, and unrelenting passion.”
“This book confirms that people like Dudu-Orumen were the early architects of the ecosystem Nigeria is now trying to formalise. His legacy shows us that reform is not merely technical — it is personal, sacrificial, and shaped by decades of persistence.”
The former sports minister stressed that “the golden age of Midwest sports did not happen by chance; it happened because men like (Samuel) Ogbemudia were intentional, adding that Dudu-Orumen’s book “is a national gift”.
