Former President of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria, AFN, Mr. Dan Ngerem has asserted that the glaring vacuum in sports governance, actively aided and abetted by enablers such as the National Assembly, is the reason Nigerian sports remains trapped in mediocrity.
Ngerem stressed that “Without corporate governance, international best practices, and accountability, everything else is all sound and fury, signifying nothing. A waste of time”.
The Lagos SWAN patron reiterated his condemnation in
Dan Ngerem
the failure of government to set a up the National Sports Commission run by two men without a proper Board to provide oversight for it.
“I have refused to be compromised on the National Sports Commission (NSC). I have consistently, and unapologetically, called out the scandalous failure to constitute a proper Board and provide oversight for the NSC. To silence objective voices like mine, they deploy their usual arsenal: hangers-on, praise-singers, and compromised columnists with integrity issues”.
Ngerem who once served as Vice-President of the African Athletic Foundation said that “It is a tragedy that the Lagos State chapter of SWAN, which should be at the vanguard of this fight for justice, equity and accountability, has been infiltrated and perhaps neutralized to our collective detriment. That is why it is “all quiet on the Western Front.”
Continuing he disclosed that “I am fully aware of the crisis engulfing the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN). What we are witnessing is not an organic disagreement – it is a contrived, orchestrated crisis. A deliberate attempt by invisible hands to destabilize and capture the Association for self-serving ends”.
While assuring that he would always support efforts to reposition Lagos SWAN, Ngerem vowed that “Let me make my position unequivocally clear: I will never remain silent on the imperative for a Board and robust oversight for the NSC”.
