Chairman of Gombe Athletics Association, Ahmed Shuaibu Gara Gombe, has added his voice to the alleged insincerity and lack of transparency levelled against the minister of sports development, Senator John Owan Enoh, by the chairman House of Representatives committee on sports, Hon. Ekene Adams, In a no-holds-bare press statement, Gombe opined that Enoh’s alleged insincerity may ruin Nigerian sports development, saying his interactions with the Minister so far had proven that Hon. Adams’ accusations of insincere against Senator Enoh in his dealings on issues in the Sports Ministry were valid.
Gombe said, “Let me take this opportunity to add my voice to the recent statement credited to the Chairman of the House Committee on Sports, Hon. Ekene Adams, about his feelings and impressions on how the Minister of Sports, Senator Enoh, is managing our sports.
“I don’t have details of other things Ekene said but from what I know, Senator Enoh is not sincere. I repeat, he is not a sincere person.
“He doesn’t appreciate people making their contributions to the development of sports in Nigeria. The minister came at a time when the Sports Ministry was down and in a big mess; unfortunately, he was not ready for that. He made so many consultations but his consultations were one-sided. Before someone says because he didn’t listen to Gara Gombe, as a leader you don’t have to wait for people to tell you about how good or bad things are until you personally verify,” Gombe said.
He continued, “When Senator Enoh became minister, I didn’t know Him. Someone who knows him from the same state, one of our respected coaches, James Peters, took me and Dr. Alex Mana to visit him. He told the minister that he brought some friends who can help offer advice, and some people around him were uncomfortable to see us.
“They kept us for two hours so much that I was almost leaving. Immediately, we were called back and spoke with him. After about 15 minutes, the minister asked me ‘How do you know about all these, are you part of the Sports Ministry?’. I told him no, I’m not part of the Ministry, but I have been around sports for about 25 years. He congratulated me and said again ‘Is there money in sports?’, I said yes, there’s money, he asked again, ‘Where is it?’ I said there is money in sports, first, the right thing has to be done.”
“He demanded that I put everything I had discussed with him in writing and I did. My recommendation to him was to constitute a pool of a 43-man advisory committee comprising media, technical people, administrators, whose names I also listed and put in the document, So that anything you want, you can pick from the pool. I also raised in that document how to manage sports federations, fight corruption, sanitise the federations to be accountable and sustainable. I also referred him to documents from previous reports of committees set up to change the fortunes of Nigerian sports.
“All these are in the document I submitted to Senator John Enoh but he ignored it, I will soon make that document public. It is very clear the man is not sincere and transparent,” Added.
