By

Ezindu Okay - Lawrence 

In the last few weeks, I have watched with mixed feelings the encomium as they pour in considering the cabinet reshuffling embarked upon by the political leadership of the country, Nigeria.

Of a particular interest for me is that of scrapping the Ministry of Sports  and returning of the National Sports Commission, which necessitated the appointment of Mallam Shehu Dikko as the Director General of the new National Sports Commission. 

Mallam Shehu Dikko a former Vice President of the Nigerian Football Federation under the immediate past leadership of Amaju Pinnick was announced as the new Chairman of the Sports Commission a forthnight ago and seen by many as one who the cap  fits.

Shehu who supposedly has an experience spanning over two decades has since assumed office and has promised that both football and other sports will experience a revamp under his watch. A promise many have held so tight. 

However, I personally have noticed a hypocritical norm in our society,  of people, even those you could tend to hold in high regards  or seen as of great repute, jumping on the bandwagon of praise-singing whenever there is an appointment. And you can easily read from their hypocritical attitudes of eye service. 
Their praise singing is not often because they believe in the capability of the appointed person to perform, rather because they have one selfish motive or the other. Lurking, sniffing like search security dogs, always looking for what, they can selfishly benefit from. It is usually because of their personal gains and selfish aggrandizement. Always, always!

I know that there is no singular person on the  surface of the Earth without one blemish or the other, certainly not Shehu Dikko, yet all you read in  the media since Dikko's appointment are hailing, praises and cheers. This is appalling. A clear sign of a society on decline where no one boldly stands to speak the truth to power or challenge opinions.

The very obvious truth is that many of those who hail and praise and run from one platform to the other seeking to be recognized as those who cheered on have one or two things against Dikko's appointment, but for public view or perception, they would rather play the ostrich, become hypocrites and pretend to seem like Dikko is the Messiah. Yet, deep down we all know that in truth unless there is a drastic paradigm shift from the norms of open embezzlement of public funds and corruption of other kinds, not even Shehu Dikko can proffer any meaningful or impactful solutions to our present situation.

The scraping of Ministry of Sports, and returning to Commission is just an act on surface or paper, the old saying of an old wine in a new wineskins. You have same people, same organizations, same oversight bodies same old National Assembly, same EFCC and ICPC, same Nigeria Police, the same groups of lawyers plus Judges in Judiciary and same old Nigerians as administrative staff and contractors in the new Sports Commission. I am certain the same old looting tricks will apply, same covering it, and settlements of those who ought to have done something against it. There is actually not going to be anything significantly new, except maybe new praise -singing friends of Shehu Dikko who may likely get new appointments and new contracts.

For one, I know that no country which celebrates crime and finds a decent english name for wrongs, and which does not drastically punish crime and criminals. Any land where its own judiciary is like the present Justice system of Nigeria (The Supreme Court in view) which has become a term for comedy of perversion of what is right and just, such a nation cannot make any genuine progress in proper development because, naturally, good and evil does not coexist. 
These are hard truths staring us in the face, but who dares boldly speak? Except I and few others are still here.

I just wished there was a way out of this hypocrisy and quagmire.
I stand to see!