When men with low self esteem, immodest imagination and highly tipsified on intoxicated cluelessness are transposed to high public offices, they generally assume their idiosyncrasies to be existential social reality, and consequently invade the public space with beguiled vanity and mediocrity.
Solomon Dalung, the Minister of Sport and Youth development is one appointee of President Muhammadu Buhari that is adequately coated in gross ineptitude and acidic cluelessness. Dalung is bereft of any knowledge of sport and youth development.
Nigerians have no idea how Solomon Dalung made it to become a Minister of Youth and Sports when all he does since assuming office is to spew nonsense to ridicule the ministry and the country at large. Many discerning mind are forced to believe the rumoured insinuation that PMB just put him there on the recommendation of the Hausa-fulani people resident in Jos because he lied to have worked for the ruling All progressive Congress Party (APC) in the State where in reality he was faraway in Kaduna throughout the electioneering campaigns.
The choice of Solomon Dalung and his likes in Buhari’s cabinet to deliver the change agenda is hardly inspiring. Although there are other members of the cabinet – technocrats and politicians alike that elicited some measure of excitement, but Dalung is certainly not one of them.
Solomon Dalung was given a task that is far above his capacity and experience. Not so much was known about Dalung in the political sphere until he became the Minister of Sport and Youth Development in 2015. The only thing about him in his three years in office so far that is a cynosure of all eyes is his revolutionary dressing. His insistence on dressing up to official functions in Che Guevara like outfit of khaki and beret exposed him to further ridicule. Dalung represent a new dimension of incompetence and cluelessness in leadership.
Since his appointment, Dalung has been the rare public figure that just cannot get anything right. He is caught in a vile mix of incompetence with tactlessness. Nigerians loathed his disturbing lack of empathy and abysmal failure to comprehend the very basic idea of what public service is about.
The very first of his misadventures in the sport ministry was his inflammation of the leadership crisis in the Nigeria Football Federation at the time. Expectations were that the Minister will apply tactful mechanism and ingenuity to curb the crisis. But sadly, he deployed the full complement of local ideology in calling for a peace meeting without any logical framework. The meeting was a disaster as both Amaju Pinnick and Chris Giwa factions came close to a fisticuff and holding on to the claim of the leadership of the glasshouse.
The depth of his incompetence came to the fore again when his ministry was unable to account for N2.9billion released by the government for participation at the 2015 All Africa Games in Congo, and preparation for the 2016 Rio Olympics games. His reaction was doggy. He sacked the DG, Nigeria Sport Commission (NSC) and later scrapped the Commission. It was a fruitless action that beats every imaginations. Even at that, he could not recover the money. The civil servants were smarter.
It was another show of shame in the recruitment of a foreign coach for the Super Eagles. The height of inconsistency was made manifest when the NFF announced Paul Le Guen as Coach. The announcement was disowned almost immediately bringing shame and embarrassment to the country.
Dalung claimed he wasn’t aware but the NFF position was to the contrary. It was a dog fight between the NFF and the Minister that indicated the level of ineptitude which reduced the country to a mere bunch of unserious and naïve administrators before the international community.
Dalung’s supervision of the Sport Ministry has been trailed by one embarrassing and nauseating utterance or the other. Nigerians have at various times been embarrassed by comments by the Minister at public forums. It became difficult at a point to separate the Minister’s name with blunder. Like it is in the character of the scorpion to sting, Dalung has been programmed to goof when facing the camera. It is that bad.
But Nigerians should accord him some respite. Dalung attended the Local Education Authority primary School, Sabon Gida town from 1971 to 1977 and proceeded to Government College, Keffi. He abandoned his studies for quite a period of time and later acquired extra mural lessons.
After working for about 10 years with the Prisons, Dalung went to the University of Jos and spent 9 years to gain a Bachelor of Law (LLB) degree. So, going by his epileptic educational trajectory, the mediocrity of his antecedents in office over the years and his tradition of goofing and blunder is hardly a surprise.
One of his many demented utterances was his remark to the press over the logistic mess of the Olympics team. He told Journalists, “Who took them there? What are they there for? Because there are under 23 and they went to the US. Now they are having problem, does that become our business?” Hmmmm, a fermented belch from a Minister, very raw and uncouthed.
Hear his ministerial advice to the President on the preparation of the Super Eagles for the 2018 World Cup in Russia – “the cup that we (Nigeria) can win is the Africa Cup of Nations. There is nothing again that will take us to another man’s balcony in the name of world cup…” Dalung spewed this rubbish out of the abundance of his folly. With comments like this, you will assume that the minister is constantly high on Jamaica’s weed or something.
Histing of a shocking cluelessness as to how systems work, Dalung played down the importance of adequate preparations for the Olympics. And drenched in the pool of stupidity, he said “the disabled athletes have shown that all you need is a winning mentality and not too much preparation. They trained under the same condition with their able bodied counterparts but they are winning medals”. In sport, this is the limit of ignorance.
The Nigeria Super Falcons won a record tenth African Women Cup of Nation, and despite their efforts at bringing honour to the country, the girls were humiliated. The minister said the Ministry was not particularly prepared for another Falcons win hence the delay in processing their payments. That was the greatest intensity of cluelessness that laid bare the inner workings of the sport ministry and Dalung’s fatal romance with ignorance.
The Minister exhibited several other acts of incompetence and inability to measure up to the demands of his office. His streak of reckless comments and unguided actions continued unabated. He capped it up with his mutilation and corrupt use of grammar to underscore his deficiency.
He committed a national blunder while addressing the U-23 footballers of the Olympic. He referred to the United States of America as “United States of Nigeria” when he tried to absolve himself and explain why the team was stranded in the US.
Dalung did not stop at that. He demonstrated his poor grasp of grammar while speaking before the House of Representative Committee on Sports on the disbursement of funds to the various sport federations, and the allegation that his ministry was corrupt. He said, “The funds were properly ‘spended’ because we got intervention funds from Mr. President”. That display of illiteracy brought shame to himself, his constituency and Nigerians in general.
The Minister has come under intense criticism on social media in recent times and Nigerians were hopeful that Solomon Dalung will not survive a cabinet reshuffle going by the public outcry and his dismal performance in office. His continous embarrassment to his people of Plateau and his principal is an open ended show of shame since he became a Minister.
What Dalung deserve most is a boot in the ass having become a political liability to the ruling APC. He lacks the capacity required of a high profile office as the office of a minister. He is a minister by accident and an apt description of El-Rufai’s “Accidental Publc Servant”. Solomon Dalung is a classical case of a recruitment error ab’initio.
Ikese is a Columnist and Political Analyst.
