SWAN warns Alim, Onuh against FCT Queens’ disbandment

Oloye Olajumoke Akinjide

The FCT chapter of the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria, (SWAN) has uncovered plans by federal capital territory administration to disband the FCT Queens, the only female team in the territory.

It beats SWAN's imagination that rather than addressing several issues that have been raised about the state of Sports in the territory with particular emphasis on the non-payment of the salaries of the FCT Queens and the deliberate refusal to set up the sporting associations, the FCT administration could only respond to the allegations by planning to disband the female team.

SWAN believes that such plan is a confirmation that those who manage sports in the territory lack the basic administrative acumen, and definitely do not have the interest of the welfare of the youths of the territory at heart.

The FCT Sports Writers therefore, enjoin the Minister of State in the territory, Oloye Olajumoke Akinjide being a woman, to use her esteemed position to ensure that the Secretary of Social Development, Blessing Onuh and the Director of Sports, Mohammed Alim Musa do not succeed in disbanding the team.

SWAN affirms that a problem cannot be solved by creating another and urges the Minister of State not to allow herself to be rubbished by those who have displayed total ineptitude in the art of managing sports. And we advise that rather than disband FCT Queen, Alim Musa and Blessing Onuh be redeployed to create room for those who understand what it takes to manage sports.

We also remind the FCT Minister that it is part of the FCT administration's social responsibility to engage the youths of the territory and going ahead to disband the FCT Queens would not augur well for meaningful developmental agenda for youths in the territory.

SWAN wishes to strongly correct any misconstrued impression that we are being sponsored by some people to carry out our legitimate duties. 

We wish to state that those peddling such stories are only deliberately trying to distract the public from the obvious facts and issues that we have raised. We wish to reiterate very clearly that we will not succumb to any form of cheap blackmail and would wish to maintain that our association is not motivated by any selfish ambition.

We therefore challenge both Alim Musa and Blessing Onuh who are the architects of the rumor to correct us if we were wrong to say that;  players of the FCT Queens have not been paid in the last eighteen months,  that for five years Alim Musa has not been running sport alone by refusing to set up the associations, or that the state of sports facilities in the FCT are not in very deplorable state.