At the end of the month long fifa U-17 world cup soccer championship last week,
vice president Goodluck Jonathan announced that the federal government was instituting an inquiry into the finances and conduct of officials of the game's Local Organizing Committee (LOC).
The tournament, hosted by nigeria, saw the emergence of the golden eaglets national team as second-place winners, with silver.
what was in Mr. Jonathan's mind, and the object of his concern was not the teams performance, which has being widely commended, but widespread allegation of corruption and abuse of funds by LOC officials in the disbursement of the 13 billion naira that the government provided to facilitate hosting the tournament
fielding reporters' questions at a briefing in Abuja, the vice president said that external auditors would be appointed to look into the LOC's books.
Mr. Jonathan pointedly noted that 'relevant anti-corruption agencies' would be involved in the investigations. He stressed that any of the LOC officials found to have embezzled tournament money would be made to face the law.
"we have stories of mismanagement of funds and that people are sharing the vehicles and and other items that were used for the tournament, If there are things that they have bought and used, we will know the number and we will sell them to nigerians at reduced rates, Anybody that mismanages government funds, definitely the law will catch up with him or her", the vice president assured the nation. indeed, anyone with a passing interest in organization of a football championship would not have failed to notice the slip-shod manner that officials of the LOC in question handled the procurement and deployment of facilities for the one that this country hosted.
what is puzzling, however, is that Mr. Jonathan, who is chairman of the LOC would fail to notice anything untoward in the conduct of his colleagues on the committee and call them to order before it got out of hand.
we hope that the investigators' terms of reference would be broad enough to inquire into how this failure occured, and why.
Beyond that however, we must take the vice president's word that a thorough work in determining the extent of fraud in the LOC would be conducted, and that the investigators would be given free and unfettered access to everyone they wish to question, and that their findings would be made public.
If any officials are found to have misused the trust reposed in them when the government appointed them, they should be held to account and prosecuted.
we have seen to much of this corruption in our sporting arena for far too long; an example of these should be made, if only to spare the nation further embarrassment and spare the taxpayer's money. in addition, it would assure us that government is serious about fighting corruption in whatever from, wherever and whosoever is involved.

The focus of the impending probe should not be limited in scope, as we can conclude from the vice president's statement, namely that whatever was purchased would have to be retrieved and sold to nigerians. it should go further to identify all officials of the main committee and those of it's subcommittees who were provided funds to do one business or the other pertaining to the championship.
each must convincingly account for the money that was given, what it was spent on, and evidence of such expenditure.
we observe that two subcommittees, in charge of print and electronic media for the LOC board, have sought to declaim any responsibility in the mismanagement of money, and to shift blame somewhere else.
we expect other subcommittees to seek to do the same. we call on the probe panel members not to be in anyway distracted by any antics to stonewall or divert it's attention. nigerian expect them to do a clean and professional Job


DAILY TRUST TUESDAY NOVEMBER 23rd,2009.