By Amaechi Agbo
The Director General and Chief Executive Officer of the National Institute for Sports NIS , H. E. Comrade Philip Shaibu says the National Institute for Sports is the fulcrum on which Nigeria sports productivity revolves.
He made this statement during an interview on Channels television on Monday noting that the system of budgetary is tactically responsible for the mismanagement of the National Institute for Sports by past Ministers of Sports.
Shaibu also pointed out that Nigerian Sports is not living up to its bidding because the institute was relegated to the background due to sharp practices.
”Under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration funding of sports has been the highest, the last budget is the highest budget the sports sector has ever gotten. But , NIS was not captured in that funding and it has been like that for decades.
“I remembered I called that all the former ministers of sports should be summoned by the National Assembly to come and account for their role in the destruction of NIS.”
The former Edo State deputy governor further cleared the ambiguity on the independence of the NIS from the National Sports Commission.
He said the institute was under the defunct Ministry of Sports, but as it stands, NIS is an independent parastatal from the Sports Commission identifying that the modus operandi of the NSC is responsible for creating this confusion.
”When the Ministry of Sports was in existence, the Commission, NIS, and NFF were parastatals under the Ministry.
I was one of those agitators that glamour for the sports ministry to be dissolved for the National Sports Commission. Now we have the NSC, we have NIS and we have the NFF. As we speak, these three agencies in sport are directly under the Presidency.
But the transition from Ministry to Commission has not been there. The Ministry system is still in operation, unfortunately.
The NIS, NSC and NFF have their own separate budget and the approval of NIS budget ends with the DG/CEO, which is Shiabu. The NSC budget approval ends with the chairman, Dikko and that of the
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