The rise and rise and fall of Amos Adamu
Adamu has been banned from participating in all football related activities for three years and fined the sum of 10000 Swiss francs which many have since described as a slap on the wrist for the billionaire football administrator. This is not the best of times for Adamu. Instead of attract public sympathy, Nigerians have dug […]
Adamu has been banned from participating in all football related activities for three years and fined the sum of 10000 Swiss francs which many have since described as a slap on the wrist for the billionaire football administrator.
This is not the best of times for Adamu. Instead of attract public sympathy, Nigerians have dug deep into his antecedents and have unanimously condemned him for bringing shame to the nation in this era of re-branding Nigeria. Many are of the opinion that his ordeal is a befitting reward for insatiable lust for money and power.
From grass, he rose to preside over Nigerian sports for decades, leaving behind uncountable tales of corruption. For the decades that he administered Nigerian sports, the successes which were few and far in between were not commensurate with the amount of money that was sunk into sports.
It therefore beats the imagination of many how the man whose name became synonymous with almost everything bad held unto his juicy positions as he continued to occupy one lucrative office to the other.
For many, the rise of Adamu to prominence is not by hard work only but subtle and clever manipulation of gullible actors in the arena of sports. When he first left the classroom as Head of Department of Physical and Health Education, College of Education Sokoto, only a few imagined Adamu will in few years dominate Nigerian sports like an all conquering czar.
Adamu’s rise to fame and stupendous wealth began sometime in 1990 when he joined the National Institute for sports in Lagos. Soon after, he was made the pioneer Director of Sports in 1991. He was barely a year old at the federal ministry of sports when a major problem at the Glass House saw him being moved to the Nigeria Football Association (NFA) as Sole Administrator in 1992. It was while he was at the Glass House that Nigeria secured her maiden qualification for the World Cup (USA’94).
It was while he was Director of Sports that Adamu became the most power man in Nigerian sports. He rose steadily to towering heights as he presided over dozens of international championships albeit controversially. He was involved in the administration and organization of the 1999 FIFA World Youth Championship, hosted by Nigeria, and in 2000, the African Nations Cup co-hosted by Nigeria and Ghana.
In December 2000, Adamu was named president of the Organising Committee for the 8th All-Africa Games hosted by Nigeria in 2003. Five years later, he was chosen as a member of the Organising Committee for the 2010 World Cup, hosted in South Africa 2010.
However, for the hitherto most powerful sports administrator in Nigeria and to a large extent African football, the downward movement commenced in On November 6, 2008 when the late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua ordered for his removal as the Director General of the National Sports Commission. When re-deployed to the office of Head of Service of the Federation, Adamu was like fish out of water.
Despite his sack as NSC DG, Adamu still retained his positions at FIFA and CAF and was constantly in the news for his efforts at getting Nigeria out of her football quagmire. Before the bubble burst for him, Adamu was actually warming up to take over from the incumbent CAF President Isa Hayatau.
Adamu is insisting that he is not guilty as charged but only a few people are ready to listen to his explanations. Already he is talking of lodging an appeal against the verdict of the ethics committee but FIFA may not like to further compound its image problems by lifting his ban.
If he fails in his bid to upturn his ban, which is most likely, Adamu will have to spend three years in the wilderness. In view of the fact that election into the Executive Committee of CAF is billed for January 2011, it will not be possible for him to realize his ambition.
For now Adamu is down and his survival instinct will be stretched to the fullest the moment he returns to the country. The leading anti-graft agency, EFCC has since made public its intention to investigate him. This might just be the long awaited opportunity for Nigerians to listen to the sordid deals of Nigeria’ 99, NIGHA 2000, 20000 Sydney Olympics and indeed the mother of them all, the 2003 8th All Africa Games.