Nneka Ikem Anibeze
The name Solomon Dalung is a journalist’s delight.
Any reporter who interviews the immediate past Minister of Youth and Sports, Barrister Solomon Selcap Dalung is guaranteed a front page headline.
No wonder, two weeks after completing his tenure of three and half years, newspapers, Radio stations, television and online bloggers still won’t let him be.
Barrister Dalung who meritoriously served the country as Youth and Sports Minister with a catalogue of documented achievements to his name is again in the news when his counterparts are waiting and hoping for the best in the #next level.
Dalung granted a modest interview to Punch newspapers and was asked “ if the crisis in the basketball, athletics and football federations, as well as the Nigeria Football Supporters Club during his tenure as minister were likely work to against his reappointment”.
Dalung replied…
“No, there is nobody born of a woman that can stop my appointment IF God wants it to be. I am not carried away by such sentiments.
“All the crisis were inherited because the crisis was inherent in the Federations before my appointment.”
He went on to say that “IF IT PLEASES President Muhammadu Buhari to reappoint him, then no man born of a woman can stop it.
“It’s God that gives power. If He chooses again to give me power, I think I will focus more on consolidating on a viable grassroots development architecture. I will redirect most of government’s funds to that. The professional athletes will always be compensated for representing the country, but we need to balance things…”
Superimposed, it means that no negative newspaper publications or radio broadcasts or online bloggers or armchair writers can stop the President from reappointing him IF GOD WILLS”
Why have writers chosen to make a mountain out of a molehill with their mischievous headlines?
For lack of news to publish or the need to make headlines with Dalung, some online bloggers have picked up this newsreaders’ delight and made it a headline and twisted it to mean something else other than what Barrister Dalung intended the answer to mean.
President Buhari appointed 36 ministers from each state of the Federation and the FCT but the hostility and hatred meted out on Dalung because of his dressing is monstrous!
I’ve been asked why he wears “that khaki and red beret”.
I’ve replied by also asking them why they wear T-shirt and jeans! Why will people be so obsessed with what another is wearing?
Let Dalung be, please and allow him rest like his counterparts are doing right now.
However, if it pleases God or President Muhammadu Buhari to re-appoint him, NOBODY can stop it except God. In the meantime, allow the man to rest after a ‘hard day’s job’.
Even if he turns water into wine, he will still be vilified !
