THE COMPETENCE OF THE NAPS SPORTS SECRETARY IN QUESTION AS SELF-CONTRADICTION CLAIMS THE DAY

Editorial: By Eniola Fase

The look on everyone's face was quite a show as we all watched the NAPS UI sports secretary take the podium to defend her budget at the NAPS House of Representative sitting held yesterday, on the 2nd of December, 2022. Well, while Miss. Adeosun Ifeoluwa did an excellent job of putting every attendee in a confused state; I'll say she was drowning in her own confusion.

While Miss. Ifeoluwa provided a splendid proposed budget of 26,600 naira, her incurred expenses were questionable. However, that was the least of our problems. The newly bought 35,000 naira jerseys (branding excluded), lacking the approval of the NPHR, caught everyone's interest the most, even more than the good-looking ladies in the room. First, the relationship between the former sports secretary and the incumbent one is quite questionable. This isn't the first time, as a pressman once questioned their relationship since her previous manifesto was suspected of having been written by a five-year-old child. It seemed like there was no form of communication to know what a good sports secretary manifesto should look like. But no, let's not go into that to avoid another accusation of 'living in the past'.

Another time yesterday, the relationship between these two was once again questioned as she claimed that NAPS sports material had not been 'officially' handed over to her by the previous sports secretary. However, that was before she confirmed that NAPS released four training bibs and eleven jerseys. While Madam Speaker Adeoye Oluwasemilore was trying to contain her bewilderment, she decided to lay down the contradictions swiveling around Miss. Ifeoluwa statements. After a deep sense of realization, Miss. Ifeoluwa's response was, "I made a mistake. I'm very sorry".

Mistakes are very much acceptable but what is unacceptable is the 'Sports Secretary' not knowing what NAPS as an association owns that are related to the position currently held by her! One would call it a total joke! However, that was not the only thing that was quite laughable. The former Sports Secretary handed the association sports materials to a congressman named Mr. Ayobami, popularly known as 'BamBam.' According to Mr. Ayobami, she handed eight red jerseys, seven blue jerseys, three table tennis balls, and no bibs. She then instructed him to hand it over to the Incumbent Sports Secretary. No word is capable of representing how absurd that was. While Mr. Ayobami failed to actually hand these items over, our able incumbent Sports Secretary could care less to confirm the availability of these items but found more interest in spending the association's funds on getting new ones. Well, one thing for sure is she does have a splendid relationship with the incumbent financial secretary of the association. According to Mr. Ayobami, the association owns no training bibs; however, the available ones are borrowed from some 300-level FASSSITES. Well, let's leave that aside for now.

Moving on, Honourable Idris, with quite a frustrating tone, requested Miss. Ifeoluwa to clarify whether or not any sports material was handed over to her. I guess the pool of confusion didn't treat him as special. Miss. Ifeoluwa, standing on an existing protocol, stated, "the jerseys that have been given to me, I did not make use of them." While everyone stared at each other in the utmost confusion, Madam Speaker asked, "you did not make use of them, or you were not given them?". Miss. Ifeoluwa responded, "I was not given. I'm only aware unofficially that they are with him (Mr. Ayobami)". At this point, we were all drowning in confusion as we all marveled at Miss. Ifeoluwa's professional ability to contradict herself. This was becoming a comedy show, with those words spilling from the Sport Screterary's month with utmost confidence.

First, Miss. Ifeoluwa's performance should be questioned, as she has obviously proven herself unfit for this position she has been upheld with. In fact, her leadership skills should be reviewed, as we see that she is currently lagging in various aspects of leading and, definitely, money management. However, one should always hope for improvement, right? Maybe, my speculations about her are not entirely true, but I guess we'll see….

While everyone was still trying to pick up their dropped jaws, Miss. Ifeoluwa was questioned why the idea of a jersey was not brought to the house first, let alone the intended design. Well, the association's President responded for her, claiming there was no time as it was an emergency. However, was it too much of an emergency not to request for an emergency sitting? Well, I guess we don't know for now. Still, the question of the day is 'how competent is our incumbent Sports Secretary?"