Ahead of the formal scrapping of the National Sports Commission, the Director General, Alhassan Yakmut, is already lobbying politicians of the All Progressives Congress leaning for redeployment.
The Eagle Online can report exclusively that Yakmut in the past weeks has been lobbying prominent politicians from Plateau State, his home state, including Governor Simon Lalong and the Minister of Youth and Sports, Solomon Dalung, so that he could have a soft landing in the event that the NSC is eventually scrapped.
Yakmut, it will be recalled, was appointed few weeks to the handing over by former President Goodluck Jonathan, following the removal of the erstwhile Director General, Hon. Gbenga Elegbeleye.
Sequel to the report of the merger committee, which favours scrapping of the NSC, the embattled DG is said to be mounting pressure on politicians from his state to prevail on the Presidency to redeploy him to another Federal Government agency.
It was gathered that the merger committee, which comprises of top officials of the NSC and the Ministry of Youth Development and Sport, recommends the scrapping of the NSC in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s resolve to reduce the cost of governance.
Should the recommendations receive presidential approval, some of the NSC personnel, including directors, will form the Sports Department in the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development, while others will be redeployed by the Head of Service to other ministries.
Specifically, the committee recommended that Yakmut be re-designated as a Senior Director.
There is no where in the civil service where this designation had existed before now.
Yakmut, The Eagle Online gathered, has been like an orphan since the Presidency merged the Ministry of Sports with the Ministry of Youth Development.
The DG is just there like a “figure head” without approving power, a source said.
“In fact, there are times that he would wait for hours before he could see the Permanent Secretary, Mr. Christian Ohaa,” the source, who is a Director, said, adding: “It may also interest you to know that the Permanent Secretary doesn’t call him for management meeting even when all of us (directors) in the NSC will be invited for the meeting.
“We can’t organise any sporting programme now unless the Permanent Secretary, who does not understand what we are doing, approves of it.
“The situation is that bad.”
The Eagle Online also gathered that top officials in the NSC had approached the Yakmut on the need to “use” the sporting press to campaign against the scrapping of the commission but he would not support that due to his “selfish agenda”.
The source added: “I must say that some directors in the commission met with Yakmut on the need to launch a media campaign or if you like use our friends in the sporting media to campaign against the scrapping of the commission but he said ‘no’.
“We later got to know that he did not buy into it because he has already commenced intense lobby to have a soft landing by being redeployed to another Agency as DG.”
Dalung recently said he would not hesitate to announce it once the scrapping of the NSC is approved.
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