Fixing Sports infrastructure  more important than cutting the grass – Minister

Minister of Youth and Sports Development Mr Sunday Dare has emphasized that  Spending scarce resources to fix sporting infrastructure is more important than spending money to cut the grass around the Moshood Abiola National Stadium, Abuja. The Minister believes merely cutting the grass would amount to not just gross waste of scarce resources, but the misplacement of priorities, Obaland magazine learned.

These clarifications became necessary following a misleading and out of context newspaper report that the  Minister said a proposed amount of 81m was received by the Ministry.

A  statement by the Minister’s  Media Adviser  John Joshua Akanji said the headline by the author of the story was not only misleading but incongruous with the content  ” It has become imperative and a necessity to clear the air on the misleading headline by a newspaper that the Minister would spend 81 Million to clear grass at the Moshood Abiola National Stadium Abuja.

What the Minister said was that it would be wrong and a misplaced priority to spend a huge amount to cut the grass when there are so many other competing matters that  need to be attended to. The Minister said” A one-time clearing of the stadium would cost 81million. If I tell  Nigerians that I would be spending 81MIllion  to cut the grass so that there would be no rats and grasscutters, what do you think of their response? The same press  would condemn such action as a waste of money and  misplacement of priorities.” Akanji said this declaration was made at a public function.

It is therefore unethical, mischievous, unprofessional, and unfair to twist the statement to suit the interest of the writer.