Insurance FC crisis started since 1995 - Ebewele

15.10.2007

Brown Ebewele

The Edo State Commissioner for youths and sports, Mr. Brown Ebewele spoke with Tribunesports Uchechukwu Olisah, in Benin City on the current crisis rocking Insurance fc of Benin. Excerpts:

The Insurance FC is curently embroiled in crisis of ownership. At what point did the club find itself in this crisis and what are the issues at stake?
It was in 1995 when Ekhosuehi changed the name of Bendel Insurance to Insurance as a family business. So, I am sure most of the commissioners, right from Ebomonyi till date, are aware of this but probably because of one reason or the other, nobody wanted to deal with it. But I am a sportsman, it is my duty to protect my business; sports is my business, I have no other business.

Probably, Ebomonyi is an administrator, Barrister Ihenseikhen is a barrister, Barrister Ojezua is a barrister; they are not sportsmen, I am a sportsman. So, it is my duty to protect my business. That is just the difference between me and the pack. There is no way they can tell me that all along, government has been funding a private company.

In Benin here, all the correspondence I have gone through from Ekhosuehi till July this year is still carrying the name of Bendel Insurance in the letters heads. While he is using the letter heads of Bendel Insurance to take money from the state government, in Abuja he is dealing with Insurance Football Club.

That is a deceit. You are using Bendel Insurance’s letter heads to request money from government, then when you are now communicating, you are using the name of Insurance. And I have told him the only way he can get out of it. Unfortunately, he has entered my trap, I don’t have to be a commissioner to drag Ekhosuehi to court to clean his ass up. I am an Edo man. I am a club owner; I fund a football club called Esan United. So, it is not a matter of “are you the only Edo man”? I run a football club. Government is not funding my own, why would government be funding Ekho-suehi’s own? Why is he using the Bendel Insurance letter head to communicate with government whereas he registered a company as Insurance Football Company in Abuja .

Ekhosuehi said that when the club was abandoned, he took over its affairs and has been spending his money on running the club?
Show me where Insurance was abandoned, show me where government said “we are not going to carry the problem of Insurance, Insurance is dead.” You go and also do your own investigation and find out if there was any year Insurance did not participate in the league. Government says Bendel Insurance Plc is no more ready to participate in the funding of the club.

Then, since they are not ready to participate, Mr. Ekhosuehi, as the chairman of the management committee, was asked to go and change the name and remove Bendel Insurance so that we don’t advertise them for doing nothing. Instead of carrying out that directive, he just went ahead and changed the name and registered a brand new company. This is his registration number (showing a photocopy of a registration certificate). These are the names: Ekhosuehi, Chairman, N800,000; his son, Enoma Ekhosuehi, N100, 000; another one, Uyi, N100,000. When the government said go and change the name since Bendel Insurance Plc was no more ready to participate in funding of Insurance Football club, does that mean go and form a brand new company? He said he has been using his money, even if he has been using his money, and government now says, okay, we agree that it is your money; since Insurance Plc is not forthcoming, go and change the name to Insurance, did that directive mean that he should go and register a brand new company as his?

What is the position of government on the issue?
As a commissioner for Youths and Sports, I have established that government has been funding a private venture. Government is also saying that it is interested in getting its property back. So, the only problem that we are still mentioning is Ekhosuehi. At the NFL level, it is Insurance that is registered not Bendel Insurance. So, if we are now saying Bendel Insurance is going to play in the league, NFL will tell you we have no Bendel Insurance in our calendar, it is Insurance we have. So, first and foremost, what we want to do is establish that this man has committed a crime and government will now go through a process of recovering its property and then later communicate it to NFL to retain the name Bendel Insurance.

Sports have been of great interest in the defunct Midwest Region and Bendel State and, now, Edo State . What is your vision for the total development of sports in Edo State ?
I am proud to say that in Nigeria, there is a coach called Brown Ebewele. I made my mark as a coach. As an athlete, I captained Nigeria. As a Director of Sports, there is no Director of Sports that is coming to any meeting that will not remember, “oh, we are going to confront Brown Ebewele today”. So, as a commissioner, it is a different dispensation entirely. I am thinking of taking sports to the moon. If I cannot do anything extraordinary or unusual then I have no business becoming a commissioner.

What challenges have you faced so far in trying to do this job?
I am familiar in the terrain. I don’t have any challenges apart from this Ekhosuehi case I am dealing with. I guess the only reason we are dealing with it is because government is romancing it. Actually in the past when (ex-governor Lucky) Igbinedion came and took it from him did Ekhosuehi have the courage to go to court? I don’t blame him. I blame whoever is dancing kokoma with him.

Sir, a lot of people call you “juju man,” they say you are controversial. What do you think makes them think you are controversial and why do they call you “juju man”?
First and foremost, I have explained the reason why I am called a “juju man” abundantly. The only area I will respond to is the area of controversy. The only reason I am controversial is because we are in a very docile country; because there is nothing that I do that is unusual that make me controversial. If I am saying what should be said, this man is saying what should be said, then nobody will be referred to as controversial. It is because Nigerians don’t have the courage to do the right thing just as Fanny Amun, came to tell us he was used; nobody uses me.

After all, this country belongs to all of us, why should you want to use me. Do you know how many times I have been pressurised when I was in Kano to become a Muslim so that I can get to the highest level? There is nothing controversial about anything, it is Nigeria that is a very lazy and docile society that is why when you see some people who have the small courage to say some few things, they say they are very controversial.