An Evaluation of the Sports Minister's Manifesto

 By Marvelous Joseph

Speaking of sports, not everyone is interested in making sport a "thing," but we one way or the other find ourselves carrying out sporting activities either consciously or unconsciously. The Sports Minister, Oyebanji Temiloluwa, who is widely known as Luna, promised to revive the spirit of sportsmanship among Queenites as she said, "I have spent years developing and honing my skills and knowledge in this area. Having been involved in several sporting activities, I believe my skills should be put to good use." The sports minister laid down some vital plans and objectives in her manifesto to make sports actively effective in the hall which, as promised, she executed. But have these promises truly helped in reviving the spirit of sportsmanship? 

Reviewing through the Constitution's Lens

The duties of the sports minister are expounded in section IX, subsections A-F of Queen Elizabeth II Hall's constitution, stating her functions from being in charge of the welfare of sportswomen to being the chairperson of the sports committee, handling facilities and first aid given to the sports unit, encouraging sports activities, and recruiting women into the sports unit, working with with the PRO to mobilise sports activities, and executing duties assigned by the executive council of the hall. It can be said Luna undeniably accomplished her constitutional duties as the sports minister. She wasn't found wanting to execute any of these stated duties. However, aside from the constitutional duties, was she able to thoroughly actualize her promises as written in her manifesto?

A Glance at the Strengths and Weaknesses of the Sports Minister's Manifesto

First, in her manifesto, Luna said that she would incorporate monthly exercises on Saturdays and games days. As stated, she was able to organize sports activities and games and exercises on "stipulated days," on which Queenites were able to participate in some of the sports activities organized, like stretching and jogging, and indoor games like chess, scrabble, ludo, and table tennis were also incorporated for Queenites with disabilities and other interested Queenites too. This is commendable, though the turnout for these activities was not high.

Taking a step further, her second objective was that she was going to train interested Queenites in sporting activities, as she observed over time that "the interest of some Queenites lies in some sports but along the way, they had to opt out due to lack of motivation to forge ahead when they got here or got discouraged because of the lack of facilities." To achieve this, she made an open declaration that she was going to train interested Queenites, even those who just found their interest in sports activities, by establishing and working together with sportsmen within and outside the school to train Queenites, which she actively did, and commenting that there was a good turnout of interest.

Furthermore, the sports minister manifesto that on one of the days the major milestone event of the hall, the hall week was going to be "Sports Day," which is usually held in the second semester. She proclaimed that on the sports day, sporting activities in the hall would include both indoor and outdoor games involving Queenites living outside the hall and those who stay within the hall. True to her words, this became a reality, but the turnout of Queenites was low. Also, she promised that inter-block and inter-level competitions were going to be held during the sports day, but nothing was done concerning these promises, as the only sports activities that took place were indoor games and exercises. When the sports minister was questioned to give reasons for the unaccomplished promise, in her words she said "During those times of sporting activities in Queens it was mixed so can we call that that". This shows the minimal effort to fulfil what was written in her manifesto. In addition to this, she avowed that she was going to set up a committee of at least two member representatives from each block who have prodigious influx in their respective blocks to "make the coordination of the event much easier" as written. To this effect, this was effectuated as she was able to establish that delegates for each block were chosen as part of her manifesto. But what is the necessity of delegates when Queenites are impassive about sports? It's one thing to make policies and fulfil them; it's another for those policies to have desired effects.

Luna's manifesto had other promises which would enable her to "cover a wider and feasible range" of her capacity and promise to the hall. She enlisted that she was going to propagate awareness concerning information as regards sports activities on stipulated days using the public address system. This was effectively carried out by the sports minister in conjunction with the PRO to disseminate information on or before the stipulated days of sports activities in the hall.

Another subsection of her manifesto gave a high level of certainty that the television at the cafeteria would be of good use for Queenites to stream games and watch different competitive football matches. In light of this, nothing has been done concerning the television in the cafeteria, as the television is still in its sickly position, dusty and domiciled as it used to be. A tenable reason was not given as to why this promise was not executed. When interviewed, she said the television in the cafeteria was not put into use because it was not working.  The only time Queenites were able to watch football games was during the last match of the African Cup of Nations when the JCR was opened after complaints from Queenites. Her tenure has ended and the hopes of Queenites looking forward to watching games and sports have become one that has been dashed since the Sports Minister failed to do that which was promised.

Conclusively, the last point of the sports minister's manifesto promised to introduce friendly matches within the hall and between other halls and also "trying the oldies games for the fun of it during one of the monthly activities". Owing to the review of this particular plan, this was not actualised. In the words of the sports minister, "They weren't done because gauging the number of students that were in the hall, it wasn't feasible compared to the time allocated to the sporting activities which were done in the hall". In her manifesto, the sports minister stated that the plan was feasible, however, it is clear that she did not consider the population of Queenites in the hall when she made those plans. She made promises whose execution turned into excuses.