TESTIMONIES were given about the character, integrity and expertise of Dr Mumini Alao yesterday as he launched his autobiography in Lagos.
The veteran sports journalist held the launch of his book titled ‘Mumini Alao: My Autobiography’ at the Tayo Aderinokun Hall of the University of Lagos, Akoka, with the large venue filled to capacity and spilling over with his admirers.
From former Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola to National Sports Commission Chairman Shehu Dikko and others like former sports minister and current industry minister John Enoh, the speakers testified to the superb writing skills of Alao and his journalistic excellence and uncompromising integrity.
Dikko, who chaired the occasion, recalled how Alao’s ‘Soccertalk’ column in Complete Sports spread his (Dikko’s) sports reform ideas in 2002, effectively launching his sports administration career even before the two had met.
The NSC Chairman praised Alao for always being available to give useful advice and never asking for any favours in return, a recurring theme throughout the book launch.
“I had never met Dr Alao before he used his very popular column to amplify my sports policy ideas, and after we me he never asked me for any favours,” Dikko said.
“He is always giving advice on how to improve and develop our sports and his character and integrity should be emulated.”
Dikko described the book as brilliant and undroppable, written in simple, concise language that draws the reader in.
Alao joined Complete Communications Limited, publishers of Complete Sports and Complete Football, in 1987 and rose to become the Group Managing Director for many years before his current role as Executive Consultant.
Dikko urged young journalists to learn from Alao’s passion and resilience, as he navigated the CCL group through rough times and kept the company afloat while still excelling as a journalist and writer.
“This book will be eternal, it will still be relevant long after we are gone,” Dikko noted.
“It shows how to successfully run a business, survive obstacles, and how best to recalibrate Nigerian sports.
“Dr Alao is a thorough professional, a role model for journalists with his integrity.”
Fashola, who was the guest speaker and whose citation was read by Dr Alao’s daughter Maryam, praised the author, as the former minister spoke on the topic ‘Rethinking the current football business model in Nigeria as a catalyst for sports development’.
The former governor, well known for his love for sports when he ran Lagos State, said Alao’s book came at the right time as talent in sports is being rewarded like never before.
Fashola noted that the generation of football stars of yesteryear like Segun Odegbami, who were not paid huge sums, ‘broke their backs’ to pave the way for today’s millionaire footballers and sports stars.
“Over the last few years, I have tried to develop a document around which I hoped we could create a brain trust to unlock the limitless possibilities that sports can bring to us as a people if we act deliberately and consistently, and I must confess that the work is unfinished, but the views I will share here are intrinsically part of that work,” Fashola said.
“But why sports, and why now, some might ask? My answer is simple: why not sports, and why not now?
“Let us start with the timing, why now. This is the time in the history of human civilization when talent is being most rewarded, and I venture to predict that this is just the beginning.
“Whether it is talent in photography, music, arts, movie making, or any other form of creative or entertaining work, the world view has changed dramatically; and sports, as an expression of talent, has come to be in the vanguard of high value earnings as a career.
“This was unthinkable one generation ago.
“Sportsmen and women are earning incomes and living lives of luxury that once used to be the preserve of the traditional professions of medicine, law, architecture, engineering, and the likes at the time sports was largely viewed as a hobby.
“The thinking that must therefore change by everyone in this assembly and those who get to hear about it is simple — yesterday’s hobbies, and part-time engagements have become full-time well-paid professions in today’s emerging global economic order.
“These professions are creating a vast pathway to a meaningful life for people who would otherwise have existed on the margins of society.
“These new breed of professionals are the new employers of the traditional professions of lawyers, doctors, architects, engineers, therapists, and others who they just only used to entertain for tokens, in the old economic order.
“Today, they not only provide entertainment for them, they also employ them.
“This is a major shift in the economic balance, and it is even more important because the profession of sports employs mainly young people from their early teenage years to now about 40 years. It has very little if any space for 50-year-olds and above.