As Tokyo Sexwale jets around the world seeking support for his bid to become Fifa president, his most significant trip will have been to the US grand jury in December.
A fleeting visit to New York remains shrouded in mystery with the US Attorney General’s offices refusing to comment and Sexwale’s camp saying only: “He did appear before a grand jury. The FBI said he needed to appear and he went as a potential witness.”
But it is almost certainly related to the bribery and corruption allegations in which South African officials are accused and, even if he is not directly implicated, will cast a dark shadow over Sexwale’s bid to become the first African to head world football’s governing body.
The election of a new leader of world football will come at an extraordinary congress in Zurich on February 26 with Sexwale among the five candidates in a distinctly underwhelming field with no clear favorite and the potential for an upset.
Sexwale could have offered a gravitas missing among the candidates, with his impeccable anti-apartheid credentials, his time spent in prison on Robben Island alongside Nelson Mandela and his role in the governing of a post-apartheid South Africa when he served as the first premier of the Gauteng province.
But, as a member of the South African bid committee that successfully campaigned for the country to host the 2010 World Cup, his candidacy is now clouded by the possibility of vote buying, notably to Jack Warner from Trinidad and Tobago, the former Fifa vice president and powerful leader of the Caribbean bloc who delivered vital support.
Two high ranking South Africans have been fingered in the United States (US) indictment against a bevy of former Fifa officials, with allegations they handed over a suitcase of cash dollars in a Paris hotel room to one of Warner’s sons and that a $10-million ‘donation’ from South Africa to Caribbean football was nothing more than a bribe.
The pair have not been named but their identities will eventually become public once the court cases in the US get underway.
It leaves Sexwale out on the fringes of the race when he might have been able to offer himself as an alternative to what looks increasingly like a straight tussle between the Asian and European blocs.
Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa of Bahrain is the president of the Asian Football Confederation and, according to most pundits, the frontrunner, albeit narrowly ahead of Gianni Infantino, the Swiss attorney who is the Uefa general secretary and was supposed to be a proxy candidate but has since been pushed to the front since the banning of Uefa president Michel Platini.
Sexwale, who has made a large personal fortune in mining and other business, has tenuous football credentials and no apparent reason for wanting to become Fifa president other than it would be a good lark. The 62-year-old does not lack money, profile or international reputation.
His previous involvement with football has been to sit on a few Fifa committees at the invitation of Sepp Blatter, who was impressed by his jocularity and competence at the time of South Africa’s hosting of the World Cup. Sexwale was initially a member on Fifa’s anti-racism committee, then one that dealt with media matters and now serves as a mediator in fractious relationship between Israeli and Palestinian football.
Sexwale has had no involvement in South African football and, unlike many of his former cabinet colleagues, is rarely seen at games either. The name ‘Tokyo’ comes from a nickname given to him as a kid for his passion for karate, rather than the round ball game, when he was growing up. He was baptized Mosima Gabriel.
His manifesto did him no favors either, with its strongest point being a bizarre promise to allow national teams to display sponsorship on their jerseys so football associations could make more money.
At a time when greater issues have to be dealt with at Fifa, and the world of football is crying out for someone to offer a road map to a credible and clean future, Sexwale’s points seemed disappointingly trivial.
In December, at a rare forum in front of the press, his strongest argument for being president was his Africaness.
“The score is 111 to zero against Africa. For 111 years, Fifa has not had an African,” he said in Johannesburg. “I’m not here to keep quiet like a slave and pretend that these things are not happening.”
This will likely have little appeal in the hardened forum of sports politics, where arguments over race and religion have long since dissolved, with Africans having headed both world athletics and swimming in the past.
In the insular world of football politics, Sexwale is an outsider and his bid to get an endorsement from his own continent failed when the Confederation of African Football received him in Cairo in November and listened to his presentation but pointedly did not move to back him, even though he is the only African in the race.
Sexwale has missed a trick in failing to concentrate his message on ways to fix the crisis at Fifa – to change its statutes and structures and to devise methods for accountability that would help restore commercial and consumer confidence.
In the past, candidates for the Fifa presidency have made the mainstay of their electoral promise how much more money they could assure the voting member associations but, at this time, priorities are much changed.
Sexwale flashes a radiant smile; his barrel-chested voice commands instant attention and his charm is legendary. But he entered the race for the Fifa presidency with naivety, poor advice and, barring a comeback miracle, will exit with little more than a damaged reputation.

‘For 111 Years Fifa Has Not Had An African’

Winning the 2015 presidential and parliamentary elections will turn out to be the easiest task for Nigeria’s new leaders. Governing Africa’s most populous country will prove more arduous.
Now that the polls have come and gone, Nigerians and the newly inaugurated government of President Muhammadu Buhari must now turn their sights on the hard, serious work ahead: fixing their economy, and the ethical fibers of their multi-cultural society.
This will be no easy task, considering that all eyes (local and global) will be on the retired army general as he seeks to resolve the country’s innumerable social, economic and cultural dilemmas.
“This country has to be fixed&#8230; with the engine running,” Buhari’s Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, told a gathering of media and business folks in Lagos last April.
No doubt the Nigerian nation continues to be a “disappointing case” despite its crowning as Africa’s leading economy, and despite its abundant resources.
Now, when I say “disappointing case” I do not mean to belittle this GDP badge of honor. I merely want to remind you that (most) Nigerians lack access to potable water, electricity, internet access, affordable housing, quality healthcare, quality education and efficient public transportation, just to list a few things on the development agenda.
“We are actually bleeding on many fronts,” a friend working in the Office of the Chief Economic Adviser to President Jonathan admitted to FORBES AFRICA. “Yet we keep behaving as if we are a Saudi Arabia, which has a bigger economy several times the size of Nigeria’s.”
Nigeria is a classic case of the Dutch Disease syndrome, a term coined in 1977 by The Economist to describe the decline of the manufacturing sector in the Netherlands after the discovery of the large Groningen natural gas field in 1959. This was around the same time Nigeria also began to export oil from its Oloibiri oil fields, in the creeks of the Niger Delta. Sadly, instead of growing in significance and wealth, Nigeria’s Niger Delta communities have become desolate and impoverished.
In recent times, declining oil prices have had a debilitating effect on the country’s earnings. Nigeria however continues to behave like a wealthy czar, overspending, undersaving and underinvesting.
Revamping the ethos of business and governance should be top priority for Nigeria’s new economic and political managers. Under the previous administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, the country’s petroleum sector became synonymous with corruption and murky corporate governance.
Crude oil prices ($115 per barrel in June 2014) now stand around $60. National revenues have declined by 29% over the last nine months. Decades of not saving enough and not investing enough in the economy have now caught up with the nation.
The IMF has called for a further devaluation of the naira, the national currency, which had already depreciated by 23% between November and March. Citizens at the bottom of the pyramid and small business owners across the country disagreed with this advice. Nigerians would prefer a peaceful nation; productive refineries and infrastructure; reforms that restore the professional dignity of the civil service, the police and other public service providers; pragmatic housing programs; deeper financial and economic inclusion and a drastic reduction in the size of government.
In a nutshell, this is the broad agenda for Nigeria’s new government. Nigerians can however be impatient. It will certainly take more than one election cycle (four years) to fix all of the nation’s economic and social woes. A few months is all we need to gauge if the change Nigerians desire will begin to happen under the old general.
Known as a frugal man with little penchant for frivolities and material acquisitions, it will be interesting to see how he attenuates Nigeria’s widespread culture of nepotism. Which brings me to another matter: state sponsorship of religious activities, events and pilgrimages.
Saudi Arabia made $18.6 billion and $213 billion from pilgrimages and oil exports, respectively, in 2014. Israel recorded 3.54 million tourist arrivals in 2013. The statistics for Nigeria’s tourism sector are nowhere near these levels. Which begs the question: who benefits more from religious tourism – is it the citizen, the state or religious institutions?
The agenda for Buhari’s team is certainly not a boring one.

Tag: Governing

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

‘For 111 Years Fifa Has Not Had An African’

the general must stop The bleeding