Solomon Dalung Dropped from Ministerial Nominees List, New Sports Minister to Emerge in the Following Weeks

Former minister of Youth and Sports, Solomon Dalung’s name did not make the list of 43 ministerial nominees sent by President Muhammadu Buhari to the Senate on Tuesday for screening and confirmation.

President of the Senate, Senator Ahmed Lawan read the names at Tuesday’s plenary session with Dalung’s name missing.

The 54-year-old was engaged in bitter row with leadership of the Nigeria Football Federation for the better part of his tenure as minister of youth and sports.


There was the avoidable crisis in the basketball and athletics federations, as well as the ‘missing IAAF $130,000’, among many other lows, which did not help the rating of the beret wearing ex-minister.

He was rumoured to be among the list of ministerial nominees and favoured to return to the post especially after he was named in the 11-man federal government delegation to offer support to the Super Eagles at the recently concluded 2019 Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt.

The sports fraternity in Nigeria will now await the appointment of a new minister with lawyer, Festus Keyamo, a staunch football lover the only notable name who is well associated with sports on the list of the nominees.