Kuku Open Letter to Gov. Fashola

Your Excellency,

My name is Yomi Kuku and I work as Project Director of Search And Groom Youth for Development Center, where we use football as a simple but effective tool as a module for social change and community regeneration.

We have done this in the last six years in Lagos (Ajegunle, Abesan/Ipaja, Agege and Ikeja) despite constraints in support locally.

Please permit me to lodge this official complaint with your good office on the recently launched Street Soccer Champions by the Ministry of Sports and Youth Development.

The project, which the Commissioner for Sports is claiming to have been his offices? own, is actually an adoption of our Street Soccer League Cup proposal, which we organized in Lagos last July, with the support of FIFA ?football for hope? and which we proposed to you through his office last year.

We had been in touch with Lagos state Ministry of Sports since the administration of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and unrelentingly, continued to seek further partnership with this administration based on our belief in complementing the ideals of this administration and preceding one.

It is worthy of note that to date, despite our efforts, we have never been recognized nor supported by any of the organs of government in the state.

It is with great pain that we found out that despite efforts to implement our ideas and in partnership with the Sports Ministry, they turned us down and rather used the might of the Government to covet and adopt our intellectually property.

Sir, it most pertinent to note that they have not just tried to cower us into submitting to their temptation of the Government might, they have gone as far as approaching our project co-coordinators in Ikeja and Agege to lure them into working with them.

Mr Joe Erico, the renowned former National team coach had been supporting us in this past through his expertise in coaching, but we make bold to say that Search And Groom, introduced the concept of Street Soccer to his already acquired vast knowledge of football when he traveled to the Homeless World Cup with us in 2006 and on a tour of Kenya.
The organizers of the Street Soccer Champions also lured him.

I will be doing a great injustice to this letter to you sir, if I do not let you know the treacherous role Mr Yomi Opakunle (media 
coordinator of street soccer champions) played in helping them achieve their plans.

Mr Opakunle is a close friend of our project and he has virtually all the information anyone can take on our project.
However, how Street Soccer operates and the guiding principles and philosophy he absolutely does not understand.

We do not pretend to have absolute solutions to the worrisome trend of youth restiveness in Lagos and beyond, but our modest work and achievement speaks for our competence if given the chance.

Please be informed that the players we took to the last two editions of the Homeless World Cup in Cape Town South Africa and Copenhagen, Denmark, did not just returned home to Nigeria, but they are role models to the communities from where they all come including Ajegunle, Mushin, Abesan/Ipaja, Agege and Ikeja.

Being FIFA?s official implementing partner in Nigeria, please find attached, a copy of the letter which emanated from Zurich; a fallout of this same issue and sent to you last week. I hope you have received it.
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We have waited patiently till this point hoping for a solution, and because we could not find any, we are constrained to bother your tight schedule.

Your Excellency, we have suffered deprivation, our families have been at the receiving end of our commitment to this cause with our meager income being expended on the survival of Search And Groom.

We have used our time, money, sweat and blood to contribute our quota to the development of Lagos and our dear country Nigeria.

We have never received any commendation from any official quarters, in these circumstances, we have remained resolute, believing that one day, someone, somewhere watching will recognize our little work and render some tangible assistance.

Sir, your office and personality remain our only hope of getting justice and redress.

We will appreciate your kind intervention in this matter.

I look forward to hearing your magnanimous response to our humble request.