A path towards sanity, by Patrick Omorodion
Whatever has a beginning must have an end, is a popular saying. On Friday, October 23, 2026, members of the Lagos State chapter of the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (Lagos SWAN) took a bold step to begin the sanitisation of their troubled association, which has been held down by a self-inflicted crisis. Yes, I say self-inflicted because they allowed their ranks to be infiltrated by persons who are neither journalists nor practising sports writers. Never in the history of SWAN, since it was founded in 1964, has the Lagos chapter been embroiled in such impunity and an alleged hijack by one individual. And I know that the founding father, Babatunde Oshuntolu, popularly known by his pen name, Esbee, would turn in his grave if he heard what has become of the once-vibrant association. Like in every family, members are bound to disagree, but such disagreements should never be so deep that one party wishes "death," by whatever means, for the other. I joined Lagos SWAN in 1990 as a cub reporter with the Concord Press of Nigeria. At that time, the national body was enmeshed in a crisis. It took MKO Abiola, a patron of SWAN, to resolve the issue. When the new president, Fan Ndubuoke, visited the Concord publisher, he humorously asked the members who were present, "Will this Fan rotate?" We all humorously echoed, "Yesssssssss!" Disagreements occur from time to time between state chapters and the national SWAN or among members of the same state chapter, but none has been as fierce as the use of Gestapo tactics, as we have seen in the past three to four years in Lagos. National SWAN had the ill luck of having a dictator as its president for the first time in its history, who oppressed his fellow elected executive committee members to the extent of wanting them to be at the Abuja airport to receive him whenever he visited the federal capital. His visit to Lagos got him thinking after he saw the magnificent secretariat the Grand Patron of the chapter, then Lagos State Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola, built for the association with support from some patrons, including the late Chief Daniel Idama, the late Prince Dokun Abidoye, the late Rev. Moses Iloh and Dan Ngerem. This president, Honour Sirawoo, believed the secretariat belonged to SWAN, claiming there was only one SWAN. The Lagos chapter disagreed, stating that it was the property of Lagos SWAN. That was the beginning of the problem Lagos SWAN had with the Sirawoo-led national body, so much so that he allegedly ensured that the re-election of the chairman, Debo Oshundun, was scuttled, as he organised what the writer described as a "kangaroo election," using some renegade members in Lagos to install another executive committee led by Olatutu Oladunni. The crisis has never ended since then. It took a new turn when Sirawoo's allegedly imposed executive committee dragged the one led by Debo, who was elected by the majority of members, to the Department of State Services (DSS). Yours sincerely visited the agency's Shangisha office in Lagos for a peace meeting that lasted over seven hours. The DSS, obviously acting on what the writer believed was a script written for it by Sirawoo, could not resolve the stalemate after listening to my presentation that day. They told us to go back and resolve the issue amicably, despite what I perceived as their body language suggesting support for the Sirawoo group. As God would have it, Sirawoo's tenure ended, and a new national SWAN executive committee headed by Isaiah Benjamin took over.…
