I Wear Red Berets And Khaki Attires In A Bid To Identify With “Suffering Masses” Says Sports Minister Dalung

Minister of Sports, Solomon Dalung, has explained that his love for red berets and khaki attires is borne out of his desire to identify with ordinary Nigerians.

He stated on his Facebook page on Wednesday that he had been asked on a number of occasions his reason for donning red berets and khaki attires was to demonstrate his affinity with the “suffering masses.”

The minister has often been criticised for his choice of dressing to some occasions, especially on the day he was sworn in. Critics said it was unbecoming of a minister to dress in such a manner.

However, Dalung fired back, saying: “So many people have asked this same question ‘What is behind your mode of outfits and what is the motivating principle?’

The ‘Red Beret’ is my signature for a struggle of the common people. The ‘Khaki’ is just nothing but a very modest way of appreciating the magnitude of problems the ‘common people’ face in this country.

I don’t fancy putting on attires (like that) outside that because it does not at all portray our understanding of the situation in which we operate.

“There are people in this country who find it difficult to eat one meal a day and yet, we intimidate and harass them with gorgeously expensive dresses. Some of our apparels can even feed a whole community! I find it difficult to reconcile such an irony. (Sighs) So, I have decided to just live happily and modestly because that is how I feel happy each time I am in my simple wears.

“As for the ‘Red Beret’, it is the signature of those who struggle against injustice, violence and oppression of the poor. In fact, the red colour, historically, represents the blood of the poor people who have been struggling for a better society.

Each time we look at the red beret, we remember that some people have sacrificed their lives in struggling to live better in a world which was created by God and which others have decided to hijack and live at their own advantage against the voiceless majority.
So…the summary of who I am is that I am a Comrade walking the talk “