NIGERIA’S dismal outing at the Inter- national Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships is not unexpected. The nation probably got what it actually deserves. By the time the curtain fell on the apex global athletics event, the country’s representatives returned home with no medals. In contrast, African countries like South Africa, Ethiopia and Kenya were among the top ten on the overall medals table.
The poor performance of our athletes at the London event is certainly not traceable to their genes, as evidenced by the impressive successes of the fel- low African nations listed above, and our credible performances at other past global tournaments. But with London, and many other recent sporting events, it has become clear that our sports is on a downward spiral.
Our preparations for the event, which is also known as London 2017, were shambolic. Many of the athletes arrived at the venues already worn out. There were reports of athletes travelling in batches, and some very late or not at all, because of visas that were granted very late or denied, at least in one case. The immediate fallout of this was that Nigeria had to withdraw from the 4x100m relay because it could not present a complete team.
One of Nigeria’s main problems is government’s tunnel vision of sports. Especially at the federal level, the authorities still do not understand that sports is the
weapon of modern warfare and a source of national pride. Sports is also big business and a veritable tool for national mobilisation. Sadly, our leaders see it as just
another department of government and an avenue for providing “jobs for the boys”. They, therefore, do not pay attention to its peculiar needs, while they pay lip service to its immense potentials. Nothing can be more self-defeating.
Whereas, the science of sports has shown, conclusively, that champions are produced from the furnace of planned training, exceptional hard work, dogged discipline and peaking for targeted competitions, our sports administrators espouse the gospel of im- provisation, spontaneity and good luck.
As we have noted already, Nigerian athletes can be champions and have proved it many times in the past. How did we achieve these feats? We had qualified and immensely gifted sports administrators. We can recall the eras of General Henry Adefope, Awoture Eleaya, Sunny Dankaro, Samuel Ogbemudia, Tony Ikhazobo and the rest in the 1960s and 70s. That was the golden era of Nigerian sports when the country produced world champions and other notable sportsmen who are too many to mention here.
Even if poor support for athletes is legendary in the country, a new low was reached with the preparations for London 2017. The situation was so bad that concerned former athletes and world champions like Mary Onyali and Falilat Ogunkoya had to speak out. A common denominator in the preparations was the absence of quality coaching for the athletes.
In that situation, what could we have expected but for our athletes to make up the numbers as their better prepared colleagues won all the medals? It was such a shame to see our once poster female athlete, Blessing Okagbare, finishing a harrowing 8th in the Long Jump event and failing to qualify for the finals of the 100 metres.
The government has to change our sad sports narrative with the appointment of com- petent persons who can change the face of sports in the country into sensitive sports of- fices. When people who understand the huge potentials of sports are appointed into criti- cal sports offices, they will know how to harness the goodwill for sports to the nation’s advantage. They will understand that the government does not have enough resources to optimise our sporting potentials, and take sports away from government to the real stakeholders, to ensure its proper positioning for success.
For now, our sportsmen and women are poorly motivated and the temptation for them to defect to other countries is real and gaining ground. At London 2017, not a few of our countrymen watched with tears in their eyes and pain in their hearts as many athletes of Nigerian origin who migrated to other countries filed out to represent these countries, and performed well, at the tournament. This is the shame the government and our sports administrators must strive to save us from at future events.