Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, the first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
Dr. Danladi Bako, a former broadcaster, served as a Senior Special Assistant to Nigeria’s Minister of Youth and Sports (1995-1998). He attended Seoul 88 Olympics, Barcelona 92 Olympics and Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games.
Without any modicum of doubt, Nige- ria’s outing at the 2024 Paris Olympics, which ended on Sunday, was a disas- ter waiting to happen. The Minister of Sports, John Owan Enoh, has duly apologized to us for this untenable and unacceptable performance. While ten- dering the ministry’s apology Senator Enoh enumeratedthechallengeshe met on ground on assumption of office a year to the Paris games, while so many other serious countries had already met qualifying times for the track and field events, embarked on training tours of their basketball, volleyball, swimming teams,etc.Helistedthelackof adequate preparation for training camps by the Federations, among other issues. So where was the optimism about “doing well” coming from?
It’s not the minister’s duty to do magic one year to an event smaller countries had been drilling and training their ath- letes for ten years before now. While we boastof 200millioncitizens,wewatched StLucia,acountryof 180,000people,win the female 400 metres gold, small Botswa- na of the southern part of Africa won the male 200 metres gold and the male 4×400 metres relay silver. Akane Simbine led South Africa to win the male 4×100 metres relay silver. Kenya’s beautiful
Dr Danladi Bako
young Faith Kipyegon won her third successive Olympic games 1500 metres gold -from Brazil, Tokyo and now Paris while my dear Nigeria’s gold medal haul still stands at two.
Clearly something has gone wrong. Once upon a time, Chidi Imoh (200 me- tres), Innocent Egbunike (400 metres), Davidson Ezinwa, all got to the finals at major international games, be it Olym- pics or Commonwealth games. What happened after the reign of boxing greats Dick Tiger, Nojeem Maiyegun and Peter Konyegwachi? Let’s not forget Modupe Oshikoya and Falilat Ogunkoya
St Lucia, a country of 180,000 people, won the female 400 metres gold
in the 400 meters or our 4×100 female re- layquartetof Onyali,Iheagwamandco. It would seem not too long ago that the National Youth Games twice held in Ilorin, the African Athletics finals in Asaba took place, giving hope to podium places in future. Alas, the transition from that youth level to professional training and camping seems to be the problem.
A second major challenge has been the low number of competition and circuit tours. In the past, Chief Moshood Abio- la sponsored an annual Athletics meet regularly; Wahab Folawiyo sponsored the U-20 Athletics meeting annually too. Same thing for Mobil Oil, which bankrolled annual competitions over so many
years; and we all looked forward to selection trials that featured Nigerian student athletes from the world standard Azusa Pacific University and Santa Monica Track Club come and face serious duels with the Nigerian-based stars for a place on the flight to the Olympics. Lack of ac- countability of the funds given saw the gradual withdrawal of the sponsorship amongst other factors of inept and infcompetent people at the helm of affairs at the various Federations with the exception of Wrestling. Even the Nigerian Olympic Committee has seen its archaic leadership overstay its usefulness and has run out of ideas just like Swimming, Boxing, Judo, Volleyball and Tennis.
For the government to “renew the hope” of Nigerians in sports and im- mediately begin to prepare for the next Olympic games , it must head-hunt dedicated and passionate administrators with sports background, who have integrity such that private sector funds can be entrusted into their hands, and then infuse them into the Federations. There are too many jobbers occupy- ing top positions in the Federations who feed on the system.
The National Olympic Committee must be revamped through new elections into the executive, and performance-driven persons put in charge. Government must be definite and intentional in funding scholarships
to designated Universities of sports in the United States, China and Cuba for student youth games products.
Finally, nothing works in sports like hiring good high performance coaches from anywhere in the world and setting up a swimming high performance camp in the Niger Delta, sprints high perfor- mance camp in South East, long distance high performance camp in Jos and Gem- bu Mambilla plateau, boxing and athlet- ics high performance camp in Lagos, as was done by Colonel Samuel Ogbemudia when he set up Afuze Edo State. Fortu- nately, I have no doubt in the very deep interest and support that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu can and is ready to give totherevampingof sportsinthecountry. He showed that much when he provid- ed a grant of N12 billion to the Football Federation during the Nations Cup in Cote D’Ivoire earlier this year as well as providing for the Paris Olympics before the start of the tournaments.
My dear friend, Senator John Owan Enoh, you have your work cut out and the work starts now.
