The Olympics: A Stand Up Call For Nigeria

As the Nigerian contingent to the London 2012 looks to be running out of chances for medals at the Olympics Game, the usual refrain of going back to the drawing board may be in the offing.

The Olympics Game is a major and very popular international world event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympics Games are considered to be the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate. The Games are currently held biennially, with Summer and Winter Olympics Games alternating, meaning they occur every four years within their respective seasonal games. The Olympics games originated from ancient Greece. Some  aims of the Olympics Games are to bring about peace, unity, and also gender equality in sports. The Olympics games has served as a major boost for countries hosting it.

Countries are expected to partake in qualification rounds in order to qualify for various events at the games. Qualification is not automatic. Nigeria, a country with over 150 million citizens has been participating in the Olympics games since 1952 when it made its maiden appearance. And since then Nigeria has been participating at all Olympic events except for the 1976 edition of the Olympics held at Montreal in Quebec, Canada. Nigeria boycotted the games and refused to send a team to the games. The 1996 Atlanta Olympics was the best team Nigeria had ever gotten, winning two gold medals at the event. Nigeria became the first African nation to win an Olympic gold medal in football. Since then the performance of team Nigeria has fallen. It is shameful to sy that Nigeria has won a total of two gold medals only, since it started featuring at the Olympic games in 1952.

The 30th Olympic games tagged London 2012 kicked off on the 28th of July 2012. The games have over 29 sport events to be played. Some of the sports event at the ongoing Olympic are: archery, athletics, basketball, beach volleyball, canoeing, diving, equestrian, fencing, gymnastics, handball, hockey, judo, rowing, sailing, shooting, swimming, table tennis, tennis, volleyball, water polo, weightlifting.

Team Nigeria is participating at the ongoing Olympic event and much is expected from them, but from the look of things Nigeria may not make impact at the Games. Nigeria has selected 62 participants who will compete in 9 sports including judo, athletics, basketball, and table tennis at the event. So far, Team Nigeria is yet to win any medal. Before team Nigeria left the shores of the country for preparation for the event, the president of the Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC) Engineer Sani Ndanusa had said that the target of  Nigeria was to get at least two gold medals at the event. He went further to say that “in the past Olympics, we had been participating but come 2012, we’ll compete with other Nations.”

If what the NOC chairman said and the reality facing us at the Games are anything to go by, I think Nigeria still had a long way to making a name at the Olympics. What will the NOC president call the team Nigeria’s performance at the Atlanta ’96 olympics? Did the athletes go to participate or they went to compete? If the NOC president’s target for Nigeria is two gold medals why would he say that team Nigeria was going to compete? By now Nigeria is supposed to be a force to reckon with at the Olympic games, if not in all games, at least some games like football, judo, boxing, wrestling and athletics where Nigeria has some good talents. We have very talented individuals in Nigeria, but the problem is that there are no right measures in place to find and maintain these talents. It has been over the years that Nigeria has lost wonderful talents to other countries due to some reasons that can be taken care of by the Nigerian government. They were not taken good care of, so countries that saw the talent in them took them away and they are now doing well in their adopted countries. The list of Nigerians or sportsmen bearing Nigerian names competing for other countries has continued to swell in the last few years. At the moment, more than 100 Nigerian-born athletes are reportedly competing for their adopted countries in Europe, the Americas and across Africa. The reasons they opted for greener pastures elsewhere range from insensitivity of the Nigerian national federations, poor incentives to athletes, lack of developmental programmes at home to lack of support from the government and non-release of training grants before major championships.

A perfect case is that of Francis Obiorah Obikwelu, unarguably one of Nigeria and Portugal’s most successful athletes, was Africa’s sprint king in the 100 metres and 200 metres while competing for his native country. He assumed Portuguese citizenship in 2001. Obikwelu brought glory to his adopted country at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, where he finished second in the 100 metres and won the first silver medal ever in a sprint event for Portugal at the global games.

In 2006 at the European Championships, he got the gold in the 100 metres and 200 metres and became the first athlete to win both events in the same Euro championships since 1978. Though now retired, Obikwelu was a talent that Nigeria would have tried its best to retain and make the nation proud, but he was neglected.

Another example is Daniel Baraladei Igali, a Canadian freestyle wrestler. Igali was born in Eniwari village, Bayelsa State, Nigeria. He was captain of the Nigerian wrestling team to the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Canada. After the games, he refused to return with the contingent and remained in the country while seeking refugee status due to political unrest at the time in Nigeria. He acquired Canadian citizenship in 1998. In Canada, Igali won 116 consecutive matches, wrestling at Simon Fraser University from 1997 to 1999.

He was  placed fourth at the 1998 world championships. He finished second at the 1998 World Cup and won a bronze medal at the 1999 Pan-American Games. If Nigeria was interested in this young man the government would have made a move to make sure he stays back in Nigeria and make the country proud, but such was not done. The list goes on.

Even at the present Olympic games in London, names like Margaret Adeoye, Abdul Buhari, James Dasaolu, Ifeoma Dieke, Philips Idowu Christian Ohuruogu (Great Britain and Northern Ireland) Athletics, Eniola Aluko (Great Britain and Northern Ireland) Football, Oluwadamilola Bakare, Eniola Bakare (Great Britain and Northern Ireland) Volley Ball, Temi Fagbenle (Great Britain and Northern Ireland) Basketball, are all participants at the ongoing Olympic games with Nigerian names competing for other countries.

The Federal Government of Nigeria in conjunction with the Nigeria Olympic Committee have to rise to the challenge and take the bull by the horn to make sure talents are sourced for from schools around the country. We have a lot of Obikwelu’s, Finidi’s, Igali’s out there that can be gotten and groomed for national duty tomorrow. After all countries that are making names at the Olympic games today like the United States of America, China, England, Jamaica etc, all started from somewhere, and they are tops today, so why will Nigeria refuse to do the right thing and search amongst the millions of citizens in this country? The Federal government of Nigeria and the Nigerian Olympic Committee must see the Olympic games as a challenge and a wake-up call to work hard and invest for a better Nigeria, especially, in the world of sports.

Echem David Prince  is a student of RSUST, Port Harcourt.

Echem David Prince