Unhappy with the dismal performance of the Nigerian contingent to the recently concluded 2019 World Athletics Championship in Doha, Qatar, the Minister of Sports and Youth Development, Mr. Sunday Dare, on Monday, inaugurated a panel to investigate the flop. The panel which is headed by Prof. Ken Angwueje, has been given two weeks to turn in its findings. Members of the panel are Dr. Umar Bindir, Rotimi Obajimi, Ibrahim Galadima, Dare Esan, Mary Onyali, and Falilat Ogunkoya; Maria Wophill is its secretary.
The inauguration of the panel was held at the Media Centre Package ‘A’ of the MKO Abiola Stadium, Abuja. Among its terms of reference were to investigate the immediate and remote causes of the unimpressive displays of Team Nigeria at the tournament and the general disaffection amongst the athletes.
So disappointed was the minister that he directed the recall of the Technical Director of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), Mr. Sunday Adeleye, from the tournament, describing the technical and administrative lapses as embarrassing and unacceptable.
The constitution of the panel is part of the measures to forestall a repeat of the Doha debacle in subsequent tournaments.
The dismal performance of Team Nigeria at the Doha meet is a familiar story. Nigerian athletics have lost traction in recent years. As recently as the 2017 edition of the global jamboree, Nigeria’s contingent posted a disappointing performance. In the London jamboree, a reminiscence of the 2012 London Olympics, the so-called Giant of Africa flopped from one event to the other. The likes of Blessing Okagbare could not make it to the podium. The star sprinter failed again in the 100m event. She was also a big flop in the long jump. Nigeria’s last hope for a medal in the women’s 4×400 event was also dashed as the team secured the 5th position on the final day.
Nigeria’s poor performance at the London tournament, culminating in empty-handedness dates back to 2001. The medal drought continued until 2013 when sprinter Blessing Okagbare squeezed a bronze medal out of the Moscow Championships. At the Beijing tournament in 2015, the nation’s medal hopeful, Okagbare, was a shadow of herself in the 100m race as she finished last in the final event.
Nigeria has abundance of talents and every other thing it takes to be a key player on the global stage. This is evidenced by the feats recorded by many Nigerian athletes that switched their nationalities because of hostile environment and lack of encouragement. Nigeria’s former sprinter and Africa’s fastest man, Olusoji Fasuba, who was the last runner to dump Nigerian citizenship for Britain, argued that the problem with Nigerian athletics was lack of fund for training.
Fasuba said: “I have been saying this since 2009 that Nigerian athletics is dead without money and home-based competitions, and I don’t mean competitions that pay peanuts.”
Fasuba was not the only Nigerian athlete to abandon his country to take up a foreign identity because of lack of motivation and poor facilities. In the mid-2000s or thereabouts, the duo of Francis Obikwelu and Gloria Alozie took up Spanish nationality. The twosome ran for their adopted nation and shone at the Berlin Tournament in 2009. Other Nigerian athletes who ran for different countries at the Berlin show included Francis Ekpo (a quarter-miler) – Germany; Sanya Richards-Ross (quarter-miler) – US and Philips Idowu (triple jumper) – Britain.
The aforementioned athletes clinched laurels for their adopted countries, whereas their counterparts from Nigeria, some of whom they hitherto wore national colours together with before they jumped ship, won nothing. At the London Championship, one of the quartets that clinched a gold medal for the United States in the 4×100 women’s relay race is of Nigerian descent, named Morolake Akinosun.
The bane of Nigerian athletics is lack of encouragement, poor organisation and dilapidated infrastructure. The High Altitude Training Centre, Kuru, near Jos, which should be home to middle and long distance runners has remained a pipedream, decades after its conception. Successive leaderships of the sport appeared to have accepted poor showings at the IAAF World Championships as fait accompli. It is high time they were weaned from this winless mentality as it is no longer acceptable.
The federation should look beyond its parent ministry for 100 per cent funding of its activities. Part of the mandate of the leadership of the federation is to scout for sponsors to complement government’s efforts in the prosecution of its programmes. The leadership should rather be challenged to think outside the box.
The Doha debacle is a bad augury as the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games inch close. The Prof. Ken Angwueje panel is the first to be set up in recent years tasked with finding a way to stymie the dismal trend. It is hoped that the committee will come up with recommendations that would return the country to its glory days in athletics.
