Our great olympic flop

THE much
anticipated
London Olympics
of July 27 and
August 12, 2012
has come and
gone. Nigeria sent
a contingent of
116 athletes and
officials. We
participated in
the eight sports,
where we are
supposed to
enjoy some
comparative
advantage —
athletics, boxing,
weightlifting,
wrestling, table
tennis, canoeing,
basketball and
taekwondo.
Nigeria spent
more than N2.5
billion to
participate in the
Games, but our
athletes came
back without a
single medal in a
competition
where less
fancied countries
with much
smaller
contingents
recorded
resounding
successes. Of
the three African
giants in sports
— South Africa,
Egypt and Nigeria
— only the latter
went home
empty handed.
In the Beijing
Games of 2008,
we were able to
win at least
silver and two
bronze medals.
London Olympics
was a great
come-down from
the 1996 Atlanta
edition, where
we scored two
gold, silver and
two bronze
medals.
It is said that
those who fail to
plan are planning
to fail. That
summarises the
London Olympics
disaster, where
all our medal
hopefuls flopped.
The most
evident cause of
the general
decline in our
sports is that no
president has
seen the
enormous
potential of
sports as an
invaluable
employer of
talented youth,
thriving business,
tourism and
projector of the
image of a nation
in the
international
arena. Sports is
treated as one of
those areas
where politicians
from favoured
parts of the
country are sent
to enjoy federal
allocation. This
informs the high
turnover in the
number of sports
ministers, most
of whom have
never been
tested as
administrators,
proprietors,
athletes or
philanthropists.
As usual, the
Federal
Government has
reacted to this
unfortunate
outing by
ordering an
overhaul of our
sports. This is
the umpteenth
time this is
happening.
Almost every
new
administration
has either set up
panels to
compose new
documents for
sports
development or
carry out
“overhauls”
which, rather
than create
impetus for
positive change
only worsen
systemic
disorientation.
We recommend a
total rejig of the
National Sports
Commission
(NSC) to make it
more business-
like and result-
oriented. The NSC
board
membership
should be thrown
open for election
for a term of
four years
renewable only
based on
performance.
That way,
sports
administrators
will be goal-
oriented.
Only a
democratically
elected Board will
create conditions
to attract private
participation or at
least massive
corporate social
responsibility
investment in
sports. To get
back to
reckoning, we
must start now
to prepare for Rio
2016 Summer
Olympics. We
must remove
deadwoods, put
the right people
on the job and
give them the
fund. We must
find out the
magic behind the
surging
emergence of
countries like
Jamaica, with
which we used
to rub shoulders
in athletics, but
which has now
overshadowed
the USA in the
fast sprints.