In the next few months, Nigerian sport will face a huge moment of truth as the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games get under way in Japan. Sunday Dare, the Minister of Youths and Sports, set the tone in December by vowing that “the days of jamborees in the Olympics are over.” By inference, the target for Nigerian athletes is to reach the podium in the events they are participating in. This is a tall order, as the sticky situations that hindered Team Nigeria in previous Games are still perceptible. To break the awful cycle of previous outings, Nigeria’s preparations need a greater impetus.
The Games, the largest sports event in the world, are set to kick off on July 23, a year after they were originally due to start. Undeniably, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the calendar of the Games, causing a one-year postponement to July 2021. All the 205 countries billed for Tokyo are in the same shoes. In Nigeria’s case, it is participating in 11 sports, including athletics, weightlifting, wrestling, table tennis and boxing. Remarkably, it is the first time both the men’s (D’Tigers) and women’s (D’Tigress) basketball national teams are playing in the Olympics. It is a mighty feat, but it is not to be compared to getting medals.
Preparations started in Pankshin (Plateau State) soon after the national lockdown was lifted in September last year, while phase two held in Bayelsa, Lagos, Rivers and the Federal Capital Territory. For athletes who will compete with the very best across the world, these domestic camps might fall short of what is required to keep them in shape for Tokyo. For one, the facilities available in the country are decrepit. The National Stadium in Abuja is a shadow of the real camps where elite athletes elsewhere are gearing up for the Games. Likewise, the facilities in the National Stadium in Lagos are run down, a frustrating setback for the athletes.
Besides, preparations are being hampered by poor funding. In basketball, D’Tigress players are still being owed allowances for winning back-to-back the Afrobasket Championships in 2017 and 2019. According to Babs Ogunade, the president of the Nigeria Basketball Federation, the body needs N2 billion to prepare the two teams for the Games. Poor funding is a sport-wide encumbrance in Nigeria. The Sports Ministry attained a mere 50 per cent budget performance in 2020. In the year of the Olympics, the ministry received an allocation of N4 billion (personnel and overhead costs) and N9.9 billion for capital projects, Dare stated. This is grossly insufficient.
It is partly why bonus payment scandals rocked Team Nigeria camps in previous Olympics, All-Africa Games, African Cup of Nations and the World Cup (male and female). Nigeria suffered global humiliation over this in the Rio 2016 Games in Brazil, when the U-23 football team was ejected from the United States hotel it used for its training for the Games because the government did not release money on time. It was the Dream Team VI skipper, Mikel Obi, who saved the day by paying the accumulated bills from his personal funds. Embarrassingly, a Japanese surgeon, Katsuya Takasu, offered to reward the team over delayed bonuses during the Games; after the event, he donated $390,000 to the contingent for winning Nigeria’s sole medal (a bronze) in Rio. This is a major challenge for the ministry.
Overall, Nigeria has nothing much to celebrate from its previous participation in the Olympics. From its debut in the 1952 Helsinki Games, it has won only a paltry 25 medals. Two gold medals arrived together in Atlanta ’96 from the Dream Team, beating Argentina in the men’s football final and Chioma Ajunwa, who won the women’s long jump. The third gold was an upgraded one at the Sydney 2000 Games after the US’ 4×400 metres men’s team was stripped for using banned drugs. Team Nigeria’s largest hauls were in Atlanta (six) and the Beijing 2008 Games with five medals (no gold).
Nigeria flunked its lines woefully in the London 2012 Games, winning no single medal. Athletics, where the country had a reputation for the sprints, is in the doldrums, having not won a medal there since two silver medals by Blessing Okagbare in long jump and the women’s 4x100m relay at Beijing 2008. Proper planning should be undertaken to avoid a repeat of these shameful episodes.
More than often, Nigeria has turned participation at the Games to jamborees. Official government delegations from the federal, state and local governments are larger than the competing athletes and coaches. As he has promised, Dare should ensure this does not happen in Tokyo. Only athletes and coaches should be in Nigeria’s team.
There is no point in releasing the funds for the Games late into the year. To improve the chances of Team Nigeria, the Federal Government should release the funds earmarked for the Games early.
In sport, solid preparation is a tested formula for success. For now, the National Sports Festival, normally a biennial event to discover talents, is staged epileptically. The Edo 2020 NSF, which could not hold last year because of the pandemic, was postponed the third time in early February to April over lack of funds. This is preparing the ground to fail.
Therefore, it is time to scale up the level of preparations, at home and abroad. By training and competing with the best, the athletes will be gingered to attain better performance levels. This is normal around the world. Barred from training at the US Olympic and Paralympic Training Center at Colorado Springs since last March because of COVID-19, USA Boxing converted an abandoned supermarket store to its training centre in mid-January 2021. The well-choreographed schedule will be followed by international tournaments for the US boxers in Bulgaria and Spain. The boxers will then compete in a camp at Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center in California before the Americas Olympic qualifying event in May. Nigeria should also prepare adequately.
