Tinubu, withdraw Nigeria from international sports competitions

After the fiasco of Nigeria’s participation in the 2024 Olympic games, most Nigerians have read a statement put out by the Honourable Minister of Sports development John Owan Enoh. In that statement the Honourable Minister first tendered an apology for his team’s inability to return to Nigeria with any medal. After that apology, the Minister set off a litany of complaints about sports administration in Nigeria.

I am not going to bore anyone with those details but the synopsis of his complaints was that one year to the Olympics, Nigeria was not prepared to take part in the games. And this was basically because international sport bodies forbid government oversight functions in sports administration.

Many Nigerians who are deeply insulted by the whining and wringing of hands and buck passing by the Minister have been calling for his outright sack. At some point, some have said that as one who had failed to deliver on an assignment given to him by over 200 million Nigerians, the honourable thing that the minister should do before tendering his apology would have been to resign that position.

We were of this position and this is why – first, if the minister had less than one year to prepare for a competition that other nations were spending four years to execute, and together with humongous resources, why didn’t he say so before the games? Second, knowing that Nigeria was not physically, mentally and psychologically prepared to participate in the games, he raised a budget of N12billion with which he executed what has now turned out to be the greatest fiasco in sports administration in Nigeria.

Why would someone who knows that his country is unprepared for a global competition raise a budget of N12 billion to go compete against other nations that have prepared for four years or more for that same competition? Why raise our hopes that we would replicate the Atlanta 1996 kind of results that Nigeria became famous for, knowing full well that we were nowhere near that kind of level?

In the light of strong economic and social problems of hardship and pervasive hunger in the land for which Nigerians were on the streets for ten days, and some killed, why would anyone be spending as whopping a sum as N12billion on a global exercise for which we were not prepared?

In a country where health care, roads and rural infrastructure present tractable problems, why spend N12billion on what we were not prepared for? When I think about how many hospitals N12billion would have built in some local government areas in Nigeria, I marvel at how good we are at misplacing our priorities as a nation. There is pervasive hunger in Nigeria, and here we are spending N12billion on unprepared athletes. When I think in terms of the fact that pervasive hunger and poverty drove Nigerians into streets for ten days, you may perhaps understand why Nigerians were calling for the sack of the sports minister.

The question supporters of the minister have asked is this –  knowing the level of unpreparedness of Nigeria arising from the way the sports system is said to work, what could the minister have done differently to spare Nigerians already traumatised by hunger protests this huge shame and embarrassment?  Part of my response was a recollection that this same scenario had taken place before. In 2009, during the presidency of Alhaji Yar’Adua, Mr Rotimi Amaechi then governor of Rivers state headed the presidential task force on the Super Eagles.

After a thorough investigation of the issues bedeviling the state of sports unpreparedness in Nigeria, the Amechi committee found out exactly the same unpreparedness of Nigeria that the Hon Minister said he found out. Amaechi recommended Nigeria to place a hold on all of Nigeria’s international football engagements. We will not be talking about the hullabaloo and balderdash that that suggestion elicited.

We will not be talking about it because it was ordinarily an ego trip for Nigeria, that a football competition of a certain magnitude would be taking place on African soil, and Nigeria the supposed giant of Africa was not going to be part of it.

I thought that the Hon Minister of Sports Development, an accomplished farmer and philanthropist would be towing that same path that Amaechi towed. But he didn’t. Instead, he drew up a N12billion budget to take care of a team that only began to be ready to compete only one year before the Olympics. He whipped up strong sentiment that Nigeria was going to replicate the Atlanta 1996 scenario where Nigeria stunned the world in spite of our characteristic unpreparedness.

If you read the so-called apology from the Hon Minister, you would find out that there are real, very real issues with sports administration in Nigeria. One of them is that the buck does not stop at the Minister’s table. Like a lame duck, he does not have the power to sack any member of the Sports Federations. The rules in Nigerian sports are such that not even the president of Nigeria can sack any member of the Sports Federation except in compliance with FIFA rules I have been told.

In the light of the above, I strongly recommend Nigeria adopt the Rotimi Amaechi presidential committee of 2019 report. Let us quietly go back to our drawing board and rethink matters. For the Hon Minister to now be pointing fingers at the system after the fiasco now ordinarily indicates a level of weakness unbecoming of someone with such high and excellent credentials.

I believe that instead of sacking a man who met a system for which he has no control, let Mr Tinubu withdraw Nigeria from all international competitions so as to put our house in order first before we ever venture out again to avoid being made a laughing stock in the comity of nations.

Etemiku is Editor in Chief/Publisher of Wadonor…cultural voice of Nigeria.