Team Nigeria’s failure at Paris 2024 Olympics: Matters arising

Nigeria’s failure to win a single medal at the just-concluded Paris 2024 Olympic Games emphasises the tragedy of a towering country of huge human and material resources, struggling almost perpetually to find its feet. The poor showing is a clear indication that the country has not learnt much from its past failures in global sporting competitions. Considering that African countries such as Botswana, Uganda, Egypt, Algeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa and Ethiopia won gold and many other medals, it is no understatement that Nigeria is viewed as a ‘sleeping giant.’ Although in principle, the Olympics is not confined to winning medals but being a part of the world’s highest and most prestigious gathering of sports, there can be no justification for a country with Nigeria’s potential to emerge as a mere observer, after about a month of stiff but healthy competitions.
  

The United States came top with 126 medals, with China coming second with 91, even though both matched each other with 40 gold medals apiece. One of the problems with Team Nigeria which recurs at almost every global sporting competition is the penchant for having an over-bloated contingent, in a seeming attempt to showcase that the country is competent in many events. This needs not to be so, more so as more officials than athletes usually end up on the list. In Paris 2024, 88 athletes represented the country but officials were reportedly more. This must be a misnomer, largely responsible for draining over N9 billion voted for the country’s participation. Nigeria should learn from some other countries that went with a few athletes chosen in areas of their strength and which, not surprisingly, won medals. 
  

Again, as usual, Team Nigeria officials were left with many issues to manage, including desperate efforts to explain the many scandals that dogged the country’s participation in the Games. Sports Development Minister, John Enoh, who mounted the saddle last year, attributed the dismal showing to a lack of preparation time and misplaced priority of the concerned sports federations. This excuse is not tenable for an event that last took place four years ago when preparation should have started. There is something structurally defective in a sports agency that fails to take advantage of four-year intervals in sporting events.

Moreover, this is not the first time that Nigeria will return from the Olympics empty-handed, the last time being the London 2012 edition of the Games, whereas in Paris, Nigeria failed to win a single medal. The then president, Goodluck Jonathan, convened a national summit, where the country’s experts came to x-ray the failure and proffer ideas that would ensure that the country never experienced such poor performance in the future.
 

The summit agreed that Nigeria would change its approach to sports development, rejig its process of preparing for major competitions and ensure that funding would never hinder the country’s route to success in future sporting events. However, those resolutions were discarded with regime change, and so, the poor showings continued.

As was the case at the Japan 2020 edition where many of the country’s athletes were denied the opportunity to compete at the Games due to officials’ negligence, Paris 2024 was not without its Nigerian incidents as one of its brightest prospects, Favour Ofili, was inexplicably not registered for the women’s 100 metres for which she duly qualified. Then, Cynthia Ogunsemilore, who was registered to fight in the women’s 60kg boxing event, was sent out of the Games by the International Testing Agency, who discovered that her system had been spiked with banned drugs.

To avoid the disappointment of Paris 2024, the Federal Government should critically examine the country’s sports infrastructure to ensure that no matter where the talent is based in Nigeria, he will find a space to hone his skills to international standard. A situation where the Confederation of African Football (CAF) finds only one stadium suitable for its competitions as is the case in the current CAF inter-club championships, does not portray the country as a serious sporting nation.
 

The preparation for the 2028 Olympic Games should begin now, as advised by experts, to ensure that the athletes are ready for the four-yearly Games. It is also disheartening that training grants that were supposed to have been given to the athletes four years before the Games, were only made available to the athletes at the competition ground in France. The purpose of budgeting for such money had already been defeated before the championship. There is a need to identify young athletes capable of achieving a podium finish at Los Angeles 2028 and give them adequate financial support to grow into world champions.
 

Similarly, efforts should be made to streamline and concentrate attention on those events in which Nigeria has a comparative advantage, rather than the current situation, where Nigeria, like a Jack of all trades and Master of none, enters every event and fails in all. A rejig of the scouting system is imperative to ensure that no talent is left undiscovered no matter where he is located. But this can only happen when attention is paid more to schools and the grassroots through school sports and inter-local council competitions to unearth fresh talents.
  

Sports funding should not depend on the yearly budget cycle. This is what the Jonathan Summit of 2012 agreed on and the government started implementing it before the succeeding government reversed the status quo.
 

The Federal Government needs to pay serious attention to the forthcoming elections of different sports federations to ensure that only patriotic technocrats are elected to run the sporting associations. Those who milk the federations without contributing anything to the country’s sports development should not be allowed to continue denigrating the system. There should also be a synchronisation of the constitution/statutes of the federation to ensure that every stakeholder is given an equal opportunity to contest or vote in the federation polls.
 

The current situation where the boards of the federations are open to a few politicians and the rich does not bode well for the country. Ensuring a level playing field for all stakeholders is the only way the country can get people with the right ideas to lead the sports sector. Paris 2024, a sad episode for Nigeria, should not be allowed to recur at a time when the country should be gaining greater prominence in global sports.