What killed Nigeria’s athletics

SIR: The sports page of The Guardian, Saturday, May 30, 2015 with a report titled “Nigeria’s Athletics Died Many Years Ago” refers. According to the article, “the President of Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), Solomon Ogba, has declared that the nation’s athletics had been on rapid decline for years”. To him, “Nigeria’s Athletics Died Many Years Ago” and “that his administration was striving hard to revive the system”.

When Ogba took over as AFN president in 2009, he was already a Secretary of Delta State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) since 2006. He held the office of the scribe till 2015. Not only that, Solomon Ogba was the state’s representative at NDDC from 2011-2014. He is also a building and civil engineering contractor.

Ogba is a jack-of-all-trades but appears to be master of none. How can our athletes perform well, when the president of athletics federation was busy doing many jobs?

According to experts, “workers who are doing multiple things at one time are doing them poorly”. That is why Nigeria’s athletics is dying. Multi-taskers are often stressed, more easily distracted by irrelevant stimuli, and, as a result, miss important details. To work on two or more complex tasks simultaneously is not advisable. Nigerians should blame Ogba for the decline in athletics. Seven years (2009-2015) are enough for him to “revive” Nigeria’s athletics, but he failed.

•Omohakpor Enaye, Oleh, Delta State.