CONVERTING THE POSITIVES OF THE FRANCE OLYMPICS

Richard Elesho argues the need to focus on where we have acquired comparative advantage

The Nigerian Sports Ministry needs to recalibrate. This is inevitable following the country’s disastrous outing in the just concluded France Olympics. Indeed, at the risk of prolonging the trauma of national ennui, Nigerian athletes did not win a medal, not even a calabash in the competition. I understand that billions of Naira went down the drain in the exercise. This is particularly regrettable in the face of hunger, insecurity, and infrastructure decadence that daily assault families across the country. Even if our contingent had set out not to succeed, they could not have done worse than they did. 

Expectedly, the matter has dominated public discourse since the end of the games. Nigerians, who by the way are overtly sports-loving, have blamed the performance on poor preparations as marshalled the supervising ministry of sports. They have been villified, reprimanded, and demonised. In fact, knee-jerk analysts have called not only for the sack of personnel but also the scrapping of the ministry, piling all the woes on their heads. An all encompassing recommendation that sounds like the proverbial throwing of the child away with the bath water. 

There is, however, a rainbow of silver linings in the clearly dark horizon. For one, all the athletes presented by the country were rated fit and credible. None of them was indicted of substance abuse. They went, participated, and remained in their God-given natural endowments. Out of the motley 87 that featured in 12 events, not one was accused of taking performance enhancing substances or doping.

This is a major takeaway for a country generally perceived as corrupt and streetwise. Yes,

 our athletes may not have won medals, but they won integrity. 

At another level, the games expanded the frontiers of delivery, responsibility, and accountability in public service. Unlike in the past, when people abdicated their duties and passed the buck when confronted, we saw a detour to the path of honour in Senator John Owan Enoh, Minister of Sports Development who accepted blame for the failures. He refused to pass the buck to his predecessor, Sunday Dare, whose job it was to kick-start preparations for the Paris 2024 Olympics, immediately after the Tokyo 2020 edition of the competition.

In an elaborate post on X, the minister admitted that the nation’s performance should have been a lot better, saying it obviously fell short of its objectives, expectations, and hopes of Nigerians. “I must apologize to our compatriots and reflect on what went wrong while looking forward to the Paralympic Games, Paris 2024,” he humbly submitted. Like someone determined to change the tide, he shed light on some errors, including late and poor preparations. “The concerned Federations obviously prioritized qualification over preparations for the Games. This seems to have always been the case. This has to change. “At the end of the qualification period, the selection of athletes and coaches was the absolute responsibility of each Federation. A few attempts to question selection after I got complaints, were strongly resisted and defended.”

Nigerians may not have won medals for their country, but they made impacts in other areas. For instance, the nation’s female basketball team *D’Tigress,* which lost to serial champions, USA, became the first African team ever to reach the quarter-finals in the Olympics. From the same team, Ezinne Kalu was named into the All-Season Team of the Women’s Paris 2024 Olympic Games Basketball Tournament. She averaged 18.5 points, 3.0 rebounds, 4.0 assists, and 2.5 steals per game. The peak of the positives is the emergence of Rena Wakama, D’Tigress coach, as the best team manager in the games. With these records, Nigeria has now moved four ranks up from 12 to 8 on the FIBA power ranking table. One can not also but notice the exploits of Nigerians who won medals for other countries. Shows our country does have abundance of talent even in diaspora.

Nigeria must build on these encouraging signals to reverse the trajectories in the sports sector. As the minister indicated, early preparations hold the key to success. Not a few analysts have opined that Nigeria’s outing in Paris would have been more glorious if the immediate past administration had stepped up preparation since 2020 when the last Olympic held. Stakeholders must reinvent the “catch-them-young” culture to identify and groom sporting talents, with emphasis on merit over nepotism. There must also be massive infrastructure development across the country. This will allow for requisite familiarisation, exposure, and training with modern facilities. Schools and other grassroots based units will serve as pilot routes. 

A situation where athletes go for competition unarmed with their kits or they are turned back at the point of competition for improper registration must no longer be heard among our representatives. The culture of sending large contingents of athletes and sometimes larger contingents of officials must change. It is time to prioritise our athletes with the requisite focus on where we have acquired comparative advantage over others. Nigeria does not have to take part in all the events lest we end up as a jack of all trades, master of none. God forbid. 

For Minister Enoh, the Nigeria Olympic Committee, (NOC), the Federations, and other stakeholders, the time to begin another four-year journey is now.