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| Abdullahi, Nigeria Sport Minister |
For Nigeria, a nation of over 160
million citizens, its not a smiling time at all, especially those who
understand sport as a unifying factor for the country and given the undeserving
abysmal performances, which forced the Hon. Minister of Sports and Chairman,
National Sports Commission, Mr. Bolaji Abdullahi, to declare that the task
ahead is grimly clear.
According to him, they spent about
two weeks in London for the 2012 Olympics with a contingent of 51 sportsmen and
women competing in eight (8) sports namely, athletics, weightlifting,
taekwondo, boxing, wrestling, table tennis, canoeing and basketball.
Nigeria, he said, competed in the
last two for the first time ever, even though the nation did not expect to win
the competition, they arrived hoping to make a decent showing. Just as they
even had reasons to believe to surpass some of the recent achievements at this
level of competing. Why not?
Also, he said, they arrived London
riding on the wave of a short but intensive preparation of our athletes in
different parts of the world where they did not only have the benefits of high
quality facilities and technical support, as well as had the opportunity to
match up against some of the best athletes from other parts of the world, and
on some occasions, beating them.
Many commentators, he said, agreed
that while not ideal, have had one of Nigerian best preparations coming into
this competition in recent years. This, coupled with a system that put athletes’
welfare at the heart of planning and an atmosphere devoid of rancor and
acrimony, Nigeria believed would guarantee a couple of medals.
However, here we are, by the end of
the competition, Team Nigeria is still not on the medals table, describing it
as disappointing for “my team and myself as it is for all Nigerians everywhere.
But even as painful as this disappointment is, Nigeria must have the courage to
see it for what it is. This, therefore, is a scientific diagnosis of our
condition; a clear testimony to how far Nigerian sports have fallen behind.
“We shall therefore not attempt any
excuses or indulge in any unproductive blame game. Rather than see this as a
failure, we must see it as an opportunity to rebuild. When other countries have
found themselves in this kind of situation in the past, they have used the
galvanizing power of disappointment to get down to work,” he urged.
Pointing out that at Atlanta 1996
Olympics, Team Great Britain won only one gold medal. Returning home, the right
questions were asked, and the necessary actions were taken. Four years later in
Sydney, they returned with 11 gold out of 28 medals.
In Beijing four years ago, they
returned with 19 gold medals out of 47, placing them in the fourth position.
Today, Team GB is sitting pretty in the third position of the medals table
surpassing their own expectation. Today, they are able to look back and say
they have moved from “zeroes to heroes.” This is our chance. We can also do it.
We must see this crisis as the necessary disequilibrium required for serious
actions and drastic change.
We will not allow this opportunity
to pass. Having being appointed Minister and Chairman, National Sports
Commission only two months to the Olympics, I have had to learn very quickly.
And I have not received a better lesson than in the last two weeks of the
London 2012 Olympics.
He outlined three key lessons from
2012 Olympics, namely: 1. Olympics medal is about hard cash. It is not a
coincidence that the medals table appears to reflect the level of economic
development of the countries. But having the resources is one thing, making the
right strategic investment is another.
Team Great Britain largely owes its dramatic success to what is
described as “unprecedented financial investment” totaling up to more than 740
million GBP over 15 years. The current annual spending on sports stands at 100
million GBP. However, only 40 per cent of this comes from the treasury, while
the remaining 60 per cent is lottery fund. Conversely, Australia finished
fourth in Sydney with 16 gold medals. In London, Australia has fallen outside
the top 10 with 6 gold medals. Australians have blamed reduced funding for
elite athletes and a lack of facilities at the grassroots levels.
2. Every medal is clearly projected
and carefully planned for both in financial and technical terms over a
sustained period of time. Only years of intensive, unrelenting training and
preparation can win medals. There is no short cut.
Medals are won by people who have
worked hardest not by those who have prayed hard. We can only win medals by
building systems that are capable of producing medalists and champions not by
selecting athletes that we hope can win medals.
3. Olympics are a lifetime
commitment. The champion is in the child. Ye Shiwen, the 16 year old Chinese
girl that shocked the swimming world by setting a new world record in
individual medley was only 12 when her country hosted the Olympics. Lizzie
Armistead who won the Team GB’s first medal in this Olympics with Silver in
cycling got her first bicycle at the age of 4.
The immediate challenge for us is
how to translate these lessons into concrete actions in the days ahead. The
process of rebuilding will start with the National Sports Festival in Lagos
later this year. We shall use this event to flag-off preparation for the 2014
Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and thereafter the 2016 Olympics in Brazil.
Some of the top priorities in the
days ahead, he said, are therefore to: (1) Identifying five sports that give us
competitive opportunities. (2)
Restructuring the Federations of these Sports to make them more democratic,
accountable and efficient. (3)
Developing a Sports Calendar that will ensure year-round sports activities both
within and outside the schools. (4)
Strategic engagement with the private sector with the aim to improve funding
for sports. (5) Strengthen our coaching
and training capabilities by developing strategic partnership with national and
international bodies. I thank all of you here for your support and understanding.
“We will keep this conversation going,
in our belief that you in the media are our major strategic ally in the great
task ahead. I want to say thank you to all my athletes and their coaches. They
have all tried their best. Even though they have not won medals, many of them
got to the quarter finals, the semifinals and finals of their various events
and even setting new national, Africa and Commonwealth records in the process.
But this is the Olympics, where micro-seconds have made the difference between
gold medals and no medals.
“You are all our heroes and we can
only hope to build on your achievements. I thank the Federal Government and the
people of Nigeria everywhere for their wonderful support and understanding
during this difficult time. The task ahead has been made grimly clear. Therefore,
let’s get down to work,” he submitted.
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