As the year 2012 rolls by, Nigerians will be counting their blessings or bemoaning the state of the sector under President Goodluck Jonathan. Based on the abundance of talents in all nooks and crannies of the country, Nigeria should be to be among top leading sporting nations in the world. But the story of Nigeria’s sports in the year under review was clustered in the abysmal failure of Team Nigeria contingent at the London 2012 Olympics Games.
The most populous black nation with over 167million people left the London Olympic Games without a medal to show for its participation in the event. It was Nigeria’s worst Olympic result since 1988. But thanks to the Paralympic athletes who a week later salvaged the country’s image and did the country proud.
The Paralympians unlike their Olympics counterparts who had no medals to show for their efforts, went to London, saw and conquered; winning a total of 13 medals made up of six gold, five silver and two bronzes. Nigeria’s disable athletes were the kings of powerlifting as 12 of the country’s medals were won in the event, smashing several world records while a consolatory bronze medal was won in the Women’s Shotput by Eucharia Iyiazi. They placed 12 out of a total of 74 countries on the medals table and were Africa’s third best, coming after Tunisia and South Africa.
The sterling performance of the Team Nigeria paralympians was worth celebration and President Jonathan satisfied by their performances rewarded them with monetarily and national honours.
The Team Nigeria poor show at the Olympics was attributed to lack of funds and the shambolic state of the national sports administration. Whereas $423m was invested in the British Olympic team, Nigeria’s sportsmen and women were allocated just $15m for both Olympians and Paralympians whereas Kenya, with less than one-third of Nigeria’s population and a fraction of its revenue-earning, got 11 medals and Ethiopia, seven medal and even Uganda and Gabon got one medal each for their efforts at the quadrennial multi-sports events.
Presidential retreat
According to minister and chairman National Sports Commission (NSC), Malam Bolaji Abdullahi, Team Nigeria’s disastrous outing could be a blessing in disguise for setting the tune for the country to start looking towards a successful development of its sports sector. Rather than seeing it as a failure, the government galvanized the disappointment and got down to work with President Goodluck Jonathan leading charge for improving the performance of Nigeria’s athletes in subsequent Olympics.
The President called stakeholders to brainstorm and interact at the presidential retreat on how to return Nigeria to the pinnacle of sports development. Jonathan, who never hid his disappointment over Team Nigeria’s horrific outing in London and eager to reposition sports for improved performance, told the audience that restoring Nigeria’s past glory in sports and bringing dignity to the nation at sporting events is not negotiable.
This is because according to him there is no sector in the country’s national life that has the greater force of mobilising and uniting Nigerians as sports. “It is only sports that Muslims and Christians sing the same songs, dance the same steps; and therefore, we must encourage sporting activities in this country.
“We always remember what happened at the Olympics in 1996 in Atlanta, the golden era of Nigerian sports when Chioma Ajunwa made us proud with one gold in long jump and our football team when people like Kanu Nwankwo and Jay Jay Okocha were there and made us proud with gold in football. The celebration of that year made Nigerians very proud, especially when you consider that we defeated great teams to achieve the feat.
But within the period we were celebrating, we begin to lose and not that we were not doing well in sports. We believe that we have done very well in sports, and individual Nigerian has done well in sports, but as a country we are going backward, and one thing that gives a country a good image is sports. Sports project a country well internationally. So we must find a way of supporting sporting activities in the country and that is why we have decided to invite you to today’s retreat,” he said.
To achieve the desire target and the yearning for reorganization, the president charged all the 36 states of the federation and FCT to look at the area of sports they have comparative advantage to develop.
Football
Football which has been the most populous sport in the country had a mixed feeling among Nigerians in the year under review. The visible achievement was the qualification of Super Eagles for the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations in South Africa. Unlike the horrors 2011 where all the national teams failed to qualify for their respective continental and world cup campaigns, the teams including the Flying Eagles and Golden Eaglets picked continental tickets to represent Nigeria at their respective African Youth Championships in Guinea and Morocco.
While the Falconets and Flamingoes distinguished themselves at the FIFA Under-20 and 17 Women World Cup held in Japan and Azerbaijan, reaching the semifinal and quarter finals of the events respectively, Super Falcons failed to defend their African Women title in Equatorial Guinea.
The team finished fourth in the event behind host, Equatorial Guinea, South Africa and Cameroon. Not-too-impressed by the team performance, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) disbanded the team immediately on their return from Equatorial Guinea. But that was after Coach Kadiri Ikhana who guided the team to the tournament resigned his appointment.
The Super Falcons entered the competition as defending champions but lost to South Africa in the semi-finals and also failed to beat Cameroon in the third-placed game. NFF noted that there is no need keeping the team which failed to retain the AWC trophy in Equatorial Guinea. They also lamented the poor showing of the team after they gave them every necessary support before the competition. They however promised to reconstitute the team in no distant time.
Also, Nigeria’s representative in both CAF Champions League and Confederation Cup put up abysmal performance with the exception of Sunshine Stars of Akure which made it to the semifinal of the CAF Champions League before having their ambition cut short by Egyptian giants, Al Ahly.
NPL Brouhaha
Nigeria’s football administration is never devoid of any crisis. And in the year under review, the Chief Rumson Victor Baribote led Nigeria Premier League (NPL) administration was sacked by club owners. Pundits believe they acted on the instruction given to them by their masters at the National Sports Commission (NSC) and Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).
The two hotels in Abuja where the impeachment/dissolution of the Baribote-led NPL board were drawn and implemented are more of a battleground than the convivial atmosphere naturally associated with sports events (in the words of Romanus Ogwu)
Baribote was unanimously kicked out at the 7th annual congress of the NPL held on December 11 in Abuja after being accused of misappropriation of funds, lack of transparency and accountability which the club owners claimed were responsible for the inability of Nigeria’s top flight to attract sponsorship for the past two seasons.
NFF at their Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in Port Harcourt, ratified NPL congress decision in sacking Baribote and therefore set up a 13-man committee which includes former Nigerian international, Nwankwo Kanu. Baribote we learnt is challenging his impeachment in the courts.
Athletics
Three weeks to the London Olympic Games, Team Nigeria regained the top spot of Africa athletics by winning the 18th African Athletics Championship held in Port Novo, Republic of Benin. Vivian Chukwuemeka’s dominant display in the women’s shot put final and the fantastic 4x400m run by the Nigeria’s men and women’s relay teams headlined the last day of competition and the country’s successful return to the summit of African athletics.
Chukwuemeka, the 2002 Commonwealth Games queen set a new African, national and championship record of 18.86m to lead a Nigerian top three sweep of the medals at stake in the Shot put. Chinwe Okoro who won Nigeria’s first gold medal at the championship settled for silver (16.21m) while Omotayo Talabi picked the gold with a put of 15.63m.
The women’s 1600 relay set the tone for an intriguing finish with a new championship record of 3:28.77 to beat Botswana led by individual 400m winner and reigning world champion, Amantle Montsho. This victory tied Nigeria and Kenya on nine gold medals each with the men’s 4x400m event the decider for Nigeria which needed to win the gold to be crowned African champions.
The quartet of Salihu Issah, Amaechi Morton, Abiola Onakoya and anchor-leg runner, Saul Weigopwa ran superbly and deservedly picked the gold with a new 3:02.39 seconds record to put Nigeria on top of the medals table 12 years after it last enjoyed that privilege in Dakar, Senegal.
The last day haul of five gold, two silver and two bronze medals was thus enough for Nigeria to push aside Kenya which beat the Nigerians by just one gold medal two years earlier on home soil in Nairobi. Nigeria thus finished first with 10 gold, six silver and five bronze medals with Kenya second with nine gold, nine silver and nine bronze medals. South Africa, the 2008 champions came third with six gold, 10 silver and eight bronze medals.
Nigeria set a total of three championships and one African record in the five-day competition with Chukwuemeka topping her 17.60m championships record set in Tunis in 2002, the first time she was crowned African champions in the event with an African-record setting 18.86m. Blessing Okagbare also erased Chioma Ajunwa’s 6.78m record with a new 6.96m record while the women’s 4x400m relay team erased the 3:29.26 record set by the quartet of Shade Abugan, Margaret Etim, Bukola Abogunloko and Ajoke.
Basketball
Though Nigeria’s flag-bearers at the London Olympic Games’ basketball event were beaten and dismantled by United States which set an Olympic record with 156 points, the highest ever in Olympics history against Nigerian team, the team made history.
The fact that D’ Tigers made their first appearance in the basketball at the Olympics setting a new record of African team to win a match at the Olympics was a laudable achievement.
Even though Nigeria had always been an African superpower, one of its weakest zones in sports is the basketball ranking. Their journey to Olympics qualification wasn’t an easy one even as basketball analysts such as ESPN’s Fran Fraschilla said that Nigeria has no chance.
Despite many stumbling blocks, they shocked everyone by beating European powerhouse Greece and Venezuela on their way to qualifying for the 12-team basketball competition in London. The team made an impressive start to the London games, winning their first game, beating Tunisia 60-56. With the victory, D’Tigers becomes the first basketball team in African’s sporting history to win a match at the Olympics.
Scrabble
Nigeria also retained its title as African leading scrabble playing nation with Nigeria’s Rex Ogbakpa taking over from his compatriot, Wellington Jighere as the new African champion and carting away the top prize of the five days event. Ogbakpa won 21 of the 30 games played with a cumulative of +1700 points to beat another Nigerian, Owolabi Lukeman who had 20 wins with cumulative + 1171points to the top prize. Another Nigerian, Omosefe, Prince finished third with 19 wins and cumulative points of +1369.
It was a Nigeria affair at the 9th African scrabble Championship in Zambia as the competition was only stiff within Team Nigeria’s contingent and only them smashed each other in the top 10, in spite of the notable absence of several Nigeria’s key players like two-time African champions, Dennis Ikekeregor, Wellington Jighere, Chinedu, Umujose, Sammy, Moshood, Rashide and others.
Other Nigerians in top 10 are Etim Nsikan, who comes 4th with 19 wins, Karo Eta with 18 wins is 5th Kenyan Ndeitu Gitonga finished 6th with 18 and cumulative points of +1394. He was followed by Ugandan Mugisha Philip-Edwin who also had 18 wins but with cumulative difference of +672. Nigerian Mayuku Tuoyo, Kabir Olaiya and Nigeria national team coach, Victor Owokere occupies 8, 9 and 10 spots respectively.
National Sports Festival
Sports events in the year under review came to a climax with the successful hosting of the 18th National Sports Festival by Lagos State. The event came to a thrilling end with Team Delta State coming first and taking away the prize money and giant trophy.
Popular artistes like Tiwa Savage, Wande Coal, Whiz Kid, Seun Kuti and the Egypt 80 band held the sizeable crowd at the Teslim Balogun Stadium venue of the closing ceremony spellbound for the duration of the event. There was also several rounds of fireworks display which will go down as one of the best in the country in recent times.
Minister of sports and National Sports Commission chairman, Bolaji Abdulahi, who stood in for the President of the Federal Republic Goodluck Johnathan rated the Eko 2012 Games very high. He commended the athletes for their resilience and for the spirit of sportsmanship demonstrated all through the games.
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