Months ago, I ordered leather bags for my sister and me from a Nigerian Instagram bag maker I hadn’t used before. Her bags looked great online, she seemed young and ambitious, her prices were reasonable, and I wanted to support her. She sent the bags to Abuja in June, along with a couple of free wallets as a thank-you gift. Folks, the bags and wallets were so poorly made—the stitches were uneven, some were already coming undone because the glue wasn’t strong enough, and none of the bags resembled the photos she had posted.
When I contacted her, she was apologetic and offered to remake the bags (no, thank you). Curious about the poor quality, I asked her what happened. She said, and I kid you not, that the bags on Instagram were made from faux leather, and she had never worked with real leather before but thought she could manage. “It was harder than I thought. I’m sorry, I’ve already spent the money and can’t return it,” she said.
I don’t fault her for trying. However, the fact that she didn’t stop after the first attempt, and that her lack of foresight didn’t prevent her from sending out bags she herself admitted were subpar, is why I doubt her business will succeed. Myopia is the enemy of success. We saw that too at the Olympics, where Nigeria (not the athletes) performed abysmally. As long as the status quo remains, LA 2028 will be just as bad.
After the Paris Olympics, Nigeria’s sports minister, John Owan Enoh, like my bag maker, admitted that Nigeria (not its athletes) was just fumbling. He confessed that despite telling Nigerian athletes to go win medals, Nigeria hadn’t prepared them for anything. When he took office in 2023, he revealed, he “held extensive discussions with the management staff of the Ministry and learned that preparations for the Olympics, which was less than a year away, had not even started.” How were they supposed to win? Khaki na leather?
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Take Ese Ukpeseraye, a cyclist at the Paris Games, who was sent in with a bike borrowed from the Germans to compete in a race she wasn’t prepared for and wasn’t even registered for until another country was disqualified and a slot opened up. Like the young woman who forged ahead to make me those atrocious bags, Nigeria didn’t know when to say “No thanks.” You don’t take opportunities that leave you flat on your face. What’s with this FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)?
More damning is Ukpeseraye’s revelation that the expensively built Abuja Velodrome, with “a very beautiful track… the best in Africa,” is barred to cyclists for training because it is rented out for religious services and “other activities” throughout the year. How is this even possible? And it gets worse.
The perennially negligent Athletics Federation failed to register Favour Ofili for the 100-meter race—a race she had spent years preparing for. Annette Echikunwoke, another victim of the AFN’s incompetence at the 2020 Tokyo Games, switched allegiance to the US and won a silver medal in the Hammer Throw. Perhaps by LA 2028, we’ll see Ofili wearing another country’s jersey, like so many Nigerian athletes who have switched and won medals elsewhere. Who would blame them? Who wants their dreams crushed by a country that doesn’t care? Who wants to represent a country where, when you finish sixth in the 200-meter race and are crying, not a single official is there to console you, as happened to Ofili? I bet those officials were too busy sightseeing and shopping in Paris.
Minister Enoh, AFN President Okowa, and NOC Chairman Habu Gumel should all be sacked and replaced with competent administrators who actually know what they’re doing—and who care. They’ve shown they are unqualified for the positions they hold. More troubling, they’ve shown that, like my bag maker, they aren’t embarrassed to present their nonsense to the world, even when they know it’s nonsense.
Anyone incapable of embarrassment lacks the humility to learn and, therefore, to lead. Embarrassment reflects a sense of accountability—an awareness that you’ve fallen short of expectations. It shows you care about your responsibilities and the people you serve. When leaders, like my bag maker or Nigeria’s sports officials, lack that basic instinct, they fail to grow, pulling everyone down with them.
Let’s hope LA 2028 isn’t a repeat of Paris 2024. Let’s also be aware that “hope” isn’t a strategy. Amen.
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