Without a doubt, one of the good legacies of the former Minister of Sports Development, Chief Sunday Akin Dare, is the adopt-an-athlete programme which provided financial support for Nigeria’s elite athletes as they prepared for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
One of the primary objectives of the Adopt-an-athlete programme is to raise funds to support the country’s elite athletes who are based at home and abroad. The whole essence is to support athletes with training grants ahead of major tournaments. Stories abound of Nigerian athletes who sometimes have to abandon their training to scavenge for basic necessities.
So, when Dare realised that athletes’ development for podium appearances is capital intensive and the government alone wouldn’t have the financial muscle to shoulder such responsibility, he came up with the initiative to woo corporate organisations and state governments to fund the training and participation of the athletes who had qualified for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Although the programme launched by the former Minister in 2019 was initially dogged by needless controversies, it weathered the storm and brought on board prominent corporate organisations, influential Nigerians and state governors to adopt some of the athletes who held prospects for podium appearances at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
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It was through the programme that the then Delta State Governor Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa adopted seven athletes to support their preparations. The adopted athletes included Favour Ofili, Blessing Okagbare, Divine Oduduru, and Raymond Ekevwo. Itshekiri Usheorise, Ogho Oghene Egwero, and Ese Brume.
On their part, security risk group, Halogen, adopted Commonwealth gold medallist and world wrestling championship bronze medallist Odunayo Adekuoroye. The gains of the initiative were said to have trickled down to even local athletes who needed support to grow.
Even as the impact of the adaptation programme wasn’t felt very much at the Tokyo Olympics where Nigeria managed to return home with only one silver medal, and one bronze in wrestling and athletics respectively, a foundation was laid for the sourcing of additional training grants for Nigerian athletes.
However, when Senator John Owan Enoh succeeded Dare as Minister of Sports, the programme didn’t receive much attention as the euphoria that greeted its arrival in 2019 died away without a whimper. Once again, the government was solely responsible for the huge task of funding athletes’ training and participation at the disastrous 2024 Paris Olympics.
It is against this background that the reactivation of the programme by the National Sports Commission (NSC), led by Malam Shehu Dikko, is highly commendable. On Wednesday, December 11, the poster-girl of Nigeria’s athletics, Ese Brume, who recently survived a ghastly car accident, became the first beneficiary of the reactivated programme.
Speaking at the event to mark the partnership with Coinfetti Assets limited, Dikko commended the company for its generous support which he said was in line with the vision of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to drive sports development in Nigeria through a sustainable public-private partnership (PPP). The Commission also used the opportunity to reiterate its commitment to innovative approaches to raising funds for athletes’ development, elite sports, and grassroots initiatives.
While this inventive plan geared towards generating enough funds for athletes’ development is commendable, it is necessary to charge those who are saddled with the responsibility to always exhibit a high level of transparency in the dispensation of such to the beneficiaries. This is the only way they can sustain the confidence and interest of its partners. If possible, the funds should be sent directly into the bank accounts of the adopted athletes.
However, the commission on its part must monitor closely how these athletes utilise the funds. The moment they begin to perceive the grants as freebies to be diverted to other things that wouldn’t enhance their performances, the essence of the programme would be defeated.
Indeed, the NSC deserves another round of applause for overcoming the temptation to completely jettison the programme for a fresh initiative. This is an indication that the NSC Chairman and the Director-General are willing to sustain some of the good programmes that were started by their predecessors. This is not common in a country where government is hardly seen as a continuum. Any time a new administration comes on board, it finds nothing that is worthy of emulation from the past leadership.
It is, therefore, necessary to urge the new bosses at the NSC to further scrutinise their handover notes to see if there are other programmes that as marketing experts, they could quickly repackage to effectively deliver on their mandate. Apart from the adaptation of athletes, the Ministry of Sports under Chief Dare introduced the adopt-a-pitch initiative.
Even though there wasn’t much success with it, Africa’s richest man, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, was convinced by the ministry to sink a whopping one million dollars into the renovation of the MKO Abiola National Stadium in Abuja. The popular Lagos based business mogul and philanthropist, Kessington Adebutu ‘Baba Ijebu’ also agreed to renovate the moribound Lagos National Stadium Surulere. Unfortunately, after gulping huge sums of money, these two stadia can’t host any international competition. The case of the Lagos Stadium is even more pathetic as it lies desolate after hosting memorable matches. Maybe the initiative was good, but execution was done haphazardly.
So, this is one of the failed initiatives that the new helmsmen at the NSC may wish to review as they try to chart the way forward for Nigerian sports. After all, they have promised so much, and much is expected from them. Therefore, just as a drowning man will clutch at any straw, Dikko and Bukola Olopade should be ready to make use of any available opportunity at their disposal to change the Nigerian sports ecosystem, especially in the area of athletes development.
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