It is trite that history can’t be changed, but if its lessons are learnt then it’s possible to prevent it from being repeated. Lessons must be learnt from the recently concluded National Sports Festival tagged Edo 2020. The various government officials referring to the Festival as a “resounding success” merely expose the penchant of public officials who are trusted with national, state or local council responsibilities in Nigeria to never own up to their failures or wrongdoings. They create their own reality in which facts are ignored.
It’s difficult to comprehend what sort of success can be ascribed to an event in which participants suffered inadequate accommodation, poor feeding, intimidation, harassment, bad officiating and irregular and delayed posting of results.
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Edo 2020 only served to indicate the abysmally low standards of organisation which are now acceptable in government endeavours. There appears to be a serious lack of understanding by officials in all tiers of government of their place, roles, responsibilities, powers and relevance in the development of sports. Rather than address the causes of the nation’s shameful decline in sporting prowess, the powers that be continue to hold National Sports Festivals at an astronomical cost in which little sporting achievement of international standards is ever registered.
Administrators who know next to nothing about sports tenaciously cling to office and remain at the helm of affairs without implementing any sustainable programs, competitions or financing. Truthfully it’s never been this bad in the history of Nigerian sports. Sporting facilities suffer from the national malaise of lack of maintenance culture, and the Abuja High-Performance Centre is fast becoming another white elephant project.
Even as both State and Federal government routinely allocate funds meant for sports development to various ill-considered infrastructure projects, twenty-four hours to the EDO 2020’s opening ceremony the necessary operating funds were not available. Instead of the planned 12 days, financial considerations threatened to end the festival after only seven! Claiming that the Federal government was yet to redeem its pledge to support the festival financially, the Edo State government shut down the offices of the organizing committees! Why did it have to come to threats, “garage boy” behaviour, and making the issue public before financing issues could be resolved? The Edo State governor made it clear that he didn’t expect the state to benefit financially from hosting the games, and nobody will ever know how much was actually released and allegedly expended.
Although funding is central, it’s only a small part of the problem. Corruption is the bane of sports in Nigeria as it is with most government-controlled operations. These days its standard practice for sports officials to siphon money whenever funds are made available, leaving sportsmen and women poorly accommodated, underfed, underpaid and under-motivated.
All the talk about EDO 2020 “rekindling the spirit of national unity and togetherness” is of course humbug. Government agencies such as the National Orientation Agency and National Youth Service Corps, and socio-cultural events such as Festivals of Arts and Culture and Independence Day celebrations are budgeted for and funded to enhance unity.
Modern-day sport isn’t about unity, it’s about competition. There is nothing unifying about states not showing interest in sports and not bothering to train athletes but covering up by recruiting participants when the sports festival comes round! The “do or die” and “win by all means fair or foul” syndrome rampant in local sports once again reared its ugly head at EDO 2020. The former Director of the defunct National Sports Commission, Amos Adamu, condemned the regular occurrence of states recruiting “mercenary” athletes from other states, but lamented that nothing can be done about it!
The Main Organizing Committee did disqualify a swimmer and cancel his six medals (4 Gold and 2 Silver) following protests by Rivers State officials. They provided evidence that they were the ones who contracted, camped, prepared and registered him only for him to switch at the last minute to represent another state allegedly as a result of financial inducement! Recruiting mercenaries has become so brazen that one state allegedly went as far as hiring a Kenyan to compete for them in the 10,000 meters event!
The founding dream of the National Sports Festival was to organise a “national olympics” which would unite the nation’s youths in sportsmanship irrespective of sex, ethnicity, religion or social background. That this dream is now a mirage was made apparent by the minimal sportsmanship on display. In Judo, Basketball, Boxing, Taekwondo, Swimming, Football and Athletics there were complaints of unsporting and unethical practices. The Chief Coach of the Lagos State male football team said the officiating was “daylight robbery”. The venue of the boxing event witnessed disgraceful scenes of violence and gunshots when some finals were declared “inconclusive”.
The Nigeria National Sports Policy is a richly crafted document whose introduction states that sports authorities shall undertake periodic assessment of sporting activities to check weaknesses, capacity gaps, and adopt appropriate programmes to correct them. To this end officials of the National Council of Sports have derelicted their duty bringing Nigeria’s once proud and highflying sporting reputation to its knees. In bygone glory days home-grown athletes were the nation’s strength, in spite of this grassroots sports development has been disastrously neglected.
The current state of local sports is so abysmal that the nation is forced to rely on its Diaspora sports persons. Regrettably most of them relocated to foreign shores simply to have access to healthy diets, elite coaches, world class training facilities, decent accommodation, and befitting remuneration, all of which enabled them to excel. There are serious concerns about government’s lack of commitment to sports development and concentration on international competitions for national pride and neglect of grassroots sports.
The decline in the nation’s sporting prowess can only be reversed by restructuring sport as a business, not a government enterprise. Back in 2012 the performance of the Nigerian team at the London Olympics was so shambolic that then President Goodluck Jonathan initiated a one-day retreat on sports. The report like so many others hasn’t been implemented and lays gathering dust.
EDO 2020 got off to an inauspicious start as the vice-president’s aircraft which flew him into Benin to flag off the festival was unable to land due to heavy rains. Those familiar with the antics of rain makers in Edo State viewed it as a bad omen, and so it turned out to be! The Minister of Youth and Sports was absent at the closing ceremony indicating displeasure with the Edo State government’s threat to shut the festival down.
All said and done the need to have a hitch-free, properly funded, free and fair National Sports Festival is imperative if the sports industry is to develop into a major employer and foreign exchange earner. What should have been a great festival of sports was marred by organisational inefficiency, profiteering, racketeering, selfishness and greed. The lesson of history is that such a borderline fiasco should never happen again.
