A shabby Olympic outing

•Heads ought to roll for this dismal performance 

But for the bronze medal that the nation’s under-23 soccer squad – the so-called Dream Team – brought home, Nigeria’s representation at the just-concluded XXXl Olympiad in Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, would have been an unrelieved disaster.

The glory of the Olympics once lay in participation, not in winning. But that was in ancient Greece, its birthplace. To be sure, qualifying for the Olympics is a major achievement, but neither the competitors nor the countries they represent now regard mere participation as a distinction.

Winning is the measure of distinction, with the gold medal signifying the highest athletic accomplishment.  It is also a way through which nations project what has been called “soft power,” the power deriving from their way of life, their value systems, their institutions and, in general, from their culture.

Nigeria’s policy-makers appear not to see competitive international sport, of which the Olympics is the highest manifestation, in this larger context. That is why, year after year, they enter sporting competitions woefully unprepared, trusting that an abundance of team talent and good luck will see them through. Even where the national team won the ultimate trophy, it was due more to superior skills than to superior motivation or superior organisation and logistic support, all of which were lacking in the run-up to and the Olympics.

The contingent of 74 competitors left Nigeria for Rio without the outfit for the march past. For the parade seen around the world, it had to don the outfit from the previous Olympics held in Beijing, China. The soccer team was stranded for days in Atlanta, and arrived in Rio just seven hours before its first match. Some athletes made their way to Rio on their own, without any support from the sports authorities back home.

The soccer team had to threaten to boycott a crucial match against Denmark before the players were paid their earned bonuses when, in all probability, the officials had collected their allowances to the last dollar before leaving Nigeria.

Samson Siasia, the team’s coach, announced his resignation over the weekend. He had not been paid for five months. He said he had had enough of disrespect from officials. Stephen Keshi, the late and much-lamented coach of the nation’s premier soccer team, the Super Eagles, had suffered the same shabby treatment.

This ham-handedness gravely undermines Nigeria’s image and its competitiveness in international sport.

The Games of the XXXI Olympiad were not conjured up overnight. The planning was meticulous, and nothing was left to chance. The Nigerian Olympic Committee participated in the planning. The schedule was released in detail several years ahead of the event. The National Sports Commission was fully aware that Nigeria would enter the competition, and cognisant of the financial and other implications. But rarely has Nigeria witnessed a failure of mobilisation and a failure of preparedness on the Rio 2016 scale in its sporting history.

Officials charged with the administration of sport failed the Olympic contingent in a primary sense, and the nation in a larger sense, given the place that sport has come to occupy in the way countries are perceived. They betrayed Nigeria’s respectable record in previous Olympiads in track and field, soccer, boxing, and weight lifting.

This shameful outing demands a shake-up in the sports ministry, the National Sports Commission, the Nigerian Athletic Federation, and the Nigerian Olympics Committee.

As the senior political official under whose watch the Rio fiasco occurred, the Minister of Sport, Solomon Dalung, should without further delay submit his resignation to the President, failing which the President should dismiss him. Other officials directly responsible for Nigeria’s miserable showing in Rio 2016 should also be made to face the consequences of their dereliction.

The XXXl Olympiad will be staged four years hence, in Tokyo, Japan. Considering what it takes to scout for athletes of great promise, recruit, train and motivate them for competition on the world stage, the event is almost upon us. If the derelictions that marked and marred Nigeria’s participation in the Rio 2016 are not to be repeated, the time to start preparing for Tokyo 2020 is now, today.