TAIWO ALIMI chronicles the long list of top athletes bearing Nigerian blood and names but raked in medals for other countries at the Tokyo Olympic Games.
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Talent drain hits Nigerian sport as budding athletes leave the country in drones.
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Our adopted countries inspire us to win – Athlete
The story of Edrice Femi Adebayo has inspired many youngsters and it will continue to stir generations to come.
Better known as Bam Adebayo, the NBA star has risen from obscurity to fame. He rose from living in a caravan park because his mother could not afford a decent apartment to becoming one of the highest-paid sports icons.
Last November, the 24-year-old basketball player agreed to a five-year $163 million deal with Miami Heat, with escalator clauses that could take it as high as $195 million. His $28 million annual salary ranks 38 in the Top 50 NBA earners this season.
The 6 feet 9inches Miami Heat center can now afford life luxuries. He bought his mother a palatial mansion and anything she wants.
He also made the United States of America (US) team to the just concluded Tokyo Olympic Games helping them to win another basketball gold medal.
At birth, Adebayo was a full fledge Nigerian, born to a Nigerian migrant and an African-American mother. The story as told by Adebayo is that his father, John Adebayo, deserted them when he was only some months old leaving the mother, Marilyn Blount, the huge responsibility of taking care of their child.
Adebayo had a rough upbringing in Forest Acres South Carolina, a neighborhood where gangsters reign supreme. With a crime rate of 68 per one thousand residents, it has one of the highest crime rates in America. One’s chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime is one in 15.
It is worse when you are classified and live among the poorest of the poor in a rundown caravan station. There is no boundary for residents to rein in their kids who are left roaming around the communities and in between caravans.
Bam could remember their home that is no more than a box with four walls. In those narrow four walls, Bam discovered that nothing is easy and that everything you have is achieved through struggle and effort.
Marilyn struggled to make ends meet on her supermarket assistant’s meager salary but ensured Bam attended school and joined the basketball gang because she played basketball at High school too. There was a picture of her school team on their wall to remind him that basketball was the way out of Forest Acres and poverty.
With a focus based on motherly guidance and support, the ‘American Dream’ became a reality and so when Adebayo was invited to join the Dream Team (US Basketball team), he did not hesitate.
He assisted the team to win the Olympic gold back to back for the fourth time in the summer games in Tokyo- Japan.
The center played a huge role in US success featuring in all six games and averaging 7.0 points, 5.2 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 1.6 steals, and 1.4 blocks per game. His defensive presence can be clearly seen through these statistics.
He played 20.4 minutes per game to join the exclusive list of Miami Heat Olympics gold medallists. He joins LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Alonzo Mourning, and Tim Hardaway in that club.
Though Adebayo was eligible to play for his fatherland Nigeria, he chose her motherland U.S. This is not because Nigeria did not try but the inspiration, aspiration, and attraction of Team USA were too impressive to ignore. Nigeria’s loss thus became America’s gain.
With an unmistakable Nigerian name that can easily be traced to the Western Yoruba ethnic group, Adebayo left Tokyo with a gold medal for the US.
Sadly, he was not alone. More than twenty athletes were in Tokyo with Nigerian names but with passports from other countries.
MORE THAN NAME
Among them was Desalu Eseosa, who ran the anchor leg of Italy’s Men’s 4x100m relay to win gold ahead of the U.S, Great Britain, and Canada.
His story is similar to that of Adebayo, though, with a slight twist.
Unlike Adebayo, both parents of Eseosa are Nigerians. They came together from Nigeria to Italy in 1991 and settled in the province of Cremona but the husband abandoned his wife soon after the birth of their son.
Like Adebayo, the speed star was raised under the condition of the absentee father by a mother who defiled the popular choice of selling her body or begging for money. Saddled with a toddler to fend for, she combined two or more jobs to be able to put food on their table and to send Desalu to a respectable school.
No job was difficult or demeaning for ‘Mamma Veronica’ as she is fondly called. She would do home help during the day and at night tend to elderly people.
At other times, she harvests tomatoes, a tough job only African migrants sign up for.
She, however, disciplined her boy to work hard at school and aim for the top.
Due to the strict immigration law in Italy, Eseosa had to wait till 18 years before filing for Italian citizenship in spite of his birth in the European country. He was granted.
His mother did not encourage him to come to Nigeria, though, her eldest daughter lives there and the Olympic gold medalist for Italy has never been to Nigeria. He is in soul and body Italian. He feels Nigerian only in name.
“I have never been to Nigeria and, right now I don’t feel the need to go. I don’t even know the national anthem of Nigeria. My roots are in Africa and I don’t ignore them but I consider myself deeply Italian,” he said.
While Desalu is celebrating his gold for Italy, Nigeria failed to qualify for the men’s 4x100m event in Tokyo despite pushing hard after failing to attend the World Relays where they could have gotten a ticket more easily.
IN THE MIX
Other athletes in the mix are Ujah Chindu (Great Britain), Ajomale Bolad (Canada), Akinradewo Foluke (USA), Chiebuka Emmanuel Ihemeje (Italy), Lawrence Okoye (Great Britain) Chinedu Ujah (Great Britain) Ezine Okparaebo (Norway), Barthelemy Chinenyeze (France) Tobi Fahwahinmi ( USA) and Nadia Eke (Ghana)
Competing in his second Olympic Games for Great Britain after his debut in Rio, Ujah narrowly missed out on the 4x100m gold but had a silver medal to his name.
The gold medal was won by Italy where his countryman Desalu, though in name only, competed.
The difference in Ujah’s tale is that he has a father that stayed, but who did not like sport and a career in it.
Ujah’s father was an engineer who moved from Nigeria to England as a boy. The sprinter admitted it was difficult convincing his father that a career in athletics was the right choice for him.
“I used to play football for my local club and was pretty good. Dad was not too impressed with football and he didn’t like the idea of me going pro. When I was doing athletics he thought it was just a hobby, and I set my heart on showing him that it wasn’t just a little thing on the side.”
Though, his father believed more in education and discouraged his inborn talent, local coaches’ saw through him and encouraged him to try out in school athletics.
“I wanted to play football but coaches who saw me on the pitch, advised I join athletics team.”
In 2008, he watched Usain Bolt stole the limelight at Beijing Olympics setting a new 100m record (9.72 seconds) in the process and that feat and confidence inspired him to take sprint more serious.
“I wasn’t doing the sport in 2008, but I watched the Olympics and remember Bolt slapping his chest while crossing the line in Beijing. I thought, ‘Yeah, I want to take up athletics. The following year I did a few races and then in 2010 I started taking the sport a bit more seriously.”
Born and bred in England, he doesn’t think of Nigeria, given that the system rightly influenced his career.
The 27-year-old has been to two Olympics and countless European Championships with countless medals at the junior level, all for Great Britain.
Then, here comes Bolade Ajomale who also featured in the 4x100m men’s final in Tokyo and helped Canada to podium finish.
He was born in London, England, but briefly moved back to his parent’s home country of Nigeria at age three. He spent his formative years in Nigeria before going abroad again, this time to Canada at age 11.
Collegiate sport attracted him to athletics and before long he had become a force to reckon with, winning the indoor 60m as well as the 100m and 200m titles in the NCAA Div. 2 Champion in 2018.
At Rio Olympics, Ajomale attended his first Olympics and was part of the team that won the bronze medal, a feat that was repeated in Tokyo behind Italy and Great Britain.
Watching the podium finish for the 4X100m Men’s relay in Tokyo, three names stood out; Desalu Eseosa, Chindu Ujah, and Bolade Ajomale, without a doubt Nigerian, stepping up to claim gold, silver, and bronze for Italy, Great Britain, and Canada respectively.
Rotimi Obajimi, the foremost athletics coach and former technical director of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) is bemused at this development.
“Desalu, Ujah, and Bolade on Olympics’ podium with gold, silver, and bronze medals, imagine if they are running for their fatherland Nigeria? He asked metaphorically.
Akinradewo Foluke also carries a name popular in Western Nigeria. Foluke is a trend among Yoruba family usually given to their females. Hardly can you go through a family history without getting a Foluke.
The Olympics veteran has made the US volleyball team on three occasions, Tokyo been her third. She holds multiple citizenship of Nigeria, US and Canada, but chose to play for US where she made her name.
Akinradewo had a glorious outing in Tokyo helping the US team win gold ahead of perennial foe Brazil.
She initially competed in athletics and basketball, but was encouraged by the volleyball coach to give the sport a try. She first tried the sport at age 16 in the U.S.
“The first week I thought ‘this is crazy’, I was just awful, and I was sore in areas I didn’t know I could be sore. When I thought about volleyball I thought about picnics and barbecues, really chilled, but it definitely wasn’t. It was a rude awakening, but I think the challenge of it kept me going.”
Born to Nigerian parents (Ayoola and Comfort), in Canada, the family moved to the US, where she began to excel in athletics, basketball, and later, volleyball.
At 33, Akinradewo, returned to the Olympics after marriage and childbearing to return home, being the U.S, with gold.
Aside from the medal diggers, more Nigerian names surfaced in Tokyo in the colours of other countries.
Among them were Monica Okoye (Japan), Chiebuka Ihemeje – (Italy), Lawrence Okoye (Great Britain) Ezine Okparaebo (Norway), and Barthelemy Chinenyeze (France), Tobi Fahwehinmi (USA) and Nadia Eke who represented neighbouring West Africa country Ghana.
MORE WILL GO
There are indications that more will follow that route.
A member of Nigeria male basketball team (D’Tigers) Chimezie Metu left Tokyo very sad and frustrated by the ‘Nigerian system.”
He said maladministration and bureaucracy were responsible for Nigeria’s dismay outing at the Tokyo Olympics.
A team that defeated U.S and Argentina leading to the games failed to win any of their matches at the games. It was a big blow to members of the team who are mostly in the big leagues in the U.S and Europe.
He felt outright disappointment in his country’s government and Olympic Committee.
Metu, an NBA player for the Sacramento Kings, ripped his country for what he called the mistreatment of its Olympic athletes.
His grouse: The Nigerian team took 30 hours to travel from Oakland- Califonia to Tokyo because they were forced to fly through Germany, apparently as a cost-saving move. A direct flight from San Francisco to Tokyo is 10 hours.
And while in Tokyo, seven members of Coach Mike Brown’s staff were not allowed to stay in the Olympic village for visa issues, prompting Brown to leave the village and stay at the hotel with his staff. Nigeria also had 10 track-and-field athletes banned from the Games for failing to meet drug-testing requirements in out-of-competition situations.
Countries that are considered “high risk” for doping by the Athletics Integrity Unit are required to take three tests in out-of-competition times within 10 months of major competition. Nigeria apparently had 10 athletes that did not meet those requirements.
Twenty athletes were banned in total, but Nigeria was by far the hardest hit by the sanctions.
“I’d like to use this time to bring awareness and comment on the off-the-court things a lot of Nigerian athletes have had to go through in these Olympics,” he said.
“It’s extremely difficult to go out there and try to focus on the basketball game when you’re dealing with so much stuff off the court. For a lot of athletes that are here that represent Nigeria, our country, we’re ready to risk it all and put it on the line, but our government and the Olympic Committee of Nigeria, make it extremely difficult to go out there and just focus on performing on our sport. I’m not just talking about basketball. I’m talking about the track athletes. I’m pretty sure everybody has heard about the 10-track athletes that were disqualified and it had nothing to do with what they did.
“It was a lack of attention to detail and lack of empathy for the hard work that’s put in by us athletes by the Nigerian Olympic Committee as well as the government. For 60-something athletes to fly halfway across the world and get disrespected and humiliated by our country, that’s something that I’m pretty sure none of us will stand for.
“We had to practice with no coach before we played the best team in the world, Australia. We’ve got 60-something athletes here and every single one of us has had a hard time since we’ve been here.”
Out of frustration, Metu and the like may jump ship and pitch their tent with a better captain.
THE CRAZE FOR ABROAD
The implication is that in as much as the most populated black race is blessed with millions of people with inherent sporting talents; Nigeria hardly keeps them at home due to poor organisation, poor infrastructure or lack of it, and corruption.
It is so bad that, even, ex-internationals who have played for the country in different fields send their wards abroad to fully realise their potential.
Mark Balogun, a respected basketball coach, and mentor played for Nigeria in the 80s, however, his three children, are in U.S Colleges playing basketball. One of them, Evelyn Balogun played for Nigeria’s D’Tigress in Tokyo.
“I have coached and mentored many Nigerian basketball stars of today. I encouraged the team to seek opportunities abroad because they have a system that works. I believe in that education and sport should go together and they can better get that abroad, be it in the U.S or Europe.”
Ex-football international Taju Disu also harped on education and sport. “I have tasted both worlds. I am bred in Nigeria and for the most part of my career I played here. Then, I got a scholarship attend University in the U.S. I can’t allow my children to waste their time here. The system here is frustrating and discouraging. I rather they live in a system that works.” His five children are all abroad doing well.
Same goes for ex-Super Eagles player Mutiu Adepoju. His four daughters play basketball in different Colleges in the U.S where he relocated his family in the 90s.
At home, there are many sports academy and the attraction is to help talented players secure college scholarships abroad.
Former NBA player and owner of OBN Academy Obinna Ekezie is doing well in the area of developing up-and-coming basketball players in Nigeria, yet the catch for him is to send the best of them abroad for schooling and basketball.
Germany-based former BV Essen coach Andrew Uwe, who captained Flying Eagles in 1989, said the reasons are not far-fetched. “School sport is dead in Nigeria and alive in Europe and the U.S. The facilities in Secondary Schools here (Germany) are top notched and there are graded coaches whose lifelong ambition is to nurture talented kids. They work in consonance with the school. They are able to work out extra classes for their athletes in such that they would not miss out in the school curricular. That is why our youngsters who have been here and seen the difference would not want to go back to the system we have at home.”
Another ex-international Tajudeen Ajide who was made by the school sport system in the 80s before joining overseas train, said for Nigeria to stop the talent drain in sport it must go back to the good old school sport.
“When you traced the history of most Olympic medallist in Tokyo you will see a great deal of school sport in them. Most of the NBA stars get their draft from Collegiate (College) basketball league. They will show you the medals they won for their schools from where they got an invitation to the national team. It was like that in Nigeria in the 70s and 80s when you have St. Finbarr’s, Kings College, Loyola College, St Gregory’s College, Lagelu Grammar School, Government College, Loyola College, Abadina College, St Murumba College, and others from the west, south, east and north of the country shun out national team players in all sports. Where are they now?” he asked.
Former captain of the Green Eagles Segun Odegbami, who owns and runs Segun Odegbami International College and Sports Academy (SOCA), a school like the old combining education and sport, recalled the ‘good old days’: “We recalled with nostalgia how a whole legion of athletes came from schools and many went on to represent the country at senior level after participating in the academicals, or in junior international competitions in tennis, cricket, athletics, table tennis and so on.
“Haruna Ilerika, Tunde Matins, Yomi Bamiro, Titi Adeleke, Gloria Ayalaja, Adokiye Amiesimaka, Stephen Keshi, Henry Nwosu, Taiwo ogunjobi, Best Ogedegbe, Emmanuel egede, garba Okoye, Tunde Disu, Yakubu Mohamamed, and the Akigas were amongst a long list of of those that rose through the secondary school sports ranks and almost immediately went on to represent the country’
Uwe informed that funding for school sport is a big deal abroad. “Millions of dollars and Euros are put into school sport annually. Before any Olympics, it is a big debate how much money is given to schools to prepare their athletes and in the end stock will be taken as to the gain and loss. It will help the sport authority to reassess funding for collegiate sport.”
TURNAROUND
Ajide summarised that there will only be a turnaround in Nigeria sports when school sport is taken seriously. “How many schools can boast of a standard football pitch now not to talk of volleyball and basketball courts or tartan track? Where there are facilities, good coaches are lacking.
Up till date I still remember the coach that taught me football basics in St Gregory. There are ex-internationals all over the places with nothing to do. They are dying off due to neglect, hard times, and nothing to do. Why can’t they be seconded to schools to teach and nurture future stars?”
REJUVENATION
Nigeria Minister of Youth and Sports Development Sunday Dare is not unaware of the problems associated with talent drain in the country. He said they have begun a process that will rejuvenate school sports.
You know a country that departs from grassroots sports development has lost it completely, that is not sports development. At the heart of sports, development is grassroots development.
“Look at the Principal’s Cup, most of our best football players came from the Principal’s Cup. We also have Schools Sports. What we’ve done is, 25 years after Principal Cup was jettisoned, this year, we brought it back. Principal’s Cup, first time in 25 years! We have a miniature one that involved about 250 schools. Our target is to bring in 6,000 to 8,000 schools to compete. You can imagine when we have 6,000 schools to compete in football at the state level, the local government level, and the zonal level and up to the finals; it engages us for a while.
“The full one that we are going to do for the second year will last for six months. What we’ve also done is to make sure that under Principal Cup, it’s not just football, we brought four more sports. We call it the National Principal Cup. We are also careful that, beyond the Principal’s Cup, we want to make sure that when we do that, we pick the talents, the young ones.
Look at them, (Daniel) Amokachi, Dosu Joseph, Henry Nwosu, they came through Principal’s Cup. So that is what birthed some of our best footballers, why should we depart from it?
Olympic gold medalist and the brain behind wrestling rejuvenation in Nigeria Daniel Igali said continuous investment in sports will bring back the old days.
“There is no magic other than for us to invest with purpose to nurture and support our athletes. Olympians follow a regimen plan right from the beginning. The plan won’t materialize without support and sponsorship from the private and corporate sectors. It must be a conscious and continuous oiled plan and all must be on board to do their parts: athlete, government and the private sector. If we can do this Nigeria will win more Olympic medals.”
COST OF OLYMPIC MEDAL
Typically, it cost a fortune to get to the Olympics and more to make podium finish.
Figures raked from survey by Aspen Institute’s State of Play establish that an annual average of $1,580 on an athlete. Some athletes need far more in excess of $20,000 a year. When you do the arithmetic and multiply by four then you have a mega sum.
This is not adding the cost expended in formative years like in gymnastics when the regime starts at tender ages.
“This number comes from a combination of equipment, training, competition fees, and travel expenses that are necessary if an athlete wants to compete in the upper echelon of gymnastics or any other sport,” the report read in part.
New York Times reports that U.S five-time Olympic gold medallist swimmer Missy Franklin spent upward of $100,000 on swimming-related expenses in one year alone.
CONCLUSION
“The cost of an Olympic medal is high and that is why the government of the U.S and EU largely spent on facility and training to augment athletes’ expenditure,” noted former assistant captain of the Flying Eagles Paul Okoku.
The financial expert residing in the U.S added: “Athletes naturally gravitate towards countries where they can get optimum facility and guide to achieve result. If they can’t get it in their country, they will move on to other places.”