Expectedly, the opening ceremony of the 2016 Summer Olympics, at the Maracana Stadium, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was quite electrifying. With delegations representing 207 nations marching at the event, about 78,000 spectators witnessed the spectacular opening ceremony. The biggest applause (aside from the host nation) came when the team of Refugee Athletes marched into the stadium just ahead of the Brazilian team. They received a standing ovation from the crowd.
The evolution of the Olympic Movement during the 20th and 21st centuries has resulted in several changes to the Olympic Games. Some of these adjustments include the creation of the Winter Games for ice and winter sports, the Paralympics Games for athletes with physical disabilities, and the Youth Olympic Games for teenage athletes. The International Olympic Committee has had to adapt to the varying economic, political, and technological realities of the 20th century.
Consequently, the Olympics shifted away from pure amateurism, as envisioned by Coubertin, to allow participation of professional athletes. The growing importance of the mass media created the issue of corporate sponsorship and commercialisation of the Games. World Wars led to the cancellation of the 1916, 1940, and 1944 Games. Large boycotts during the Cold War limited participation in the 1980 and 1984 Games.
In an increasingly troubled world, the Olympic has become a magnificent metaphor for world cooperation. The Olympic dream brings together people from around the world. Its positive values of hard work, fair play, excellence and team spirit foster a communion that transcends borders, cultures and ethnicity.
Nigeria first participated at the Olympic Games in 1952, and has since sent athletes to compete in every Summer Olympic Games, except for the boycotted 1976 Summer Olympics. Till date, Nigerian athletes have won a total of 23 medals at the Olympic Games with a substantial part coming from athletics and boxing. Perhaps, the peak of the country’s success in the Olympic Games was in 1996 when the national U-23 football team and long jumper, Chioma Ajunwa, respectively won gold medal in the football and long jump events at the Games held in Atlanta.
Characteristically, Nigeria’s preparation for the Rio Olympics was as abysmal as ever, with the Presidency releasing funds for the event barely days to the opening ceremony. Consequently, it will be a pretty surprise if the country’s Olympic Team comes back with any medal at this Summer’s Olympics. Perhaps, the most controversial subject with regard to the country’s awful preparation for the Rio’s Games has to do with the men U23 football team, popularly referred to as the Dream Team.
The story of the U23 team has all the trappings of the typical Nigerian legendary and scandalous penchant for shameful demeanour. The height of it was that the team nearly missed its opening match against Japan due to a classic amateurish travel plans. Prior to this, the team was allegedly abandoned by the nation’s sporting authorities during its preparatory training tour at the United States. In the thick of it all, Minister of Sports and Youth Development, Solomon Dalung, hit out at Coach Samson Siasia and his U-23 Olympics squad for failing to inform the ministry of the team’s trip to the USA. When asked why the country had not come to the aid of the team, who were at the brink of being thrown out of their hotel, the Sports Minister denied awareness of the tour.
In what, perhaps, could be termed the most bizarre eruption, quite unbecoming of a serving minister, Dalung, said: “The issue of our U-23 national team suffering in the US is news to me. They didn’t tell us what they were there for and who took them there. It doesn’t mean that if somebody goes to the market and has problem then you will come and ask the ministry. The question is who took them there? And what are they there for? Because they are U23 national team, they went to the US and they are having problems, does that become our business? If they are throwing them out of the hotel then they should meet who took them there”. It was such a disgusting and insensitive outburst that sporting fans across the country immediately called for the resignation or outright sacking of the minister.
However, as it is characteristic of sporting administrators in the country, the once rejected U23 team has suddenly become the proverbial cornerstone. Having already qualified for the quarter final of the Rio 2016 football event, the team has understandably become the bride of the nation’s sport administrators. The minister who had distanced himself from the team was recently pictured exchanging pleasantries with players and officials as the team secured a one nil victory over Sweden.
The minister didn’t just stop at that, he reportedly apologised to the U23 team for the initial delay in Atlanta, after they were stranded before their first Rio 2016 match, due to sloppy travel arrangement.
Dalung was reported to have said: “I want to apologise for all the circumstances that led to your late arrival here. I apologise because
I am the head and as such I must take responsibility for anything that happens under my watch”.
Dalung’s latest somersault did not come as a surprise to many. It is customary with sports administrators in the country. They often ditch teams while preparing for major global tourney only to later pointlessly hobnob with same at the verge of attaining success.
Presently, Siasia is reportedly being owed wages of over five months while players are equally being owed arrears in training and winning bonuses dating back to the qualifying period.
Why we have continued to take such ignoble route as a nation remains a mystery. As for the sports minister, aside from his knack for needless controversy, thus far, he has demonstrated sufficient traits of gross ineptitude in sports administration.
If we are to fully explore the unlimited potential of sports, sporting administrators need to begin to act professionally. Today, sport remains a vast field of life that offers the youth an enduring opportunity for personal development and growth. It teaches endurance, discipline, hard work, tolerance, teamwork, focus, preparedness, ruggedness among numerous other noble virtues that are currently in short supply across the world. But beyond these values, sports have become a universal money spinner for talented youths who take to it as a source of livelihood.
Now that our nation faces enormous economic challenges is the precise moment to assign thorough breed professionals as administrators in the sporting sector. It is only in doing this that we can solve the twain issues of unemployment and youth restiveness.
Meanwhile, as the saying goes, to err is human, to forgive is divine.
Since Dalung had reportedly apologised for the nation’s shoddy treatment of the U23 team, he should be pardoned and encouraged to succeed. Only that he should go and sin no more.
Ogunbiyi is of the Features Unit, Ministry of Information & Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos.
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Will setting up a structure that measures perfomance in political office on a quarterly basis help to curb this same shameless , non-chalant and irresponsible display of
poor leadership and sense of duty ? There are no consequences to mismanagement and iordinate abuse of political office in Nigeria. What we see are the outcomes of entrenched corruption packaged by civil servants who have perfected stealing in their various Ministries and like a conveyor belt move it from one Minister to another.