The Olympics: Our Kids, Our Youth, Our Future (2)

BY CHRIS GYANG

A CESSPIT OF GRAFT

Who do you blame for the ban placed on a record 10 Nigerian athletes by the Athletics Integrity Unit? The Vanguard newspaper (July 31), quoted official sources as saying that they were banned “due to their failure to undertake the mandatory three out-of-competition tests expected of athletes taking part in a competition of this magnitude.” It added, “The Sports Ministry had labelled those affected as ‘alternate and foreign student-athletes, whose tests did not meet with sample collection and analysis standards.’”

They were obviously piqued by this insolent explanation and decided to stage a public protest on the streets of Tokyo on July 30 against what they also termed, as reported by Vanguard, the “shame” brought on them and the country by “negligent sports administrators.” So, as their fellow athletes from other parts of the world competed for laurels, our own athletes were plodding the streets of Tokyo, carrying placards with these inscriptions: “We are not just alternate but are potential medalists”; “All we wanted to do is to compete”; and “Why should we suffer for someone’s negligence?”

The newspaper summed up this saga thus: “The Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development and the Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC) are all complicit in this national embarrassment brought on Nigeria.” This is because “These bodies were saddled with ensuring that the athletes affected undergo the tests in the build-up to the Olympics as prescribed by the World Athletics rules.”

Before she was banned from the Games for allegedly failing a doping test, veteran Nigerian athlete and medal hopeful, Blessing Akagbare, had added her voice to the growing concerns being raised about the laxity and corruption militating against sports administration in Nigeria. As an athlete who has been on the tracks for more than two decades, her views should certainly be based on practical experience and facts.

She said, “I have said it before and I will say it again. If you do not know the sport, [if you are] not passionate about it/us (the athletes) then you have no business there as an administrator. The sports system in Nigeria is so flawed and we athletes are at the receiving end of the damages” (PUNCH, July 29, 2012).

She added: “They are fighting over power, exercising their pride over PUMA contract/kits forgetting their major responsibility, THE ATHLETES. It’s sad that this cycle keeps repeating itself and some people will come out to say that I am arrogant for speaking the truth. It is my CAREER.” And as if this righteous indignation had prophetic projections, on August 4, 2021, PUMA announced its termination of the sponsorship and licensing agreement with the Athletics Federation of Nigeria.

According to a press release issued by the German sportswear giant, this development was “as a direct consequence of recent developments, particularly at the Tokyo Olympic Games 2020.” There have been unconfirmed reports that this move was triggered by allegations of shady dealings by certain officials in Nigeria’s athletics federation.

On Saturday, 31 July, 2021, Italy ended Nigeria’s basketball team’s Olympics dream by an 80-71 defeat in the city of Saitama. BREITBART (July 31) reported: “The Nigerians opened the summer with exhibition wins over the US and Argentina in Las Vegas, but went no further in their first Olympic appearance under Coach Mike Brown.” 24-year old Chimeze Metu, one of Nigeria’s star players who scored 22 points in the ill-fated match, expressed his frustrations about the shoddy arrangements for the Games.

He told BREITBART that it was surprising that 10 athletes were disqualified in one fell swoop because the national sports federation had not envisaged that they (athletes) would be required to meet minimum doping test requirements before going to Tokyo. Metu, who plays for Sacramento Kings, declared: “They were disqualified and had nothing to do with it.”

To underscore the parlous state of affairs in the country’s sports administration, the basketball star recalled the ordeals he and other Nigerian athletes were subjected to on their way to Tokyo and during the Games. “What there was a lack of empathy for the hard work that has been put in by us athletes…. For 60-some athletes to come here and fly half way across the world and be disrespected and humiliated by our country … it’s [due to] lack of attention to detail by our government.”

To buttress Metu’s position, Coach Mike Brown revealed that four members of his staff who made the trip to Japan were not allowed into the Olympic village due to credential and paper work issues. That was in addition to the fact that their trip to Japan, which was scheduled to be a 10-hour flight, ended up being a 30-hour ordeal which could also be attributed to what Metu had referred to as lack of attention to detail and organization. “I don’t know why it is like this,” the obviously perplexed national basketball coach moaned.

THE LARGER PICTURE

It is against all of these, and many more, debilitating circumstances, that two Nigerian athletes went ahead to win medals and glory for the motherland. The silver and bronze Blessing and Brume won have been able to salvage the little that remained of our country’s battered reputation at the Games.

These two valiant heroes were not only competing against their fellow sportsmen from other parts of the world, they were also competing against the eggregious system back home which has been fighting its youth and children through the most atrocious means. The violent crack-down on the disenchanted youth who led last October’s ENDSARS protests and the summary ban on TWITTER, which is still in force, readily come to mind.

The patriotism of these two medalists and all other athletes that made up Team Nigeria is unconditional and pure. It is unlike the patriotism of the political and economic elite whose professed love for the motherland is chiefly premised on the amount of money, power and influence they can squeeze out of our country. These athletes are the true Nigerians. All they asked of their motherland was to be allowed to display their talent with all sense of dignity and respect before the world. Is that too much for ordinary citizens to ask of their motherland?

But we must not forget that this is a country where mediocrity, cronyism and nepotism have been elevated to guiding principles of state policy. Ours has become a country where the attention and commonwealth of the nation are primarily directed towards forcibly entrenching the superiority of one race and religion over all others. Perhaps if qualification for the Games had been based on ‘federal character’, President Buhari and the cabal would have given it a little bit more attention.

Indeed, had the Buhari administration pursued programmes that would develop the youth, secure our country and protect our children in their schools the way it has focused on protecting the interests of his Fulani kinsmen since 2015, our Olympic team would have done better and we would not have been crying about the menace of armed bandits and Fulani militia having a field all over the country. Sadly, the overall welfare of citizens and the country have been subsumed under the narrow, primordial interests of one tribe.

They are currently building a 284km standard gauge railway from Kano to Maradi in Niger Republic – Buhari’s ancestral homeland. Costing $1.8 billion, it will connect Kano, Jigawa and Katsina in North Western Nigeria with Maradi – the second largest city in Niger Republic. However, more than 90% of Nigeria is not connected with functional railway lines. He has also frittered away, and is still spending, billions of naira on the various versions of RUGA, ranching, cattle colony, the National Livestock Transformation Plan (which is supported with a 400,000 Euro funding from The Netherlands), resuscitation of grazing routes all over the country, etc – all aimed at turning Nigeria into a huge grazing land for Fulani herdsmen.

As if that was not enough, suddenly in July, President Buhari’s office announced an unprecedented, generous, offer of N6.25 billion to the government of his home state (Katsina) for the development of ranches for Fulani herdsmen. In addition, Mr. Buhari is still bent on bringing all the waterways of the country under the control of the Federal Government through the controversial Inland Waterways Bill he is sponsoring at the National Assembly. The ulterior motive of this Bill, which was unanimously rejected by the last National Assembly but has been resuscitated once again, is to give Fulani herdsmen exclusive and unhindered access to the country’s rivers, creeks, etc, with their luxuriant and rich basins.

Had the Buhari administration expended half of the huge goodwill and stupendous resources it has so far directed at the irredentist Fulani cause on youth/sports development and the welfare and safety our school children, things would have been very different today. Hundreds of children and other innocent citizens would not still be suffering from the brutalities of kidnappers, Fulani militia, gunmen and Islamist terrorists.

Recall that in April 2018, President Muhammadu Buhari infamously accused Nigerian youth of being lazy. He had declared that their attention was mainly focused on struggling to get on the train of the good things of life without wanting to work hard for them. Of course, and quite understandably, he received considerable and widespread backlash for that comment. But that was not the first time the president was pouring such invective on Nigerian youth. PREMIUM TIMES (April 19, 2018) reported: “During a February 2016 interview with UK Telegraph, Mr. Buhari said some Nigerian youth, are disposed to criminality and should not be granted asylum there.”

CONCLUSION

The much postponed, much awaited Tokyo Olympics have come and gone. Both the glory of victory and agony of defeat have in equal measure shone through the struggles of the world’s youth to demonstrate to a despairing humanity that, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, mankind can still summon the courage to showcase some of its best attributes and values through sports.

One other key take-away from the Games, which is one of our main focus here, is the unprecedented ascendancy of relatively young people onto the fields of competition and, ultimately, the medals podia.

Writing in US TODAY (July 28), Jordan Mendez stated: “While the Olympics originally was meant for just amateur athletes to compete, the youth movement has never been more represented than in this year’s Tokyo Olympics.” To prove this, he highlighted the exploits of teenagers like 13-year old Momoji and Rayssa Leal who “was already one of the youngest competitors in Tokyo.” He added that, “Had she won gold, she would’ve been the youngest gold medal winner in the Games history.”

However, for Nigeria’s youth and children, the sensational glories of Momoji, Rayssa and Lydia Jacoby, among others, is a far away, far-fetched, reality. For Nigeria’s youth and children, the present and future are fraught with ominous, gargantuan uncertainties. Here, we must recount Mr. Daniel Asama’s grave words, full of a sense of foreboding, following the destruction of the orphanage accommodating 156 children in Jebbu-Miango, Plateau State, to push home this point:

“… you can imagine the kind of generation we are raising. You can imagine the future of this country with traumatized children. How do we solve the problem if these children grow up with this pain and keeping malice in their hearts? There is danger ahead. The future is bleak. This country is on the brink of collapse if nothing urgent is done to address this ugly situation. It is sad that the situation has escalated to this point. It is also unfortunate that this carnage went on for four days unabated and government could not hold it down.”

In conclusion, we return to Bishop Kukah. His words resoundingly re-echo Asama’s bleak assessment and further reinforce most of our arguments in this piece. During a conference organized by the The Kukah Centre and Open Society Initiative for West Africa held in Abuja on July 28, 2021, the cleric stated:

“We are treading on a dangerous path. Our young people are feeling disempowered. We are faced with a nation that is consuming its children, we are faced with the prospects of an uncertain future. It is impossible, even the worst enemy of Nigeria would never have contemplated that this is where we will be.”

*CONCLUDED  

…Gyang is the Chairman of Journalists Coalition for Citizens Rights Initiative – JCCRI. Email: info@jccri-online.org