Nigeria’s Dismal Outing in Tokyo By Austin Isikhuemen

The games are over. We came 74th with only a silver and a bronze medal to show for our efforts. A sad commentary on our state of affairs. 

Download the first chapter of The Storytelling Series: Beginners’ Guide for Small Businesses & Content Creators by Obehi Ewanfoh.

How can you have the biggest economy in Africa, the largest population on the continent, the 7th most populated country in the world, with a history of having got its first Olympic medal in 1964 in the same Tokyo, return with such a miserly harvest?

A country ranked 26th by GDP and 24th by purchasing power parity globally came 74th in Tokyo, clearly punching below its weight! Do not tell me it is not the economy that determines sports outcomes at the Olympics.

A cursory glance at the medals table buttresses my case. Check the economic giants and their medals haul – USA, China, UK, Japan, Russia (ROC), Germany, Brazil, and other economic powerhouses.

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Check the list of countries that dusted Nigeria and you find Latvia, Kyrgyzstan, Fiji, Belarus, and even Bermuda! 74th out of 86 positions (due to brackets) does our country no honors. Crying now will not undo the deed.

I will want to add a little from the perspective of accountability, or rather lack of it, which has been the bane of our society and governance. It has been responsible for our perpetually running on the same spot.

Who was responsible for the mess we made of ourselves in Tokyo? Who did what or failed to do his duty that made us take ten athletes who had given their all to prepare and do us proud in the global arena making it end in their humiliating disqualification and the cutting short of their life’s ambition?

How did it happen that our athletes, young men, and women in their prime would be washing their single jerseys in order to compete for their country while some NASS members “serving” for years without a bill or motion to their name get millions in annual clothing allowance?

Who did what to carry our smelly baggage and pastime of unbridled corruption to the global arena and play ludo with Puma contract money? I hear PUMA may be considering legal redress and you can be sure what the outcome would be.

How many officials who have no business in Tokyo went there to do their own business and charged the cost to the Nigerian treasury?

Who takes the rap for the ruin of the promising future of our great athletes preventing them from hanging that valued medal on their walls for life and entering the global hall of sports fame?

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But we did get another dubious medal of sorts – we got gold for coming tops among countries with disqualified athletes. The runner up was not even close! A typical area where we excel!

So many questions. Would it be too much to ask that a probe panel be set up to interrogate this fiasco and bring to book all those responsible for this unwholesome outcome?

Doing that would provide answers and help chart a way forward to prevent a repeat, again. Leaving this to go away, as we always do, just because leadership’s ‘boys’ were involved or, worse still, ‘returns’ were made to you know who would make us a bigger laughing stock in Paris2024.

Let no one speak French to cover this filth, the stench is suffocating.

Benin City, 9th August 2021 – Austin Isikhuemen

Download the first chapter of The Storytelling Series: Beginners’ Guide for Small Businesses & Content Creators by Obehi Ewanfoh.