By Jimoh Abibat

Nigeria as a country is blessed with enormous human capital which is evident in the successes attained by Nigerians within the country and overseas. The dismal performance at the recently concluded Paris Olympics highlights the neglect of sports infrastructure development and the broader economic crisis caused by the corrupt capitalist government. Despite the immense talent and potential within a nation of over 200 million people, and the participation of over 80 athletes across 12 sports, Nigeria failed to secure a single medal. This woeful outcome reflects one of the country’s worst performances in Olympic history and underscores the devastating impact of poor governance and chronic underinvestment in sports development.

Interestingly, N9 billion was allocated to the Paris Olympics, how then does one explain the incompetence that characterise the country participation in the Olympics, from the lack of infrastructure, inadequate sports facilities, failure to register athletes, and inexperienced and incompetent staff, mismanagement of funds among others. One of the shambles was the omission of Favor Ofili from the women’s 100m roster by the National Athletes Federation, which wasn’t the first time athletes were not duly registered by the Federation.

If we are to analyze the factors that contributed to the abysmal performances during the event, we can’t ignore the brain drain; a lot of Nigerians are ‘japa-ing’ (fleeing) from the country to seek greener pastures overseas. This is attributed to the poor living and working conditions that masked the country under the Tinubu regime. It wasn’t surprising when over 20 athletes of Nigerian descent represented other countries during the Olympics. A few of the athletes also switched allegiances due to the omission of their names from the roster, favouritism in choosing athletes, bribery, and corruption, among others. It should be noted that 8 athletes of Nigerian descent representing other countries won medals during the events and Nigeria won none.

However, the Sports Minister – John Owen Enoh, apologized for the poor outing and blamed late preparations for it. We must move past just apologizing and hold public officeholders accountable for their works and actions. Weeks after the Olympics, nothing has been heard from the Ministry of Sports, and neither query nor sanctions have been issued. This kind of occurrence will, unfortunately, continue as long as inexperienced and incompetent people are put at the helm of affairs and favouritism is the order.

For Nigeria to be one of the leading sports-oriented countries in the world,  the ministry should be put under the public control of professionals in the field with no bias, athlete-centred support programs should be launched all over the country, both in all educational institutions from primary to tertiary level, with well funded grassroots development programs should in all communities, massive construction of the necessary sporting facilities in different part of the country with area of strength as a criteria to determine which sport, and of course the necessary accountability on how monies allocated are spent during sports events.

As much as all these look achievable, it is difficult for them to work under the corrupt capitalist system that the country’s economy is run on; until there is a transformation where the people’s interests are prioritized over private interests, we can only achieve little to no change.