Despite winning more medals for Nigeria at global competitions, ‘lesser sports’ athletes remain in the backwaters of Nigerian sports as the authorities give top priority to football, writes JOHNNY EDWARD
The dream of every athlete is to compete at the world’s sports showpiece event, the Olympic Games.
“The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well,” so goes the famous saying by Pierre de Coubertin, the father of modern Olympic Games.
And so, every athlete strives to attain the highest height of their careers, strutting their stuff to the global audience, even if they fail to won medals.
Dream dashed
For boxer Afeez Osoba, his dream had always been the same: to be addressed as an Olympian.
And why not? He had dominated the domestic scene as five-time national champion, two-time National Sports Festival gold medalist, bronze medalist at the African Zone 3 Boxing Championship in Cameroon, as well as a silver medallist at the African Games in 2019.
After dominating the Nigerian boxing scene in his category since he was 23, Osoba had set his sights firmly on picking one of the three slots for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the African Zone 3 Boxing Championship in Cameroon back in 2019.
He trained, toiled and sacrificed in his bid to pick one of the slots to Tokyo in neighbouring Cameroon.
However, after all his efforts, Osoba could only watch and cry as his lifetime dream was cut short even before the championship started in Yaounde.
“I was so sure I was going to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics because I was in great shape, at that time, I was unbeaten in over 20 fights in my category,” Osoba told SUNDAY PUNCH.
“But when I was informed by the NBBF, they told me they had no funds to bankroll my trip for the championship. I was told that if I made the podium, we would split my prize money into four. I even offered to go on a road trip just to make it for the qualifiers but still they said there was no fund.
“It was my best chance of realising my dream because we had three qualification slots in my category and there was no way I was going to miss out from the ring.”
Pampered Eagles
In Nigeria, football gets the most attention in the sports sector and occupies the untouchable number one spot, while the others are grouped into a derogatory class of ‘lesser sports’, a category Osoba falls into.
In sharp contrast, players of the Super Eagles are pampered before, during and after (if they perform to expectations) major football events. They receive luxurious treatments, camped in five-star hotels, feted with exquisite local and continental cuisines, while athletes from other sports are often left on their own.
Despite earning millions in foreign currencies at club level, these football stars are paid as much as $5,000 to $20,000 to win games. They also receive cash gifts in foreign currencies from individual and corporate donors, as well as sponsors of the federation – a sharp contrast to what other sports receive from the government.
At the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt, each Eagles squad player received $37,500 for defeating holders Cameroon 3-2 in Alexandria.
The late captain Hosa Okunbo gave each player $20,000 as bonus for winning the game against arch rivals Cameroon.
In addition, the team received $75,000 from former sponsors AITEO for the three goals scored in the encounter. This largesse came with the agreed winning bonus of $12,500 between players of the team and the Nigerian Football Federation.
The Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu came under scathing criticisms for also donating $5,000 to each player. Critics said the state funds should have been committed to repairing dilapidated infrastructure in Lagos, rather than being showered on the rich footballers.
Aside this, the NFF is also not short of sponsors as they have numerous brands they receive financial support from annually, with several others queuing to join the already long train of partners.
‘Lesser sports’ predicament
Despite this massive support, experts feel the Eagles have largely underperformed. Despite the huge backing, they’ve been unable to reach the quarter-finals of the World Cup since making their debut in 1994, and did not qualify for last year’s World Cup in Qatar, but the ‘lesser sports’ like basketball, table tennis and athletics, despite their athletes performances this year, have continued to remain in the background.
D’Tigress won a fourth consecutive Women’s AfroBasket and sixth overall, table tennis star, Quadri Aruna successfully defended his ITTF Africa Senior Championships crown, defeating Egypt’s Ahmed Saleh 4-0 (11-2, 12-10, 11-6, 11-6) in the men’s singles final in Tunisia and former world champion Tobi Amusan won a third successive Diamond League title.
D’Tigress feat is even more stunning considering they returned from inactivity after a Federal Government ban last year, following a bonus row between players and officials and a leadership tussle in the Nigeria Basketball Federation.
The players were clamouring for their owed bonuses after winning a third AfroBasket title in Cameroon two years ago. The ban cost the team their World Cup place, as FIBA replaced the Nigerians with their Malian counterparts.
For Tobi Amusan, the world’s women’s 100m hurdles record holder, its the same story. The Ogun-born athlete reportedly took a loan of $50,000 to prepare for the 2022 World Championships in Oregon, where she emerged champion — Nigeria’s first ever at the event — and record holder in 12.12secs.
“I got injured a couple of times and there is so much I needed to do as a pro athlete and staying on top of my game requires a lot of funds. So, I had to take a loan since there was no support from the AFN back then,” she said after her triumph at the 2022 World Championship.
She would go on to win the Diamond League in her event for a record-equalling third consecutive time.
Lesser sports, bigger returns
Football has managed just three medals at the Olympics — gold, silver and bronze — but despite the higher number of medals won in para-sports, athletics and boxing, it continues to garner more attention from the authorities, while other sports struggle.
At the multi-sport event, a football team can only win a medal unlike para-sports, athletics, martial arts, weightlifting, swimming, table tennis, wrestling and others, where more than one athlete can compete for medals.
Nigeria is ranked ninth in the Commonwealth Games all-time table with 236 medals — 70 gold, 75 silver and 91 bronze. None of these medals come from football, which is not featured at the event.
Nigeria made its Paralympic Games début in Barcelona in 1992 with a delegation of six men to compete in track and field, powerlifting and table tennis. Adeoye Ajibola won two gold medals in sprint, while Monday Emoghawve obtained one in powerlifting. Ever since, the country has participated in every subsequent edition of the Paralympics, winning a total of 80 medals — 40 gold, 19 silver and 21 bronze medals.
Of these medals, powerlifting had 54 (24 gold, 16 silver and 14 bronze), para-athletics had 21 (14 gold, three silver and four bronze), while table tennis had five (two gold and three bronze).
In the Olympics, the country managed to win 27 medals — three gold, 11 silver and 13 bronze — since the country first participated in the event in 1952.
A breakdown of the country’s Olympic medals by sport shows that athletics has largest haul of 14 (two gold, five silver and seven bronze), football has three (one gold, one silver and one bronze), boxing has six (three silver and three bronze), weightlifting has two (one silver and one bronze), wrestling one silver and taekwondo one bronze.
In comparison, South Africa, which was banned from the Olympics from 1964 to 1992, are way ahead of Nigeria in medals won at the event.
The South Africans have 89 medals — 27 gold, 33 silver and 29 bronze. A check by our correspondent showed that the South Africans invest heavily in sports like triathlon, athletics, swimming, boxing, tennis, rowing, cycling, shooting, surfing, canoeing and rugby and all sports won them medals at the Olympics.
Our findings also show that countries that dominate multi-sport global events like USA, China, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Australia, among others, do so because of their diversification to massive medal-winning sports like athletics, gymnastics, swimming, diving, weightlifting.
Swimming neglect
Retired American swimmer Michael Phelps, the most successful and most decorated Olympian of all time, has a total of 28 medals across five Olympics. Phelps’ Olympics medals tally consists of 23 gold medals — the most Olympic gold medals ever won — three silver and two bronze medals. He also holds the Olympic gold medals in individual events (13), and Olympic medals in individual events (16).
His record dwarfs the entire Team Nigeria’s haul of 27 medals since the country started participating at the Olympics in 1952.
According to the National Inland Waterways, “Nigeria is blessed with a large resource base of waterways spanning 10,000 kilometres; about 3,800 kilometres is navigable seasonally. Twenty eight of the nation’s 36 States can be accessed through water. Nigeria can also link five of its neighbouring countries–Benin Republic (Port Novo), Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Chad and Niger Republic by water.
“The Rivers Niger and Benue constitute the major channels for inland navigation which include but not limited to the Cross River, Port Novo- Badagry-Lagos waterways, Lekki and Lagos Lagoons, Ogun-Ondo waterways, Benin river, Escravos channel, Nun River, Imo River, Orashi river, Ethiope River Ugwuta lake, Lake Chad and the numerous creeks in the Niger delta.”
However, the sports authorities have never taken advantage of this huge gift of nature.
Bayelsa swimmer Ifiaezibe Gagbe was the star of the Edo 2020 National Sports Festival, winning 15 medals, including eight gold.
She lamented the sorry state of swimming in the country despite it’s huge medal-winning potential.
“The number one challenge I have is that government is not encouraging swimming in the country,” Gagbe told The PUNCH in an exclusive interview after her heroics at Edo 2020.
“There was no competition for swimmers in the last one year before the sports festival. The last competition we had was in 2016, the Chief of Naval Staff event. That was the only competition we had, but since they stopped it in 2016, all we have now is the sports festival. Sometimes, we train and don’t even know where we are going to.
“The challenges are much, you need to see the pools in my state, they are very bad and even to get money to buy chemical to treat the pools for us to train is a big problem. The water is green, but we still put our heads inside because we know what we are going for.”
Findings by our correspondent showed that swimming pools across Nigeria are fast closing down due to electrical challenges, high cost of pool chemicals and lack of technical know-how, which has hampered swimming classes.
‘’Swimming requires huge spending such as round the clock water treatment with constant power supply,’’ President, Nigerian Aquatic Federation, Babatunde Fatai-Williams, said.
A bit of attention to swimming can change its fortune as seen at the last National Youth Games in Delta State, where 12 swimmers, who won medals at the event, had their swimming classes at the National Stadium, Lagos olympic-size swimming pool before the event.
The swimming pool was once in a dilapidated state for 18 years before Joseph Odobeatu renovated it after a public-private-partnership with the government.
Despite the obvious medal potential of the ‘lesser sports’, having won more medals than football at global events, their athletes still have a herculean time preparing for competitions.
Para-powerlifter, Latifat Tijani, won gold in the women’s –45kg at the 2015 African Games in Brazzaville, Congo as well as silver in the women’s –45kg at the 2016 Paralympic Games.
Despite the ministry announcing that preparations are in top gear for Paris 2024, Tijani, like other para-athletes, has been training on her own at the National Stadium, Lagos, without support.
“We are supposed to get something from the government every month for our training but there is always no money until we qualify for the Olympics. It’s not good for our preparations, but I’m trying my best to prepare for the Paralympic qualifiers next February,” Tijani told SUNDAY PUNCH.
“The financial attention to Para-powerlifting cannot be compared to what other sports get. We do not get the support we need to excel and despite the poor support, we still win medals when we qualify for tournaments. Things like this should stop if other sports must grow.”
The neglect, according to the President of the Badminton Federation of Nigeria, Francis Orbih, has a huge negative impact on the performance of athletes in other sports.
“The attention on football is killing other sports and that has always been the case since inception. The challenges of badminton are enormous and its only funding that can halt this downward slide,” Orbit told SUNDAY PUNCH.
“At the moment, we can only manage the situation and hope that the government sees other sports as equally viable as football. For now, Anuoluwapo Opeyori (Nigeria’s number one men’s badminton player) has not qualified for the Olympics in Paris because he still needs to take part in some qualifying tournaments, about eight of them, to be sure of his place to gain more points. And to take part in those events, we need funds for him take part and make history.”
Tennis slide
From the 1970s up till the early 1990s, Nigeria was ranked as one of the best tennis-playing nations in the world, even though none of its players won a Grand Slam title. In Nigeria alone, there was a beehive of tennis activities with championships like the Lord Rumens, Ogbe Hard Court, Gulder Tennis among others keeping the players busy all-year round.
Nigerian players also took part in major tournaments. Nduka Odizor, David Imonitie, Tony Mmoh and Sadiq Abdullahi did not only compete successfully in the world circuit, they brought glory to the country.
Odizor won one career title in singles (Taipei, 1983) and seven doubles titles. He reached his highest ATP singles ranking of world No.52 in June 1984 and reached No.20 in doubles in August 1984.
Odizor’s stellar performance was seen as a springboard for the country’s next generation of tennis players to enter into global limelight but that has not been the case.
Instead, the sport has been on a downward spiral since the turn of the century and it no longer features among elite African tennis-playing nations as a result of lack of fund, while the likes of South Africa, Tunisia, Ivory Coast, Benin, Zimbabwe and others have produced players competing among the best in the world of tennis.
Back home, major competitions, which would have helped groom the young players, have gone into extinction, due to paucity of funds.
According to former tennis star Sadiq Abdullahi, who represented Nigeria at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the country didn’t build on the successes of tennis players of his era.
“Our era was just mere recognition we didn’t really win big like we should have done with the talent we had,” US-based Abdullahi told SUNDAY PUNCH.
“We all agree that football is the No.1 sport globally,” Abdulahi said. “There are other sports that can put Nigeria on the world map like football has done but they must be adequately funded. For instance, if the likes of me, Odizor and those that played in my era had such financial support, we would have achieved more than we did.”
Tikon laments
In table tennis, the country has been unable to produce a worthy successor to Africa’s most successful player, Aruna Quadri. This wasn’t the case when Nigeria produced the likes of Atanda Musa, yogi Bankole, Segun Toriola, Bose Kaffo, Funke Oshonaike amongst others.
Like Amusan, Quadri didn’t receive government support on his way to global stardom.
“When I was young, no one supported me, even with equipment, but these days, I have been able to help young athletes to realise their dreams. More priority needs to be given to table tennis. Government must entrust table tennis in the hands of the right people,” Quadri told SUNDAY PUNCH.
Nigerian Table Tennis Federation president, Ishaku Tikon, lamented the lack of financial support from the ministry, saying it denied emerging star Taiwo Matti a place at the World Championships.
“Funding is the bane of Nigerian sports, not just the lesser sports. Even football that gets the large chunk of the finances, complains of the same lack of funds,” Tikkon told The PUNCH.
“I knew what Taiwo Mati went through before qualifying for the ITTF World Championships in Chengdu, China last year. The federation had written to the ministry about the trip, but we did not get any result from all the visits as the excuse was that there were no funds. It prompted us to withdraw the boys’ team in order to avoid possible sanctions from the world table tennis ruling body.
“And that is why we organize events here in Nigeria to cut the cost of traveling and accommodation expenses. It is not easy without support from the private sector and government.”
