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With
his dear country, Nigeria apparently heading off the tracks and her
“top” athletes no longer rated amongst the best, one of Nigeria’s
all-time greats, Innocent Egbunike, now coach in Qatar, offers a way out
of the steady decline facing the country’s athletics.

Speaking to
NEXTSports from his base in Doha, Egbunike said in the late 90s and
early 2000, Nigeria was losing her athletes to other countries but today
we are gradually losing them to drugs; a situation that highlights the
dearth of the sports once regarded as the pride of the country.

“Nigeria is at its
lowest ebb in track and field coupled with all the drug scandals
currently rocking the sport. This does not augur well for the Nigeria we
represented in our time. It saddens me to see what is going on, I
believe we need to invest in drug education, find out where and who
supplies them the drugs and establish a vision with long term training
programs,” he said.

Good old days

“We had like four
guys running under 10.10secs in the 90s and they were coached by mostly
Nigerians, we need to let go of the slogan that when it comes to Nigeria
“Charity begins abroad” and do like most nations and appreciate what we
have and support our people. I see changes, thank God for the hiring of
Samson Siasia, it tells me change is coming and soon we will change the
slogan to “charity will begin at home.” Egbunike considers himself
blessed to have won Nigeria’s first and only gold medal on the “Olympic
tracks”. He coached the Sydney 2000 4 x 400m men’s relay team, which was
not even ranked in the top 15 at that time, to first the silver medal
winning feat before later being handed the gold medal after it was
discovered that the America team spiced up their system with banned
substances.

“We have what it
takes to be the best, the problem is lack of vision by our
administrators, a lack of commitment in regards to establishing a
program, a lack of commitment in helping the athletes reach their goals,
lack of funding for track and field, lack of incentives; for example
promoting education, which was the core of my era, setting up standards
and having different categories of sponsorship for the athletes; these
are professional athletes and they need to be taken care of. Having been
exposed to a lot of programs of most of the countries that are doing
well, we need to establish a program that will befit us,” he said.

A cue from the past

Egbunike said the
country needs to go back and study the history of what worked in the
past, when Nigeria stood next to USA, Germany, and Britain and ahead of
some of the countries that are currently doing well now.

“We need to invest
in the athletes and in coaching; we have good coaches, but when last did
they go for any coaching education course? I remember when the excuse
used to be that we do not have qualified coaches, that was then but now
we have the likes of Tony Osheku currently coaching in Libya, Pat Itanyi
in the USA amongst others and these are well educated coaches that are
willing to give back to our great Nation,” said the man that was
christened ‘Innocent of Africa’ by President Arap Moi of Kenya in 1987.

“It is hurtful to
say, but I believe in speaking the truth, athletics seem to have
dwindled to its lowest level since the 1990’s. 1996 was good and I
believed it could only get better but unfortunately that has not been
the case.

I am not in a
position to judge any man or woman, but I think we need to study our
history so that it won’t continue to haunt us for the wrong reasons,” he
intoned.

According to Egbunike, what helped the athletes of his era was the hiring of coaches that competed at the highest level.

“We had Coach Lee Evans the then world record holder, and also getting the athletes before us involved in the scheme of things.

“Shame on us when
Nigeria hosted the African Games, they brought in athletes from other
African countries to do the medal presentation and did not invite their
old heroes. Where was the likes of the first African sprinter to run the
100m in 10s flat, Chidi Imoh, the 1984 4 x 400m team, the 2000 4 x 400m
team, 1992 4 x 100m team,” Egbunike queried? Success breeds success,
some of the athletes today do not even know who holds the African
record,” he continued.

The London 2012 Olympics

Looking ahead to the
London 2012 Olympics, Egbunike advised the athletics authorities to
hire a head coach with some experience and international exposure. He
said such an individual should be encouraged to perform maximally by
giving him a free hand to run the sport.

“By this I mean that
there should be non-interference (tribal, political or otherwise) in
his managing of the sport. Interference in sports by the administrators
is one of the major ills of this sport. I have been a part of different
national teams and I have come to know the reason for their successes.

I believe that for
us to succeed in the 2012 Olympic Games we need to earnestly start now.
This will also give the coaches an opportunity to prepare ahead of time
and help eliminate our athletes looking for short cuts”.

Offer from Nigeria

Asked if he will
consider an offer to leave his high paying job in oil-rich Qatar for
Nigeria, he said “For the love of Nigeria, it will be nice to give back
to a country which gave me a great pedestal from which to start my
blessed athletic career. I will make myself available by helping the
country to find and nurture talents which she has in abundance but has
not tapped into.

“I slept on the floor at the African Games in Nairobi, some of us
slept at the airport and from the airport straight to competitions, we
sweated, bled and hurt for our beloved nation and even turned down juicy
offers from other countries. But despite all that I suffered, I still
have the love of Nigeria in me, I am here in Qatar as a Coach because
they recognised my achievements as an athlete and a coach in the United
States and felt I have quite a lot to offer them. If Nigeria sees her
past athletes and coaches in the same light then we can move forward,”
he concluded.