Nigeria Content Online

The Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India has ended and our worst fears have not come to pass.

Instead, we have
been pleasantly surprised by the feats of a contingent written off as
being incapable of doing big things on the big stage.

Eleven gold medals
from athletes who in the last two editions of the games struggled to
haul in ten golds, certainly calls for some celebration.

The performance in
Delhi confirms the belief held in many quarters within and outside
Nigeria that this country is not lacking in talent; that with the right
mix of variables in place, they will excel in the international arena.

The adventure in
Delhi is a tale of commitment and patriotism. From Daniel Igali, the
former wrestler, who as technical adviser of our wrestling team, did
not wait for funds from government before assembling his team for
camping in Bayelsa to Helen Okus who with a slipped disc still went
into battle for a bronze medal for her country, the Nigerian team in
Delhi has shown that there is still such a thing as love for one’s
country.

Two weeks ago in
this column I had paid tribute to the Nigerian athlete and held that
for the most part our successes in international sporting competitions
were achieved not because there were deliberate policies put in place
by our sports administrators to engender success but as a result of the
will to succeed by our athletes.

That cast-iron will
was on display in Delhi. Our athletes, spurned by their officials and
derided by fans as never -do wells, determined to turn the table on
their detractors and we are all better off for it.

At the risk of
sounding like a broken record, I say it again here that one of the
surest routes to Nigeria’s greatness is sports. Consider not only how
positively the performance in Delhi will rob off on our image abroad.
Consider also, how President Goodluck Jonathan, buffeted on all sides
for his political faux pas, must be relishing this moment of respite.
Without making any tangible input into this success, he must thumping
his chest in satisfaction at the performance of “our boys and girls” in
Delhi.

I hope President
Jonathan will have the grace to do what is only right – and that is to
reward the athletes and their officials in a fitting way. For if the
men and women in Abuja and other centres of political power in this
country without as much as breaking sweat appropriate sizeable chunks
of the common patrimony for themselves and their generations yet
unborn, it is only fair that those who have engaged in meaningful toil
for the fatherland should be amply rewarded particularly as they have
no other means of livelihood.

Destroying the vermin

Now that our
athletes have pointed the way and have shown just what it means to want
to die for their country, will those ‘local champions’ who have
constituted themselves into one huge millstone on the neck of Nigerian
sports, not repent of their follies?

If youngsters, who
have repeatedly given their all and have not been given back much in
return, still willingly offer themselves as vehicles for national
glory, will the men who have eviscerated Nigerian sports in the last
two decades not realise that the time has come for them to be sensible
and stop selling their fatherland for a few shekels?

Will these
quislings who are quick to take sides with international bodies against
the very country that afforded them the opportunity to get into those
organisations not realise the futility of their actions?

Clearly, the time
has come for us to begin to take a closer look at the kinds of men we
entrust with the responsibility to administer sports in this country.
It is a blight on us as a people that a few individuals will repeatedly
poke fingers into our eyes and rather than snap those fingers in two,
we whine about how powerless we are.

Can a few
individuals be greater than an entire country? Will President Jonathan
sit down and allow a few unpatriotic characters continually cast us in
the role of charlatans internationally while they profit from their
association with us at the same time.

In case our president has forgotten he has as much responsibility to
sports as he has to other sectors of our national life and he must
begin to take an interest in what happens in the sector.