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Doesn’t it just hurt to hear people say that American swimmer Michael Phelps, who won eight gold medals at the Beijing 2008 Olympics, has won more Olympic gold medals than your country?

To be fair, Nigeria didn’t start to participate in the Olympic Games until Helsinki in 1952, eight years before our independence. In our first decade as a sovereign nation, we won our first Olympic medal, bronze in boxing courtesy of Nojeem Maiyegun.

Impressive as it is, Maiyegun feat was by no means Nigeria’s finest moment in boxing. Hogan “Kid” Bassey and Dick “Tiger” Ihetu in 1957 and 1962 respectively won world titles in professional boxing.

Many people may not know this, but our great leaders at the time were also keen sport-lovers. Nnamdi Azikiwe was even a boxing referee. As premier of the Western Region, Obafemi Awolowo built Liberty Stadium, which, at the time, was as good as any in the world in terms of standards and beauty, if not in size. Up to the 1980s, his newspaper, the Sunday Tribune, was the go-to source for anyone who wanted to know the result of his football team the previous day. Long before the Nigeria Football Association secretariat received the results, the Sunday Tribune published it.

In the 1960s, though, the Commonwealth Games seemed to be the only arena where we could boast of winning gold medals and setting records.

Golden Oshikoya

The All-Africa Games of 1973, which we hosted, was Nigeria’s coming out party. Having earned more money from oil than we knew what to do with, we built a brand new sport city, not just a stadium, in Lagos to host the games. Whereas, even today, Wembley Stadium in London can only host football matches, our sport city had it all: tartan tracks for athletics, swimming pools, training pitches, indoor sport hall, etc. All was contained in one venue.

To crown it all, our golden girl, Modupe Oshikoya rose to the occasion. Although we did not top the medals table at the end of the games, we did win the football gold medal, which was just as valuable.

Apart from Davidson Andeh who won the world amateur lightweight boxing title, our boxers failed to achieve much in the 1970s. Once again, we found our level in the Commonwealth where we had champions like Eddy Ndukwu and Obisia Nwankpa. As boxing slumped against the ropes, football gained prominence. On the national level, IICC Shooting stars of Ibadan and Rangers of Enugu were the two dominant forces.

At the end of the decade, Rangers narrowly failed to win the most coveted club trophy of them all: the Champions Cup. An own-goal scored by Thompson Usiyen saw us lose to Tunisia at home and fail painfully to qualify for the World Cup of 1978. It was just as painful as the decision of our government to withdraw what some regard as our strongest team ever from the Olympic Games of 1976. It deprived athletes at the peak of their careers like Charlton Ehizuelen the chance of an Olympic medal.

However, the cause was noble: the independence of South Africa and Namibia. In 1977, Christ the King’s College of Onitsha won the “World Cup” for secondary school students, the first time ever that Nigeria was to win at this level.

1980 began so well for Nigeria, as we won the African Cup of Nations for the first time. The core of our players came from IICC, Rangers and Bendel Insurance. Soon enough, we were brought back to earth by our dismal failure at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow. We didn’t win a single medal, but came back with enough sex scandals to keep Professor Osagie busy investigating thoroughly, at the end of which some athletes were banned for years.

Our hopes were raised ahead of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. But our athletes failed woefully. It was left to boxing to rescue us again as we came home with silver and bronze medals in this event. The successes and failures of our sports in the 1980s, although we didn’t know it at the time, were to shape our football forever.

For example, the successes recorded by our junior players in teams like YSFON and Samco Stars of Benin against opponents from “superior” European countries and Brazil gave them lots of confidence when they became seniors.

The Duke of Wimbledon

The 1985 victory of our U-17 team at the inaugural World Cup for teams at that level is also worth mentioning. At about the same time, boxing was in a slump as Obisia Nwankpa had lost his world title fight to Saoul Mamby in Lagos; we had lost virtually all our Commonwealth champions and Davidson Andeh had been knocked out in America. On the positive side, Nduka Odizor won Ogbe Hardcourt Tennis Championships in Benin-City and got rave reviews for his Wimbledon performances, earning himself the nickname “The Duke of Wimbledon” from the British press. In table tennis, the likes of Sunday Eboh, Kasali Lasisi and Olawunmi Majekodunmi were top of the African charts.

As far as football is concerned, the 1990s were the decade Nigeria realised its dreams. Under the tutelage of Dutchman Clemence Westerhof, it won the African Cup Of Nations in 1994 and qualified for the World Cup for the first time. The team put up a gallant performance before losing to eventual runners-up Italy in the second round. A year earlier, Nwankwo Kanu and co had won the U-17 World Cup for Nigeria. At the 1996 Olympics, Nigeria won its first-ever gold medal through Chioma Ajunwa in the women’s long jump event. The biggest surprise of all was the way our football team won the gold medal, beating Brazil and Argentina along the way. The moment was as sweet as when Mary Onyali led the women’s 4×100 metres relay team to the bronze medal at the 1992 Olympics, thus becoming the first Nigerian women to win Olympic medals.

BCC Lions of Gboko won the African Cup of Cup Winners in 1990, coached by Shuaibu Amodu.

Apart from Samuel Peter becoming world heavyweight boxing champion, Nigerian boxing remains in the doldrums this new millennium. The final of the 2000 African Nations Cup was lost to Cameroun.

In 2002, our national team performed woefully at the World Cup, returning home with just one point, a feat repeated in 2010. In fact we are yet to win the Nations Cup this decade, a feat we achieved once each in the 1980s and 1990s.

However, in Beijing we may have discovered a new golden girl in the person of the multi-talented Blessing Okagbare, who won the bronze medal in the long jump. She seems to be a combination of Mary Onyali and Modupe Oshikoya.

What do 50 years of Nigerian sports look like?

Like the nation itself, it is fair to say that the country is yet to reach 50 per cent of its potential. Imagine what could have happened if we continued with the successes of great administrators like Mid-West State Governor Samuel Ogbemudia in the 1970s: we would have sport cities all over the country, square pegs in square holes in terms of sport administrators, incentives like scholarships for athletes and development from the grassroots.

Sports remain the glue that binds us together as a nation. When we play, we don’t care where the goal scorer or captain was born.

Still, one can’t fail to mention that the northern parts of the country are lagging behind. It is high time sports administrators in these parts of the country buckled up. If we want the next 50 years to be better than the last, we have to build and maintain sports facilities across the country, stop over-emphasizing football to the detriment of other sports, provide incentives for our sportsmen, put selfless and competent people in charge of sports and return to the grassroots. If we do all that, the future will be bright. One passing thought: it took 11 players on the pitch and at least five reserves to win Nigeria a football gold medal in 1996, while the USA needed just one man, Michael Phelps or Carl Lewis, to win eight gold medals in swimming in Beijing 2008 and four at the 1984 Games, respectively. In other words, the swimming pool and the tracks are where the Olympic medals are.

That’s where we should invest our resources. Happy Birthday, Nigeria.