Wanted: Nigeria’s Ultimate Sports Calendar

The 22nd
National Sports Festival
in Abeokuta lived up to Ogun State executive governor Prince Dapo Abiodun’s promises to make the games spectacular. Abiodun also provided the platforms for people in Ogun State to key into the different levels of economic activities before and during the games. This allowed the state to appreciate the extent of economic gains the festival created for their businesses. It was heartening that Abiodun bought into the suggestion of having a functional night activity during the games. This singular act brought bountiful harvests for those who provided the goods and services at night, as it ensured that the state government secured the city throughout the competition.

Prince Abiodun, whilst reeling out how he planned to make the festival the benchmark for subsequent editions, took time to celebrate the state’s arts and cultural heritage potentials, not losing sight of the gains associated with making the Olumo Rock a sight-seeing adventure for visitors. Indeed, Ogun State is the heaven of admired clothing, and it was quite a spectacle watching how athletes and their officials scramble to buy them for personal use and as worthy gift apparel when they get home at the end of the games.

Thank you, Prince Abiodun, for accepting to host the sports festival for the second time with the gains of the laudable way the games went not lost on critical stakeholders. The National Sports Festival is the premium competition of the National Sports Commission (NSC). And it amounted to good thinking by the immediate past Sports Minister, Sunday Dare, when he accepted the Ogun State’s offer to host the 22nd of the festive, which is easily one of the best editions of the multi-sports competition.

It gladdens my heart that the next hosts of the competition are the Enugu State people where I did my NYSC in the early 1980s, although the State was known as Anambra State, From the hilltop of Awgu the NYSC camp to Awka, fond memories of Igwebuike Boys High School to Enugu State Sports Council, where I had a close relationship with great Enugu Rangers FC players such as the late Ogidi Ibuabuchi. I also remember ace cricketer Mbamalu (where are you now?).

Interestingly, the Enugu State Government has promised to organise a quality 23rd National Sports Festival (NSF) in December 2026 in the state. Lloyd Ekweremadu, Commissioner for Sports in the State, said this at a news conference in Abeokuta on Thursday.

“I must say that Ogun has done well, we assure you that you can expect a better deal in Enugu,” he said.

One of the best federations in the country is the table tennis federation – easily the federation that has a calendar of activities that keeps the kids busy. What is missing in this deluge of competitions is adequate training and retraining of the coaches who teach them. When pitched against better-exposed stars, they start the process of losing games from the way they stand behind the table. Every stroke offered is decoded by the

opponents who have taken their time to watch past tapes of their foes, a practice we hardly do here. No one goes to battle blindfolded, not knowing what to expect. This is the biggest problem with Nigerian athletes. Too much guesswork. No proper grooming.

It is important to stress here that immediately after the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, the Jamaicans went back home to re-strategise using the American models of grooming athletes from the schools. The Jamaicans sent their sportsmen and women to America and even brought good coaches from America to create the structures for growth which they stuck to religiously.

One of the greatest female sprinters in the world was a Jamaican, Merlene Ottey before the Jamaicans took the challenge to the Americans. In the 1980 Moscow Games, Ottey became the first female English-speaking Caribbean athlete to win an Olympic medal when she took the bronze. In the 2000 Olympics, at age 40, Ottey became the oldest female track and field medallist when she anchored the Jamaican women’s 4×100 metres to a silver medal. With the disqualification of Marion Jones, she was awarded the bronze medal in the 100 metres, making her the oldest individual medallist.

The Jamaicans have stolen the thunder of the Americans in the sprints and even other track and field events. The myth surrounding the Americans in world athletics (track and field events), especially in the sprints was broken by the Reggae boys and girls.

This is the kind of attitude Nigeria’s athletics needs to adopt if we truly want to return to the glory days of yore.

The question to ask the NSC chieftains rests on the fact that this festival held in Abeokuta has propped up several potential athletes who, with adequate preparations, could make the medals’ podium at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games. Therefore, what should Nigerians expect from the NSC’s templates to ensure that the country breaks her duck at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games? At the root of whatever template there is at the NSC and the urgent need for a sports calendar for Nigeria which everyone can follow, especially the private sector and deep-pocket sports enthusiasts.

But does the NSC have the coaches to groom those discovered in Abeokuta to stardom at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games? It remains to be seen. Frankly speaking, our coaches are ill-equipped for the job, especially with the derelict conditions of most of the stadiums in the country. With rustic facilities around the country, there is little these coaches can do. They are left with the tardy option of making good of what they can get. We are left with only one option – always going to Europe to set up camping sites and paying heavily in hard currencies to train for weeks leading to the major sporting tournaments. The sore point is that these endless trips to foreign countries to train have remained the norm, leaving the facilities worse than they were with every turn of sporting events.

For Nigeria to catch up with the others, she must cultivate the habit of hosting major sporting competitions. That is the only way the Nigerian government can fund the repair works of the rustic facilities in the country.

A blueprint is sacrosanct for sports to thrive and it must be anchored on the dire need to resuscitate moribund grassroots competitions that engage youths, taking them away from the vices of the society.

The emergence of a sports policy endorsed by the government will create jobs, such that this industry could, in the next 10 years, become the highest employer of labour.

The policy should challenge local government chairmen to build at least four mini-sports centres that would serve as playgrounds for their constituents in the absence of such structures in the schools in the 774 local government areas.

Multiply four mandatory mini-sports centres by 774 local governments, and what you get (3,096 mini-sports centres) would set the platform for the industry to grow. Blue-chip companies will then leverage their products and services on this enterprise since their target audience is the masses who will throng the centres to watch competitions.

The spiral effect of blue-chip firms identifying with this new initiative is that the local government areas could recoup their investments because they could offer to name these facilities after the firms alongside other marketing windows that the initiatives offer, such as kitting and moulding the career paths of athletes discovered to stardom.

Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (
Syndigate.info
).