By Ibrahim Garba
In a humiliating mea culpa, the Minister of Sports, Senator John Owan Enoh has apologized for the catastrophic failure of Team Nigeria at the just concluded 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, where a whopping N12 billion budget yielded a dismal zero medals.
He mentioned in his remarks that ” it obviously fell short of our objectives, expectations and hopes of Nigerians. I must apologize to our compatriots and reflect on what went wrong while looking to the Paralympic Games, Paris 2024(August 28 – September 8)”.
Enoh did not provide details of spending spree and widespread allegations of athletes non participation and disqualification at the Olympics in which smaller nations won gold medals climbing the medal podium by placing their nation on the World Map.
Also, he refuse to give details on how bloggers from his home state Cross River ftook over sports Journalists’ space at the olympics and many more allegations that are yet to be made public.
His tenure in office when viewed is marked with failures and poor organisation within the sports federation in all our national teams. As it stands the age grade competitions up till the senior national team have failed to go beyond the qualifying stages. Athletes change nationalities on allegations of bribery and official misconduct. Our football players are so ill motivated seeking to excuse themselves from representing the nation despite our huge profile in FIFA organised tournaments. Corruption became more endemic and deeply rooted going by revelations from various camps. We had non qualified and ill motivated coaches in virtually all our team. Our training camps for events and matches fell below international standard which account for Nigerian nationals embarking on JAPA Syndrome to seek greener pastures elsewhere. Our athletes have to travel offshore to beg for training facilities. It became an international embarrassment that an athlete had to beg for a bicycle to compete in an international showpiece watched by billions of viewers, demarketing our nation and further exposing our corrupt tendencies.
This is sequel to the recent #EndBadGovernance protest where Nigerians came out in large numbers demanding for good governance and accountability.
As a responsible leader of the youth population, our brand identify and protector of our prized assets Senator John Owan Enoh would have thrown in the towel from Paris before touching down Nigerian soil to recluse himself from blame, like one of his appointees Finidi George did when he threw our World Cup qualification in the balance. As it stands Nigeria is still shopping for a good coach that will help qualify under very severe conditions.
The lame duck excuse provided in his memo is unacceptable and condemnable and as such he should first resign, then government set up probe panel to investigate how a whooping 12 Billion Naira was squandered on a trip of no returns on investment.
The Minister’s contrition comes as Nigerians seethe with anger and disappointment, demanding answers for the egregious mismanagement of funds and the team’s woeful performance. Save for the D’tigress that shown like million stars Nigerians would have called for total disbandment of the entire contingent.
Nigerians are all in one voice demanding the probe to unravel the followings:
– The shocking details and breakdown of how the N12 billion budget for the failed outing was spent
– identify those individuals and coaches responsible for the team’s poor preparation and financial mismanagement and issue them permanent ban from our sports federation
– Investigate official disqualification and non registration of star athletes that dumped the nation few months before the Olympics tournament
– Unravel the mystery behind invitation and non invitation of good players and athletes that make U-turn at the last minute after been extended invitation.
– The National Assembly must set up a committee of inquiry to conduct public hearing with Olympians and Football players on their ordeal before, during and after major tournaments. The public hearing should provide these players an avenue to talk with lawmakers directly in a live television session to dig up the dirty deals rocking our age grade competitions. That decision will help reset and plan against any international engagement.
– School sports must begin with immediate effectto fish out young talents that can be exposed and compete in any sports tournament.
In all of these the sports writers and other contingents that participated should be among the select persons that will appear during the public hearing to provide further insight into how our sports have been mismanaged over the decades, so that these ugly scenarios are laid to rest.
