Nigerian newspaper ThisDay Online
Why Nigeria Failed in Berlin, By AFN President
By Duro Ikhazuagbe, 09.07.2009
President of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) Chief Solomon Ogba has expressed his happiness at the attention Nigeria’s failure to reach the podium in any event at the last IAAF World Championships in Berlin, Germany is getting in the country and beyond.
Speaking in Lagos at the weekend, the former Delta State sports commissioner insisted that Nigeria as a country did not prepare in the manner other countries that won medals in Berlin did and that it would have been miraculous if our athletes did.
“After the Mobil Trials in Abuja where we selected athletes to represent Nigeria at the World Championships in Berlin, we knew that our chances of winning medals were slim.
" We didn’t have the team to win medals. Our athletes could not match up what the rest of the world was doing simply because we failed in the last eight years to do necessary build-up,” observed the AFN president.
Chief Ogba pointed at inadequate funding of track and field in the country as the main reason Nigeria has not been able to meet up with expectations.
“As I speak with you now, the N15 million approved by the National Sports Commission for us to attend the World Championships in Berlin has not been released.
"We didn’t have money to follow up the training programme we laid out.
[MAYBE THE KEEPERS OF THE PUBLIC PURSE SAW THE PROPOSED TRAINING PROGRAMME AND DECIDED NOT TO POUR GOOD MONEY AFTER BAD…kk]
"Until the government and the organised private sector begin to look at the issue of sports funding critically, Nigeria may not get out of the present situation,” stressed the sports administrator.
He was particularly happy that the National Assembly has shown interests in what happened in Berlin and would follow up on this with the right measures to reverse the trend.
“I am very happy over their interests in what happened in Berlin. They should find out why football for instance can pay out winning bonus of $10,000 per player in Sunday’s World Cup qualifier against Tunisia. For that match alone, the 23 players and officials spent not less than N45m. By the time you add airfare refunds and hotel bills, you will have a fair idea of what goes to football alone why other sports are starving.
"That World Championships in Berlin is equivalent of the football World Cup as it is the summit of track & field.
"Yet, we could not raise the necessary funding to make Nigerian athletes compete on level playing ground,” noted the AFN chief.
However, despite the gloom, Chief Ogba hinted that the new board of the federation barely four months in office has kick-started a process which may help to reverse the slide.
“Our Technical Committee has selected four coaches who are going to work on a programme along with our technical partner, American Lee Evans.
"The coaches include Tony Urhobo, Armelia Edet, Harrison Momoh and Samuel Akinyemi (Erin).
"These coaches are going to help with the build up and trials in some selected centres.
"If you recall the programme of the Old Bendel under Samuel Ogbemudia, constant competitions at the grassroots will help to discover fresh talents and some of the elite athletes will equally be on programmes to be monitored. We are going to discourage our athletes from going to live and compete in cheap Meets in Europe while efforts will also be made to send willing athletes to American colleges for Nigeria to return to the good old days again,” he revealed.
On why there was no reserve team for injured athletes, Chief Ogba said that the issue of taking very few athletes to Berlin was a board decision.
“We wanted to avoid a jamboree as was the case in the past. We did not want idle athletes or people with no potentials from going to the Championships. Just like what the Americans did, using some sprinters to run the 4x400, we thought we could adopt it but unfortunately, those we banked on were also injured. That was why a 46sec runner like Amaechi Morton who finished second at the Abuja Trials could not lift his form to get Nigeria into the podium. It was sad but we have learnt from that experience.”
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