ANALYSIS: Sports in Nigeria is being run into the abyss

Imagine this – you purchase a 15 million Naira car and you hand it over to an

uneducated roadside mechanic to check an engine fault…

That is the way most of the various federations run sports in Nigeria. A multi-billion Naira venture has been handed over to the most egoistic, self-seeking and self-serving individuals one can think of – they are even worse than the Nigerian Politician, and that is saying something.

The sports federations had their elections last Tuesday and the outcomes gall and beguile the mind. So much idiocy and truancy were escalated during the exercise that one should begin to wonder whether Nigerians actually have a death wish – an inclination to destroy whatever is intrinsically good in the land.

With over 180 million people, Nigeria should be a giant in the sporting community but what we currently have is an aberration. At the last Summer Olympics, the country won just one bronze medal – in football.

Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Population
Israel	0	0	2	8.3 million
Austria	0	0	1	8.6 million
Dominican Rep.	0	0	1	10.5 million
Estonia	0	0	1	1.3 million
Finland	0	0	1	5.5 million
Morocco	0	0	1	33.8 million
Moldova	0	0	1	3.6 million
Nigeria	0	0	1	182 million
Portugal	0	0	1	10.4 million
Trinidad and Tobago	0	0	1	1.4 million
UAE	0	0	1	9.2 million

I have since found out you cannot ask what ails sport without asking what is wrong with Nigeria?

Of the 10 countries that won just a bronze medal in Brazil, Nigeria is by far the biggest with the combined population of the other nine countries at 92.6 million – about half the population of the world’s biggest black country.

That statistics alone should bring tears to the eyes of the sports administrators knowing that within this bracket are countries like Trinidad and Tobago – places boasting fewer people than Lagos.

Many scientific studies have shown that Nigerians, Jamaicans, Black Americans, etc. have a definite muscle definition and composition that allows them to run very fast.

But while America and Jamaica have harnessed this knowledge into a winning regimen, Nigeria is yet to produce an Olympic 100m gold medalist despite apparent potential.

It definitely cannot be on account of GDP because Jamaica’s is 14.01 billion while Nigeria swallows that wholly with 481.1 billion [2015 figures]. Jamaica is a poorer country compared to Nigeria but they boast Usain Bolt, who won three consecutive 100m gold in the Olympics!

There is so much talent around us that it is often disheartening to contemplate the waste. There is also so much wealth despite the continuing thievery and surely these administrators can see developing sports will definitely increase the country’s GDP.

But we are where we are because the administrators [by their actions] continually show they are clueless and are just basically selfish. And as long as they [we, really] stay in charge, from top to bottom, we will continue to receive the results of our collective idiocy.