The whole incidents of last two weeks put Nigeria and Nigerians under so much pressure leaving us with so much to talk about, so much to argue about and fight about but eventually things are returning to normal.
NFF board dissolved, Super Eagles banned from competing for two years and of course the FIFA ban we expected.
Reason eventually prevailed and Mr. President changed his mind but is that how this whole fairy tale ends?
Do we all live happily ever after? Do we still plan to restructure Nigerian football or was our beef just against Lulu, Uchaegbulam, Ogunjobi and Ojo-Oba? If so we have achieved our aim, right?
But that really is a discussion for another day so I plan not to digress so much.
Mr. President, we beg you to disband the sports ministry, or National Sports Commission, NSC, or whatever name they go by because they have completely embarrassed Nigeria at every turn.
Mr. President, people have put their hopes in Nigeria at every Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games for the last ten years now and all they get is heart break, some may have even died.
Nigerian athletes now resort to taking drugs so much that our country has been scandalised because they keep getting caught.
But what have our sports ministers done about it? They simply do not care. There is just too much interest in football to care about 37 other sports.
Whatever happened to Boxing? When I was a kid growing up I read about the exploits of Nojeem Maiyegun, Dick Tiger Ihaetu and Isaac Ikhouria.
I also watched boxers like Davidson Andeh, Ngozika Ekwelum, Peter Konyegwachie, Obisia Nwankpa, Jerry Okorodudu, Joe Lasisi amongst others do well for Nigeria on the African and World stage.
But where is Nigerian boxing today? Dead! And this is because we do not care anymore because of football.
In tennis I watched the likes of Nduka “The Duke” Odizor, David Imonite, Tony Nmoh, Godwin Kienka amongst others take Nigeria to the top of the tennis rankings at least in Africa but right now I seriously doubt that any one knows Nigeria’s Davis Cup group.
I can go on and on to swimming, Handball, Basketball, Volley ball, track and field and the story is the same- Sports in Nigeria is dead! And ironically, the football we so crave for is dead too.
Whatever happened to that great handball team, the Grasshoppers of Owerri? Whatever happened to table tennis where Nigeria were clearly the best in Africa and used to even contend with the Chinese in world Championships?
Mr. President, we cannot continue like this.
What is the brief of Isa Bio? He was announced as Sports Minister and he immediately began to do NFF business.
Yes we thank him for sorting out the hotel issue, the air transport issue and of course helping to remove Sani Lulu but was that his brief?
Does it not have anything to do with sports development, participation, winning, amongst others that would benefit Nigeria and Nigerians?
Do they have a budget at the sports ministry? What do they do with it? How come we do not have regular competitions by our sports people to develop them?
Mr. President, we have seen your hand and we know that you want to develop football, but at the Olympic Games football can only give us one medal, if at all we get it; at the All Africa Games, football can only give us one medal, if at all we get it.
But events like swimming, chess, athletics and gymnastics will give us tens of medals if really we have a developmental program in our sports but do we?
No, Mr. President, we don’t because we have not really had a minister of sports or chairman of the National Sports Commission but Minister of football and chairman of the National Football Commission.
The World Junior Athletics Championships start soon but are we going to win anything or are we just going to participate so we can grab allocation money and estacodes?
The Commonwealth games start soon but what is the target of Nigeria? Is our target to win medals or to go on another jamboree?
Maybe we should also ban the sports ministry and our athletes from taking part in international events while we rebuild Nigeria’s sports.
It is not enough for us to keep focusing on football because the future may not be football.
It is time for us to rebuild Nigeria’s sports and the time is now.
Let people like Amos Adamu, Patrick Ekeji and Isa Bio be called to answer questions on how they have administered Nigeria’s sports and how they plan to do it from now on.
Let us see genuine change Mr. President.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Where on earth is Dele Udoh’s son?
Seriously, I do not think many of the modern day internet users will know/ remember the name, Dele Udoh.
I doubt if many of the older generation will remember him too or if they ever knew him.
I remember the year and it was 1981 and I was a freshman in secondary school then.
I had picked up a neat interest in sports during the Moscow 80 Olympic Games due basically to the NTA coverage of the event.
But in 1981, a sad piece of news troubled my tender heart.
I had heard of a Nigerian student based in the United States of America and married to an American.
He was an athlete and his name was Dele Udoh.
Since 1979 he had been our best prospect at winning the 400m gold at both the Olympic Games and the World Championships.
He had returned home with his wife in 1981 to prepare for a championships with the Nigerian athletics team.
Word has it that his wife pleaded with him not to return but he did.
He was driving in Lagos with his wife and son (still a baby then) when he was shot dead by police at a check point near Ojuelegba following an argument (possibly over money).
Funny enough, after shooting to death the most promising Nigerian athlete of his generation, the police displayed his body like that of a common criminal, placing wraps of Indian hemp in the boot of his car and claimed he was an armed robber.
If he was, then what were his wife and son?
The burial ceremony at the national stadium in Lagos was shown live on NTA news and my nine year old eyes cried along with Dele Udoh’s wife but Nigerians soon forgot him.
I have been thinking and the memories of that day have filled my eyes with tears as I type this, 29 years later.
I ask, do we even know the name of Dele Udoh’s wife? Do we know where she is?
Do we remember Dele Udoh had a son? He should be 29 years old but do we know his name? Do we know where he is? Do we know what he has been doing? Does he know he is Nigerian? What ugly stories of Nigeria did his mother tell him? Has he forgiven Nigeria for what they did to him?
All these questions that require answers but who will give them to us?
But there are many more Nigerian sports people that have gone the way of Dele Udoh.
Sometime in the early 90s, 1994 to be precise, a Nigerian club, Iwuayanwu Nationale, now Heartland were returning from a CAF Champions League match or Cup of Champions Clubs match as it was known then.
They had played in Tunisia against Esperance and lost 3-0 but their Oriental Airlines Flight was forced to make an emergency landing at the Tamanrasset airport in Algeria when the pilot noticed some engine problems.
Two of Nigeria’s best players of that generation, Uche Ikeogu and Omale Aimounwansa died in the incident.
I am just wondering aloud, “If you go to the camp of the club or the club office, will there be any sign that Omale and Ikeogu ever played for the club?”
I seriously doubt that.
Does anybody on facebook, twitter even know the twosome who died representing a Nigerian football club in the search to win the then elusive CAF trophy?
There is also the case of Kayode Oluremi, a member of the Nigerian silver winning team at the Barcelona Olympics was involved in a fatal motor accident which claimed his life.
I do not even want to go to the most celebrated case of Sam Okwaraji because we have belaboured it as it stands now.
Did Dick Tiger Iheatu have a family? Did he have children? Did he have a family? How come nobody knows about them?
There is a lot that is wrong with how we treat our sports people both dead and alive and we must change that attitude now.
I doubt if many of the older generation will remember him too or if they ever knew him.
I remember the year and it was 1981 and I was a freshman in secondary school then.
I had picked up a neat interest in sports during the Moscow 80 Olympic Games due basically to the NTA coverage of the event.
But in 1981, a sad piece of news troubled my tender heart.
I had heard of a Nigerian student based in the United States of America and married to an American.
He was an athlete and his name was Dele Udoh.
Since 1979 he had been our best prospect at winning the 400m gold at both the Olympic Games and the World Championships.
He had returned home with his wife in 1981 to prepare for a championships with the Nigerian athletics team.
Word has it that his wife pleaded with him not to return but he did.
He was driving in Lagos with his wife and son (still a baby then) when he was shot dead by police at a check point near Ojuelegba following an argument (possibly over money).
Funny enough, after shooting to death the most promising Nigerian athlete of his generation, the police displayed his body like that of a common criminal, placing wraps of Indian hemp in the boot of his car and claimed he was an armed robber.
If he was, then what were his wife and son?
The burial ceremony at the national stadium in Lagos was shown live on NTA news and my nine year old eyes cried along with Dele Udoh’s wife but Nigerians soon forgot him.
I have been thinking and the memories of that day have filled my eyes with tears as I type this, 29 years later.
I ask, do we even know the name of Dele Udoh’s wife? Do we know where she is?
Do we remember Dele Udoh had a son? He should be 29 years old but do we know his name? Do we know where he is? Do we know what he has been doing? Does he know he is Nigerian? What ugly stories of Nigeria did his mother tell him? Has he forgiven Nigeria for what they did to him?
All these questions that require answers but who will give them to us?
But there are many more Nigerian sports people that have gone the way of Dele Udoh.
Sometime in the early 90s, 1994 to be precise, a Nigerian club, Iwuayanwu Nationale, now Heartland were returning from a CAF Champions League match or Cup of Champions Clubs match as it was known then.
They had played in Tunisia against Esperance and lost 3-0 but their Oriental Airlines Flight was forced to make an emergency landing at the Tamanrasset airport in Algeria when the pilot noticed some engine problems.
Two of Nigeria’s best players of that generation, Uche Ikeogu and Omale Aimounwansa died in the incident.
I am just wondering aloud, “If you go to the camp of the club or the club office, will there be any sign that Omale and Ikeogu ever played for the club?”
I seriously doubt that.
Does anybody on facebook, twitter even know the twosome who died representing a Nigerian football club in the search to win the then elusive CAF trophy?
There is also the case of Kayode Oluremi, a member of the Nigerian silver winning team at the Barcelona Olympics was involved in a fatal motor accident which claimed his life.
I do not even want to go to the most celebrated case of Sam Okwaraji because we have belaboured it as it stands now.
Did Dick Tiger Iheatu have a family? Did he have children? Did he have a family? How come nobody knows about them?
There is a lot that is wrong with how we treat our sports people both dead and alive and we must change that attitude now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)