The Sun News On-line

If former Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) boss, Dan Ngerem has his way, whoever approved Nigeria’s participation in the forthcoming Beijing Olympic Games should be charged with felony. The person should be sent to jail without trial for economic sabotage; for committing crime against our fatherland, and for plundering Nigeria’s huge resources on a mere sight-seeing venture to China.

The out-spoken sports debonair is livid that Nigeria will not be participating in the 4x100m relay women and 4x400m relay men because of some people’s lack of planning.
"This is the height of insult. Bahamas is just a country of 300,000 people, yet they are number two in the world. Their population is not more than that of Surulere in Lagos. It is sad that Nigeria is wallowing in the dungeon while smaller countries are doing well in sports," Ngerem began.

"I don’t know the minister’s position on Nigeria’s participation in the Olympics, but I sincerely think that going to Beijing is a waste of the country’s resources.

"Bahamas’ budget, when compared to Nigeria’s since Athens Olympics, is nothing to write home about. I know this because I went to Bahamas to understudy their athletics when I was the president of AFN. The difference is that they have a plan, they are focused, they have a conveyor belt of school sports that churn out talents who are groomed and piloted to stardom.

"Compare that to our own scenario where people only surface when there is a major sporting event where they will travel and collect allowances. And as soon as the event is over, they will hibernate elsewhere, only to resurface when there is another major competition.

"People with vested interest have a way of spreading rumours, half truths, innuendos and outright fabrication. Nigeria should go back to school sports as a foundation for the future. The resources deployed now without proper planning and strategy has a dismal return on investment. We found out in the Presidential Advisory Committee that there is money for compulsory school sports under the Universal Basic Education (UBE) up to JSS 3, but there is no proper interface between the National Sports Commission (NSC) and the Ministry of Education and also, the Ministry of Youth. There is also money for the 102 Unity Schools for COMPULSORY SPORTS.

"For example, I served close to four years as president of AFN and Nigeria did not sponsor anybody to IAAF world youth and junior competitions despite my pleadings with all and sundry. All the athletes we sent to those competitions were sponsored by IAAF and AAC and Mrs James Ibori. How then do we get the stars of tomorrow?

"How long shall we continue to waste money only on jamborees and big competitions without adequate planning? A case in point is when I had to pay from personal funds for a 32-man Nigeria team to travel to Congo Brazzaville (when all pleadings to the then minister fell on deaf ears.) That was why we qualified for the Athens Olympics relay and we won bronze.

"During the Presidential Advisory Committee visit to the National Assembly to parley with them, we were informed that Nigeria spent billions in Algiers only to buy athletes’ wears in the open market and send PDP chairman to Algiers in a chattered plane.

"Also look at the Beijing Olympics, are we really serious? We may lose the chance to run in the 4x4m men because we are number 20 in the world when only the best 16 teams will run, and this is an event where we won a medal in Athens.

"We may also not run in the 4x100m women because we have dropped from number 16 to 17 in the world. This is at a time the NSC were convinced to sponsor an athletics camp in Benin and embark on a charade of national rotational relays without the 'A' Team of Fasuba, Damola, Goodday James etc. All this time, nobody thought about the qualification of the 'A' Team, which will actually run in Beijing.
"We must stop this cycling of mediocrity and people reaping where they did not sow. Some of us made presentations at the Emeka Omeruah Panel, after the Athens Olympics, not knowing that it was a wasted effort. It was just a panel set up as musical chairs to assuage Nigerians that were so mad at our performance in that outing.

"Four years down the lane, what have we learned? Nothing! It is very frustrating. Most countries are now focusing on the 2012 London Olympics and as usual, do we have any plans? The Beijing Olympics has been won and lost. Why is our sports so opaque in a modern digital and internet world that the NSC cannot have a decent website thereby fuelling unwholesome and potentially negative issues like using 30-year olds to prosecute Under 17 championships.

"Such lack of openness fuels speculation, half truths, fabrications and ultimately destroys our integrity and accountability. The damage we suffer from the subsisting platforms in our sports is incalculable and pushes further away private sector sponsorship and participation in sports. The shenanigans may also have contributed to why in an Olympic year, Team Nigeria is comatose in mysterious circumstances. Captains of industry like Chief Molade Okoya Thomas resigned as chairman and DG Nigeria Stock Exchange held a press conference to underpin lack of transparency in the NSC.

"Furthermore, the Nigerian Olympic Committee (NOC) did not present a marketing document, so it is only the government will fund our participation in Beijing. It will take years for private sector confidence to be revived in our sports. As one who has bought TV rights for CAF Nations Cup running into millions of dollars and just recently the terrestrial TV rights for EURO 2008 in partnership with NTA, I know, for a fact, that many private-sector companies stake millions of dollars in pan African sponsorship of the events in Nigeria.

"Finally, maybe those calling for a scaled-down participation in this Olympics want Nigeria to save the money and use it properly to discover, train and nurture talents and athletes to represent Nigeria in future major Games. They may well have a good reason giving our chequered experience. However, it may be a hard road to travel because China is planning to use the Games both as political and foreign policy platform to show that they have arrived as a superpower.

"The under performance of Nigeria sports is so annoying and frustrating that people may sometimes let their emotions run over, which is understandable. Nigeria is a country that is abundantly blessed by God and the universe with enormous talent base. We also have the resources to back it up and go head-to-head with any country in the world.

"Regrettably, our administrators and managers of that God-given potential has continued to let us down as a nation and as a people, giving rise to the scenario where a few individuals that have mastered the art of manipulation of the system are the only ones that are benefiting and have by implication mortgaged out our collective destiny and that of our children.

"We have to collectively reposition and restructure our sports so that we can use it as instrument of national unity, leverage sports tourism and culture, boost sports business and use it as a platform to showcase what is good about our lovely country and if possible, use it as an instrument of foreign policy. We cannot afford to keep silent for the sake of our children. To paraphrase Prof. Wole Soyinka in the "Man Died", a man does not only die by natural causes, he also dies if in the face of tyranny he keeps quiet," Ngerem concluded.