From London to Rio: What has changed? Part One

Former Nigeria sports and youth minister Bolaji Abdullahi discusses the problems that faced the country's campaign at the Olympic Games four years ago

We arrived London for the 2012 Olympics with a contingent of 51 sportsmen and women competing in 8 sports namely, athletics, weightlifting, taekwondo, boxing, wrestling, table tennis, canoeing and basketball. We were competing in the last two for the first time ever.
Even though we did not expect to win the competition, we had arrived hoping to make a decent showing. We even had reasons to believe we could surpass some of our recent achievements at the previous Olympics. Why not?
 We had arrived London riding on the wave of a short but intensive preparation of our athletes in different parts of the world where they did not only have the benefits of high quality facilities and technical support but also had the opportunity to match up against some of the best athletes from other parts of the world, and on some occasions even beating them.
 Many commentators agreed that while not ideal, our preparation for the London Olympics was the best we had in recent time. Coupled with a system that put athletes’ welfare at the heart of planning and an atmosphere devoid of rancor and acrimony, everything appeared perfectly set to guarantee us a couple of medals.
 Alas, at the end of the competition, we returned empty handed, making London one of the worst Olympics showing for the country in recent times. Understandably, it was a low moment for everyone connected to our sports. The entire country went up in arms, calling for mass sackings and metaphorical beheadings. “2 Billion Naira Down the Drains,” screamed some newspaper headlines. The Federal Government was understandably embarrassed. Some of the President’s aides advised him to sack the Nigeria Olympics Committee (NOC) to show that the government was on the side of the people on that collective national embarrassment.
As I walked stealthily into the Federal Executive Council meeting in the week following the Olympics, several of my colleagues greeted me with the query, “Honourable Minister, where are the medals?” I was not sure how I responded. Even though I was appointed to oversee the sports ministry only 2 months to the Olympics, no one was willing to exonerate me. I felt pained, but with benefit of hindsight, I realised that they were not being mean, they just believed that if you go to the Olympics and try your best, you should win medals! I myself thought so. Before London, I did not know that the Olympics is not a place you go to try your best. Almost every single medal could be predicted months before the first gun is fired.
Some months before the 2012 Summer Olympics, researchers at the University of Loughborough in the United Kingdom predicted 27 gold medals for Team Great Britain. They eventually got 29. Before then, a group of sports economists from the Colorado College department of economics in the United States predicted the medal table for the 2012 Olympics. They projected that the United States would lead the table, followed by China. Russia, they said would come third and Great Britain would finish fourth. The final table at the end of the competition was almost exactly as they predicted it, with the only notable exception being that Team GB pushed Russia to the fourth place. What this means is that modern day Olympics performance or even elite sports performance generally, is based on objective variables that can be precisely measured. And nations would succeed or fail based on their ratings on those variables.
London was not the first time we would be returning from the Olympics empty handed. It happened in 1988 with the Seoul Olympics. Our response then as in 2012 was typical. Public outrage, followed administrators and government making panicky vows never to allow a re-occurrence. Then a summit followed, committees and task forces were set up, reports were written and then what? The report of the committee that was set up following the Seoul debacle was what formed the basis for the 1989 National Sports Policy. Several other committees have followed since then: Dr Samuel Ogbemudia Committee on Sports Development in Nigeria, 2001; Air Commodore Emeka Omerua One-Man Presidential Committee on Nigeria’s Performance at the 2004 Athens Olympics Games; Dr. Awoture Eleyae Report of the Technical Sub-Committee on the Presidential Committee on Sports, 2005; National Sports Blueprint Committee, 2006; Presidential Advisory Committee on Sports, 2007; Report of National Sports Summit, 2010; General Dominic Oneya Committee on the Reforms of Nigerian Football, 2011 and; of course the  Presidential Summit on Sports, 2012.
Through these various summits, committees and their reports, a treasure throve of knowledge about Nigerian sport has been generated over the years.  It is regrettable to see however that very little has followed by way of action. A cursory review of the Vision 20:2020 shows clearly that we have never lacked in ideas on what is wrong with our sports and what needs to be done.
Since London 2012, we have gone on to record some major achievements. We won the Africa Cup of Nations in 2013 after 19 years; we won the U-17 World Cup in UAE in the same year. We also qualified for the World Cup in Brazil and recorded some remarkable feats in athletics and other sports, especially at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, where we finished with 10 gold medals. Between Seoul and London, we also recorded some very significant achievements, top among these would be winning the AFCON in 1994, qualifying for the FIFA World Cup for the first time ever that same year and quite significantly, the Atlanta Olympics with two gold medals.
However, it is significant to note that none of these remarkable achievements were a result of deliberately designed system or template. They were owed more to luck and the rugged determination of individual athletes than any articulate framework of process and outcome. The issues that led to our fantastic failure in Seoul were the same issues that led to our failure in London and almost definitely, Rio later this year. How else could we explain the fact that after waiting 19 years to win the AFCON, we have failed to qualify for the subsequent two editions? Or how else could we explain the fact that after waiting 44 years to win our first Olympic gold medals in football and athletics in 1996, we have not been able to repeat that feat since then? The reality is that even the basic building blocks for sustainable excellence in sports do not exist in our country. Even if we win anything in Rio, it would still be by chance rather than design.