Berlin ’09 fallout: Diack weeps for Nigeria

They do say the rich also cry. Imagine the tears shed by our embattled bankers and debtors whose loans were "non-performing."

But the rich are not generous with their tears; they cry only for themselves, hardly for others. When they do cry for another, you can be sure the matter is serious.

Lamine Diack, the president of the International Amateur Athletics Fedration (IAAF) is not only rich, but powerful. However, last week, he cried for Team Nigeria when he met Patrick Ekeji, Director General, National Sports Commission (NSC), on the final day of the World Championship.

Why Diack wept

Diack, who witnessed the golden age of Nigeria athletics, could not believe that we could sink this low. We not only failed to win a medal in Berlin (the last time we won was Sevilla '99), but three of our athletes, all women, were sent home for testing positive to anabolic steroids.

But it is not only Diack that is weeping for Team Nigeria; the whole athletics family and far the entire sports commonwealth are weeping for us. Indeed, only those with hearts of stone or who have benefitted and are still benefitting from our failure will not weep.The

Golden Age

Just a little over a decade ago, Nigeria ranked among the best in the world in our area of speciality: the short sprints, the quater-mile, the hurdles, jumps and the relays. Our dominance of events like the women 400 metre race was near total.

Of the 10 best women quater-milers in the world, four were from Nigeria--Falilat Ogunkoya, Charity Opara, Fatimah Yusuf and Bisi Afolabi. Of the quartet, only Afolabi was not a sub-50 runner; the other three dip inside 50 seconds at major games, meets and championships. Only Marie Jose-Perec and Cathy Freeman could run faster.

Though American Michael Johnson was a phenomenon in the men's 400 meters, our own Sunday Bada, not only stood among the best, winning the Indoor title, the World Cup of athletics and a couple of relay medals, the likes of Clement Chukwu, Udeme Ekpeyong, Jude Monye and others were sub-45 seconds runners.

Today, our women quarter-mile best times are 54 seconds, or at best, 52.00 seconds. The men average 46.00 seconds. These times were too poor to get them into the semi-finals of any major competition.

Short sprint

In the 100 meters, Nigerian sprinters were the best in the world after the Americans. In the IAAF top ranking males at the end of each season could be found the likes of Chidi Imoh, Olapade Adeniken, Davidson Ezinwa, Daniel Phillips, Kayode Oluyemi and others, while Mary Onyali and Chioma Ajunwa ranked among the best female sprinters in the world.

Seun Ogunkoya's presence in any meet worried the likes of Maurice Greene, Donovan Bailey, Ato Boldon, Frankie Fredericks and other top sprinters of that era. Glory Alozie was good enough to threaten Gail Devers, Ajunwa was a nightmare for Fiona May, Jackie Joyner-Kersee and other great jumpers of times past.

Road to glory

All these did not happen by accident, but through the diligent and visionary planning of Isaac Akioye, the late director of sports development who for over a decade, laid the foundation, in 1970, for our athletes who ruled Africa, the Commonwealth and made true impact on the global scene in the 1990's and early 2000.

Just as one man's visionary leadership and scientific planning gave us athletes that ruled the world, poor leadership under people like Amos Adamu led us to where we are today, and it will take massive injection of funds for development of youth, facilities and equipment to get us to where we were before.

Adamu's era

For the two decades that Adamu was director of sports development, youth and grassroots development was neglected and emphasis placed on the hosting and participating in major championships without a care about whether we succeed or fail.

So many Nigerians have argued that under him, we won medals at Barcelona Olympic Games, Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000 and Beijing 2008. But discerning observers know that majority of the athletes that won medals at the Barcelona'92 Games benefitted from Akioye's developmental programmes.

Those familiar with our sports administration know that without Segun Odegbami, Nigeria Police and Mobil Producing, Ajunwa would not have won a medal at Atlanta'96 Games, the nation's first Olympic gold medal.

Without the financial muscle of Nathaniel Idowu, the wisdom of Bonfere Jo and Chris Eseka and the personal commitment of our footballers, we would not have won the soccer gold medal at the Atlanta'96 Olympic games.

Adamu's era witnessed the enthronement of mediocrity in Nigerian sports. Representing Nigeria, either as an athlete or coach was a function of how close you were to power and not your performance in trials or national championships.

Nigeria became a Mecca for hosting all sorts of games with little to show except the Abuja 2003 which we won, thanks to Ekeji's acumen in preparing the team; the organisation was a mess. Auditors have not seen the books six years after the games; and if they have, the report has not been made public.

Sports endangered

The Nigeria football league, basketball, boxing, table-tennis, hockey, athletics, volleyball, and virtually all the sports became endangered under Adamu. When he was sacked last November there was nothing like grassroots or youth development in all the sports; they were all dead. Under him, it became fashionable to dump Nigeria. Francis Obikwelu and Gloria Alozie are some of the athletes who dumped Nigeria for Portugal and Spain respectively.

Their reasons: no training grants, no kits, equipment, facilities, medical attention, etc. This was the same country whose athletes turned down overtures from Canada and the United States under Akioye.

Ironically, at the same time, Adamu was making progress in international sports politics, becoming an executive member of FIFA and CAF and president of WAFU. These were no mean feats considering the potential benefits to the country. But Adamu could not even use his position in CAF and rumoured closeness to CAF President Issa Hayatou to get CAF to award the hosting rights for 2010 Nations Cup to Nigeria. We lost to Angola which hardly had a quarter of our facilities.

Nigeria Olympics Committee stands alone

Only the Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC) has done well. Thanks to strong leadership or its secretariat, it was able to resist Adamu's influence. So whereas we continue to fail in our performance on the field, our NOC ratings soared. The committee had managed to work within deadlines.

Blame AFN for drug scandal

While Adamu might be blamed for sowing the seed of our failure at the Berlin 2009 World Championship, officials of the federation are actually responsible for the international disgrace that the doping scandal caused. Their intelligence gathering system is either poor or negligible.

Before the championship, NEXTSports was aware of the existence of a document detailing athletes involved in doping, the drugs they took, and where they got their supplies.

Indeed, NEXT had learnt of a certain athlete who told an official that she was not clean and requested the official's assistance. Before the board took over, athletes using banned drugs could "become" clean with the aid of $200. They simply get someone else's urine to replace theirs. But the official who told the athlete there was nothing he could do, directed her to the IAAF doping official, Femi Erinle.

In all, the board could have dropped Vivian Chukwuemeka, Gloria Kemasuode and Amaka Ogoegbunam like it did with Sorochukwu Ihuefo who was dropped before the championship.

The way forward

The future of athletics is bleak under the present arrangement. If the NSC and the AFN are determined, the immediate solution is to start an elite athletes' programme where a special fund will be set aside for athletes with obvious potential, especially in the relays, in the next Commonwealth Games, World Championships and the Olympic games.

But a return to where we were would take about a decade of massive injection of funds in youth development.

Majority of our world class sportsmen and women are either products of the American school system or the classic system. Many of today's athletes are illiterates; it will take efforts to get them to embrace western education, and go to America.

If we can revive the classic and youth programme, then by 2020 we could be where we used to be. So Diack, weep not, our athletes could get back on track sooner than you think.