The performance of Team Nigeria in the 2024 Olympic Games has been characterized as significantly below expectations by the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN).
Through the Secretary-General of the Association, Amb. Ikenna Okonkwo, SWAN President Mr. Isaiah Benjamin issued a statement stating that Nigeria's failure to return from the recently concluded Olympics with a medal was unacceptable.
The Association blamed the country's enormous failure in Paris on administrative incompetence and ignorance, which became evident when the name of Favour Ofili, a highly regarded track and field athlete from Nigeria, was discovered to be missing from the list of competitors for the 100-meter event.
After the Games, SWAN questioned why there were so many claims of medal hauls that administered by the sports authorities despite their full knowledge that nothing, not even the amount of preparation necessary to ensure a podium finish, was in place.
Nigerians were led to believe that everything was OK before to the Games when the Sports Ministry repeatedly promised that Nigeria will perform better in 2024 than it had in the Atlanta 1996 Olympics.The news that Nigeria's athletes didn't perform as well in Paris was shocking to the country's media community as well as the various sports federations. It has come to light that the federations only cared about getting their athletes into the Olympics and didn't put any effort into training them for competition.
"The The outcome from Paris demonstrates that despite the enormous sum of tax payer money made available by the federal government for participation alone, a great deal needed to be done that was not implemented.
"This cycle needs to end since it is now apparent that Nigerian sports require a revitalization.
“It is a well known fact that sporting talents abound in Nigeria but the management of these talents leaves so much to be desired. In the past and even at the just concluded Olympics, Nigerians, some of them who had competed for Nigeria, switched allegiance to other countries and did so well to win medals,” the statement said.
The SWAN leadership therefore called on the Federal Government to urgently reorganize the whole sports industry and make sure that the only persons allowed to work in this vital field are those who possess the necessary skills and enthusiasm.
These days, sports are big industry in different regions of the world. Therefore, the Nigerian sports sector needs to be opened up to experts and business-minded people to join in and turn things around in order to prevent a replay of what happened at the Paris Olympics.
Nigeria possesses a wealth of well-performing individuals both domestically and abroad who possess the necessary skills to promote Nigerian sports, thereby benefiting the youth who are disproportionately affected by unemployment and social unrest might earn a decent income in the industry.
SWAN did, however, also remind the Sports Ministry's leadership of the urgency with which investigations into past administrative errors at international competitions must be conducted, particularly with regard to Ofili's ineligibility for the 100-meter event non Paris.
"Resolving the administrative problems plaguing Nigerian sports would truly be the pivot around which the growth and rebirth of sports in the nation will revolve.
"The fact that Nigeria's sports development is still behind is due to the failure to identify and address necessary administrative bottlenecks."
SWAN also recommended early planning for the 2028 Olympics in order to prevent historical mistakes.
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