All African Games: Nigeria, Ekeji's banana peel is AFN

Yusuf Sulaiman, Sports Minister

Disaster looms large like a dark cloud foretold on the results from the September 2011 All African Games in Mozambique. Nigeria will return with the worst ever result in recent years. Unless, yes, unless  the National Sports Commission (NSC) rise to stop the sole administrator of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), Mr. Solomon Ogba from his messianic complex.
Nationalaccordsports checks revealed that the list of the team and officials to superintend the preparations for the games did not receive the approval of the board of the federation. Most members of the board heard of the list from "outsiders".
The athletes on the list are outsiders to medal range at the game. Only one athlete falls in medal range from our team. The others are below average athletes whose performance cannot be upped drastically before September.
The Ekeji phenomena:
Director General National Sports Commission (NSC) Chief Patrick Ekeji, has a unique place in Nigerian sports history. He led Nigeria to top the medal table in the All Africa Games at the eighth edition held in Abuja in 2003. We were told you don’t change a winning team. We did against the ninth edition in Algiers 2007. Dr. Amos Adamu led the crew and could not retain Ekeji’s feat in Abuja.

Some authorities consider Team Nigeria’s performance at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi 2010 in India as outstanding. However, to pundits who know, that could not have been the best that Nigeria is capable of achieving. Even at that, had the nation organised herself well, tapped into available best human resources, we could have done far better than that.

Today, Ekeji is the chief accounting officer of the National Sports Commission (NSC). Will he superintend a final rubbishing of the records he had? The pointers are obvious that the nation most likely will be heading into her worst performance in the All African games. The nation’s most potent sport where she hauls medals with absolute ease used to be weightlifting, boxing and athletics. Weightlifting is not listed for competition in this games. Our boxing is in coma. Our athletics is heading for the rock of self destruct. To save his name and record, there is need to call the ship out of the deep sea. Candidly, and in reality, it is absolutely difficult to reverse the trend. Therefore, the nation is faced with a very sad and bad outing in Mozambique.

Yusuf Sulaiman's first failure:
The new Minister of Sports and Chairman NSC, Yusuf Suleiman, though fresh in sports, will record his first failure in the Ministry in Maputo. There is no doubt that television analysts, newspaper columnists and pundits will readily blame Ekeji and the NSC when Team Nigeria fails. They will certainly call for Ekeji’s head.
This is why Ekeji needs to be proactive now and quickly. Thank God, we are so adept at planlessness and short cuts. That is why the list of athletes and coaches being submitted by each of the federations going to Maputo should be reviewed directly by the NSC and not the jaundiced federations like athletics.

If Sulaiman is forgiven for the failure in Maputo, he will have a repeat in the London 2012 Olympics. The irony and the absolute truth is that we do not have any athlete that will pick even a wood medal. Serious nations of the world would have used the Maputo games as a preparatory event for their athletes going to London.
The bone of contention in athletics:
Nigeria’s elite coaches are an unwanted specie in Solomon Ogba’s national teams. In the 51 athletes that will represent Nigeria in Maputo, 28 are female and 23 male. There is no female coach in the team. No medical doctor nor physiotherapist in the list of officials. All our elite coaches, except Harrison Momah, are excluded from the team. This shows the quality of maladministration and the extremely lack of oversight function by the NSC on its federations.

How on earth will 14 persons fraudulently tagged as 'coaches' take Nigeria to the All African games if it is not for jamboree? A peep through the list has shown categorically clear that it is either the AFN does not understand their schedules or they are confused. Many of those brought to tinker the Nigerian team have never coached in their lives! They do not have any single athlete they have produced anywhere. Some other coaches scouted or and produced the athletes they want to fraudulently use to make name. monkey dey work baboon dey chop is the mantra!

 Where has Gabrial Opuana, Sunday Bada or the others on the list trained as a coach or have coached? Yes, they ran the tracks abroad but many of them are not even graduates. One of them followed the paralympians to Australia for the 2000 Olympics. He stayed back. Years later, he was deported to Nigeria. He has been fingered repeatedly to be the supplier of enhancement performance drugs to our athletes. What does he want in our national team?

If the ‘coaches’ of Ogba and the AFN claim to have the requisite qualification, what did they read? So one wonders how the AFN arrived at the rationale of the list. The placement of the coaches also showed that 'Basket Mouth' the comedian may have drawn up the list.
How on earth did they arrive with coaches for short sprints, long sprints and relays? This is a clear admittance that they do not understand how these things are done in the game. Even the choice of the athletes is sincerely not on merit.
A particular case will suffice. Ann Nwogu, a 400m hurdler was on an initial list. She is not on the new list. When question was asked, I gathered "she was dropped because she was disobedient." The young lass was third at the National Athletics championships in Calabar. She won gold at the National Sports Festival in Port-Harcourt. She was dropped from the All African Games's list because she disobeyed AFN president by not going to the world youth championship which would have denied Rivers State the gold medal she won and increase the chances of his own Delta State. Uhn!

Criminal athletes/misplaced choices:
Did the compiler and his/her supervisors understand the meaning of the word PROBATION? They placed some athletes on "probation". I am sure that they do not know the meaning. If I were one of such labelled athletes, I will sue them because probation has to do with criminality and a suspended over sight by law enforcement agencies.
Innocent Egbunike, arguably the best elite athlete coach Nigeria has is not good for Ogba’s national team. Egbunike has led Team Nigeria to record many successes including winning the gold medal at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. He has also achieved success elsewhere, notably in America where he coached Angelo Taylor to win the Olympics gold medal in 400 hurdles at Beijing 2008. None of the coaches in Ogba’s camp can near Egbunike in terms of productivity.
Tony Osheku is another good elite coach overlooked by the federation. It was Osheku who coached Falilat Ogunkoya-Omotayo to win two Olympics medals at Atlanta 96 Games, and she became the best quarter-miler in the world two years later. He coached Seun Ogunkoya to become one the best sprinters in the world between 1997 and 1999. Then, big names like Ato Bolden, Maurice Green and Donovan Bailey dreaded Ogunkoya, others include Mercy Nku, late Sunday Emmanuel to mention a few.
Osheku coached Libyan Mohamed Ashour Khowaja to become the best quarter-miler in Africa at the last African Championship, he also won the event at the last Mediterranean Games in Pescara (Italy). North African are not known to be good in the quarter-mileand Osheiku produced what they consider as 'magical'. A case of prophets not being honoured at home?
Mrs. Pat Itanyi-Williams the West Virginia University trained coach who has about five athletes in camp is not good enough for Ogba’s national team. Duro Ikhazuagbe of Thisday newspaper is perfect choice for media officer. A foreigner in the media, Emelia Sturham was named as media officer. This is underlining the inanity of sacrificing merit on the anvil of job for the boys.
OUR CHANCES SPURNED:
The chances of our athletes at the games are very slim. The truth is that Botswanans, Ghanaians, Zimbabweans, Kenyans, Zambians and even North Africans like South Africans and Cameroonians are ranked ahead of Nigerians in the men’s 100m, 200m, and 400m.  We have no athlete in the first four in all these events. None of our athletes is even in the top ten medal range in the 4x100m, 4x400m, long jump, high jump, decathlon. The only exception is triple jumper Tosin Oke who is sure of a gold medal. 
Our prospect in the women events are looking like hopeful especially in 100m, 200m, 4x400m, long jump, 400 hurdles and high jump. Even at this, we do not have the elite coaches to drive these athletes to enter into these potentials. Our chances in the other events are rather slim.
Our chances in the 4x100m and 4x400m relays should have been bright with the right coaches. Nigeria has a penchance of messing up major championship with very good athletes who have very good chances of winning medals in the relays, but poor baton exchanges, in-fighting among the athletes and absence of elite coaches with strong personality will mar our chances.