Two years of success, failure, controversies for Nigerian sports
It has been a mixed bag of fortunes for Nigerian sport, as the sector has witnessed successes, failures and controversies since President Muhammadu Buhari-led APC took over power on May 29, 2015.
Specifically, Nigeria came top in six international sporting competitions. The 2015 Afrobasket Championship in Tunisia, the U-23 Nations Cup, 2015 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Chile, the World Scrabble Championship, Para-All Africa Games and the Africa Women Nations Cup were the sporting competitions that Nigeria ruled during the period under review.
Besides the victories and failures recorded by Nigerian athletes and players on the field of play at different sporting competitions, there were also controversies generated by sports administrators in the period under review.
Successes
In August 2015, the country’s senior national male basketball team, D’Tigers won for the first time the AfroBasket Championship after beating favourites Angola 74-65 in the final played in Tunisia with Chamberlain Oguchi was named tourney MVP.
the Golden Eaglets under Emmanuel Amuneke produced masterclass performance at the FIFA U-17 World Cup in Chile where they become the first country to win the title for a fifth time in history, Victor Osimhen also claiming the goals scoring records. With nine goals he won the golden boot award.
Also in 2015, Nigeria’s Wellington Jighere made history in Perth, Australia to become the first African to win the World Scrabble Championship.
On the continental level, Coach Samson Siasia led the U-23 team to win the Africa U-23 Tournament in Dakar Senegal, and also qualified for the 2016 Olympics.
The 11th African Games took place from September 4-19, 2015 in Brazzaville, Team Nigeria clinched the second position in the overall medals table.
At the close of competitive games on Friday night, Nigeria had pushed South Africa to the third position having won 47 gold medals.
On the final medals table, Egypt emerged overall best with a total of 217 medals. The breakdown shows 85 gold, 64 silver and 68 bronze medals. South Africa came third with a total of 122 medals - 41 gold, 41 silver and 40 bronze medals.
At the Para-All Africa Games, Nigeria finished top with 12 gold, 11 silver and eight bronze, totaling 31 medals. In the main Games, Nigeria finished second behind Egypt with 47 gold, 55 silver and 42 bronze medals.
At the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, Team Nigeria, parading 78 athletes in 10 sport disciplines, returned with only one bronze medal courtesy the Dream Team, while three Nigerian athletes Segun Toriola and Aruna Quadri, as well as Rower, Chierika Ukogu created records at the Games.
Aruna Quadri set another continental record after he became the first African to reach the quarter-finals in the men’s singles event at Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Ukogu on the other hand, qualified for top classification in the rowing event in Rio. She is Nigeria’s first ever rower in the Olympics to have got that far, placing fifth in the third quarter-final of the Women’s single sculls after clocking a time of 7:54.44 secs.
The Super Falcons however successfully defended the Africa Women Nations Cup after beating Cameroon in the final played in Yaounde last year to win the championship for the 8th time out of 10 editions.
Failures
At the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup held in Canada, the Super Falcons crashed out in the first round after losing two group matches and drawing against Sweden (3-3), Australia (0-2) and USA (0-1). The Super Falcons also failed to raise their game at the Africa Games in Congo.
In June, the Flying Eagles parading most of the players who won the 2013 U-17 World Cup in UAE failed to solidify in 2015. They failed to replicate the U-17 World Cup feat as they crashed 0-1 in the Round of 16 to Germany at the FIFA U-20 World Cup in New Zealand.
In athletics, Nigeria failed to win a single medal at the Beijing 2015 World Championships.
However, Nigerian boxers and wrestlers also made huge impact at the Games. The Nigeria wrestling Federation led by Daniel Igali produced nine gold medals. Igali was optimistic that his wards will do well at the Olympics, only if they get the requisite training.
The Super Eagles failed to qualify for the tournament for the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations in Gabon, while the Flying Eagles failed to qualify for the 2017 Africa Youth Cup of Nations in Zambia.
The Golden Eaglets complete the miserable year, having failed to qualify for the 2017 Africa U-17 Championship.
Controversies
The first major controversy in 2015 was the sack of former Super Eagles captain, Stephen Keshi as the head coach of the Super Eagles by the Amaju Pinnick-led board of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), and Sunday Oliseh was appointed as coach in his place.
However, the most celebrated controversy in the Nigerian sport sector was the failure of the NFF officials to pay players of the senior female national football team their allowances after winning the African Women Cup of Nations for the 8th time in Yaounde, Cameroon. The Super Falcons had to protest on the streets of Abuja, National Assembly and Presidential Villa gates before President Muhammadu Buhari ordered the allowances paid.
Sunday Oliseh, a former captain of the Super Eagles, who replaced Keshi as the Super Eagles handler, in controversial circumstance removed long serving captain and goalkeeper, Vincent Enyeama as the team’s captain and handed it over to Ahmed Musa, which led to Enyeama retiring from the national team. Oliseh later dumped the job over disagreement with the NFF board.
But the major controversy was the Dream Team’s Olympic Games participation, which was engulfed in camping controversy over nonavailability of funds and the games proper where the team was twice held hostage by Brazilian hotels over unpaid bills, and the quarrels over the sharing formula for the $390,000 donation to the U-23 team by a Japanese surgeon.
The donation, totaling $390,000, came from Katsuya Takasu, a plastic surgeon and football enthusiast, to boost the morale of the Nigerian players who have been bogged down by financial inadequacies.
The donor had said the team coach, Samson Siasia, and its captain, Mikel Obi, should each take $200,000 and $190,000, respectively.
But reports emerged that some NFF officials had ‘hijacked’ the process and demanded that Mr. Takasu must hand the money to them for onward disbursement to team members.
Still at the Rio Olympic Games, kits meant for participating athletes were not delivered to them until few days to the end of the games when some of the athletes had completed their events and left Brazil.
However, Nigeria’s version of the Olympics, the National Sports Festival, which is a biennial gathering could not hold since the last edition held in Lagos in 2011 as Cross Rivers State which was granted the hosting right could not live up to its billing. Till date it is not clear the games would hold in a near future.