The Presidential Candidate of Labour Party in the 2023 general election, Peter Obi, has berated the Federal ministry of sports, over poor campaign of Team Nigeria in the just concluded Olympics games in France.
The former governor of Anambra state, on Sunday, added that the sports ministry must conduct a thorough investigation to fish out officials responsible for athlete’s disappointment.
In a series of posts made available via his X page on Sunday, Obi expressed his displeasure with the team’s failure to win a single medal despite the huge financial investment.
Recall that Nigeria finished the Paris 2024 games without securing any honor, just like the case in London Olympics of 2012.
At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Nigeria won a bronze medal in men’s football before claiming a silver and bronze medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, held in 2021.
In 2024, the country featured 88 athletes in 12 sports and came off empty-handed, despite high expectations, as notable medal prospects Tobi Amusan, Blessing Oborududu, Favour Ofili, Ese Brume, and Quadri Aruna fell short in their respective games.
Obi while reacting to the development, said: “I call on the government to investigate these gross misconducts and make sure that those responsible do not have the opportunity to do so again.
“The rascality and recklessness that has continued to characterise leadership in our nation in nearly every department. The general impression that has come to stick is the one that portrays our country as a joke, even on the international stage.
“How can one explain that a country like Jamaica spent less than 5% of what we spent on our contingents for the Paris Olympics 2024 and won as many as 6 medals. Yet with our huge financial investments and large contingent, we could not win even a single medal?
READ MORE: Paris 2024: Sports Minister Begs Nigerians Over Disappointing Olympics Campaign
“At least nine African countries won gold but the giant with over 200m people came home without even a bronze. We invested about N12bn in this year’ s Olympics, which is almost twice the amount budgeted for the entire Ministry of Science and Technology for this year.”
“We must now interrogate the relationship between this huge investment and our dismal outcome. Sad stories like this are our lot only because we have refused to embrace competence and capacity over routine and favouritism in Nigeria.
“Let us consider the case of Favour Ofili, a Nigerian professional sprinter who trained for years for the 2024 Olympics, only for her name to be recklessly and wrongly removed from the list of athletes for the 100m race at the Olympics by Nigerian sporting authorities.
“What explanation can anyone give about Annette Echikunwoke, a former Nigerian hammer thrower, who was frustrated by the same rascality of some Nigerian leaders, making her switch her allegiance to the United States, where she eventually won a medal in the just completed Olympics?
“These same professional athletes were denied the opportunity to represent our nation in Tokyo 2020, for similar reasons of administrative recklessness. I have it on good authority that some injured athletes, not physically fit to represent the country and not competing in the ongoing Olympics, were there in Paris receiving estacodes from our national resources.
“Some of the sports officials and others who have no reason to be at the Olympics were there too, living large and feeding fat on the estacodes while our nation was crashing out on every sporting event. One of our athletes, Ese Ukpeseraye, had to borrow a bicycle to compete at her sporting event. How can one sensibly explain such recklessness and infamy?”
Now that the Paris Olympics 2024 has officially ended and our dear Team Nigeria, despite the huge financial investment made into the project, is returning without a single medal, let me unreservedly register my displeasure with the performance of our team and their handlers.
— Peter Obi (@PeterObi) August 11, 2024
