Opinion: The Olympic disaster and the Nigerian culture of expecting something from nothing

 

by Elvis Subor

Team Nigeria poor performance at the Rio Olympics is a nightmare that most Nigerians do not want to remember.

Now, the question that keeps bugging me is, “why has the sports ministry not given Nigerians a detailed explanation about what went down in Brazil?”  We have always been a country that never learns from its mistakes, but how long will this this continue?

We all know that Nigeria hardly prepare for anything. This culture is most evident in its approach to sporting competitions. The fire brigade approach seem to have become the norm. However, the level of irresponsibility exhibited by Nigeria’s sports administrators at the Rio Olympics took on a whole new embarrassing dimension.

The response of the sports administrators and the government in general is quite disturbing because till date no one has taken responsibility for the insanity that happened in the last days preceding the Rio Olympics. As usual, Nigerians raised hell; condemning the inability of the sports ministry to properly fund the Nigerian contingent to the Brazil. The question that remains unanswered is why was Team Nigeria not properly funded?

The Dream Team, Nigeria’s football team for the Olympic was particularly worst hit, being stranded at an American airport hours to their opening match.  The most painful part of this episode is that there were most likely no lessons learned. Everyone seem to have gone back to sleep, waking up to repeat the same fire brigade approach again.

As a people, we need to place more premium on preparation. It is insanity to approach any task unprepared and expect to make the most out of it. Worse still, the sports administrators will repeat the same process that led to the Rio disaster and expect a better result. Now, that is the definition of madness.

After Team Nigeria’s disgraceful outing at the Rio Olympics and the sports ministry’s infamous role, one would have thought the next time the name ‘Dalong’ is mentioned  would be on an announcement about his resignation or sack on the grounds of inefficient administration.  This is not the case, the honourable minister has never been more proud of himself and the dust seem to have settled and nothing has changed.

In organized climes, preparations will have begun for the next Olympics; taking lessons from the just concluded. For us, that is just a waste of time. Everyone disappears into thin air only to reconvene three months to another major event. According to Martin Luther King Jnr, “the time is never wrong to do the right thing”. It is never too late to reverse this trend.

What kind of people are we? Always expecting something from nothing. Going through Dalong’s profile, I discovered that Dalong joined the Prisons Service as a Prison Assistant and rose to the rank of Assistant Inspector of Prisons. Following his training as an attorney, he was moved to the legal department of prisons where he served as Legal Officer II in the prisons headquarters prior to retirement.

I don’t see any relation between his last job and the present. It is therefore, quite embarrassing to think that we expected Dalong to do better when he was obviously a square peg in a round hole.  The disgraceful turn of events in Rio is the consequence of trying to push square pegs into round holes. Nigerians didn’t speak up when Dalong was appointed as minister for youths and sports. We all expect Dalong to give what he does not have.

Solomon Dalong is not the problem, he is just a symptom of a major disease. The disease is the Nigerian culture of expecting something from nothing.

 

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Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

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