RIO 2016 AND THE NIGERIAN "PALAVA"

The moment the international Olympic committee confirmed the brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro as the next host city after London to host the Olympics games Brazil became the first country in South America to do so. At the confirmation of this and its announcement by erstwhile president of IOC,Jacques Rogge at the IOC headquarters, news immediately started filtering around the whole of Brazil;the nation went agog, there were numerous and simultaneous scenes of jubilation across the nooks and crannies of the country - from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia, from Sau Paulo to Fluminense - the whole of the country went wild with jubilations. The Brazilian press and media termed it as a "New dawn for Brazil". The brazilian masses now has hope and faith in her people and government, or atleast that was what it looked like at the time.

Being selected as the host nation of a major sporting event like the Olympics - which actually is the biggest sporting event in the world has so many significance. In terms of sports development and the economy, the host nation will never remain the same. In as much critics have one or the other levelled the allegations of politics, partisantry, bribery, corruption and partiality at the feet of the IOC, credits must not taken away from the rigorous, objective and painstaking selection process undertaken before the choice of a host nation is arrived at. The choice of Rio de Janeiro as the host city for the 2016 edition of the Olympics has had expected attracted criticisms from various quarters both from the sports and political worlds. Some of these criticisms can be said to be constructive enough to be learnt a lesson or two from while some are nothing but destructive and very distracting from the job at hand. Some of these criticisms were that Brazil is not at the moment fit to Olympic games because of her poor economy state. Some schools of thought also have it that the politicians into whose hands the the money will be handed out to are fantastically corrupt and dishonest with money. Some of these criticisms are to some great extent turned out to be true, there arose some cases where scandals hit the local organising committee.; scandals lyk mismanagement of government funds for the hosting of the Olympics, the LOC not paying labourers as at when due, and the finally the sudden emergence of ZIKA virus. All these scandals and fall outs really turned out to slow down the pace of preparations for the games, coupled with the problem of millions of Brazilians taking to the streets to voice their grievances and displeasure against the government and even clamoring for the total cancellation of the games. The argument was that at this state of their economy, the money could be better utilised for the business of governance rather than staging an Olympics they believed will be more or less not beneficial to an average Brazilian. But after all said and done the government and the relevant stakeholders succeeded in calming the nerves of the protesters and convincing them on the great benefits of hosting the Olympics, especially on the economy an sports development in the country. The masses went low and highed up their Olympic spirits.

The games kicked off on the 5th of August,  though the football event had kicked off two days earlier-this has always been the tradition in recent times. Inspite of the various downs and lows encountered during the preparation for the Olympics, the games eventually went underway successfully. The opening ceremony was spectacular and the games itself has been a revelation. Over ten thousand athletes from 253 countries battling and sweating it out for Gold. It has been nothing short of excitement. Records have been broken, history has been made, victors are being celebrated while the vanquished have been motivated to try harder in the next edition come 2020. Team USA, CHINA and GREAT BRITAIN have headlined the medal table with their outstanding and "golden" performances. MICHAEL PHELPS and USAIN BOLT have once again continued to break records and make history.

My dear Country, Nigeria unlike Team USA, GREAT BRITAIN, CHINA, MICHAEL PHELPS or USAIN BOLT is yet to win a single medal, not even an "ordinary" bronze medal! It has rather been a case of merry go round for us just like the London 2012,Beinjing 2008 and even to distant past Olympics. Poor preparations leading to the Olympic games owing to lack of funds, corruption of the part of the sport officials, not paying any form of entitlements to the athletes or its delay, embezzlement of funds meant for the Olympics and so on. These have always been our problems and greatest undoings from time immemorial. And I don't see it changing for the better anytime soon. The minister of sports, Solomon Dalung has come up with unreasonable excuses of its own, the Nigerian olympic committee chairman, solomon ogba had as usual failed Nigeria once more.

We need to as matter of emergency now go back to the drawing board and fashion out better ways of doing things in order to reposition our sport sector. If not, I see another disaster coming upon us come 2020 in the Tokyo Olympic games. Before warned they say, is before harmed.


Exclusively written and edited by DANIEL IKECHUKWU EKWUNIFE- social commentator and international affairs analyst.