Tony Ubani
22 July 2007
Algiers — Brown Ebewele, the man who worked tirelessly for Nigeria's victory at the Abuja Games in 2003 arrived Algiers towards the end of the games here and asked Nigerians to graciously accept defeat and plan ahead for the next games in Zambia.
He jabbed Nigerian officials for the myriads of excuses they have been adducing for Nigeria's failure and said they should be courageous enough to admit failure.
Nigerian officials had complained of manipulation of results by hosts Algeria but Brown who is now the commissioner of sports in Edo State would not take that.
"Manipulation is part of the game.' he joked in his usual manner indirectly saying that it was not all smooth when Nigeria won the games in Abuja. Ebewele fondly called the Juju Man of Nigerian sports is always a realist. His appointment as commissioner delayed his trip to Algeria for the Games where he was supposed to play a role as technical director of the Nigerian team.
At the Abuja Games, he plotted the use of Special Sports to win as many countries did not plan to field athletes for their events. And he also influenced neighbouring countries to field athletes for Special Sports even if they did not prepare for the events. He merely wanted to make up the number of countries in such events to make them scoring events. And Nigeria won over 20 gold medals from Special Sports. In Algeria, the host country reduced the events and this did not help Nigeria. And when Brown said manipulation was part of the game, he knew what it meant.
Nigerian officials complained of Algeria awarding or allocating medals to themselves and Brown simply asked if any Nigerian won a medal and it was awarded to another athlete from another country? Nobody answered.
On the allegation of scoring officials not been fair, he countered that by saying that Nigeria had the largest contingent aside host country Algeria and wondered why they did not attend venues of events in hordes to cheer massively and intimidate and frighten officials who intended to cheat.
"Rather than do that they remained in their hotel rooms enjoying or shopping. Now they are complaining of cheating. We have failed and our people should be bold enough to admit this," Ebewele yelled on arrival. As usual, he was the dream of journalists. He had given them much to write. Before his arrival, Nigerian athletes had missed him and said things would have been different if Ebewele was around.
There are other facts Nigerians cannot disregard in their review of the Algiers Games. Patricia Nnaji winner of the gold medal in 200m Wheelchair event said that she could have won more gold medals if Nigeria had modern equipment. She said that the equipment other countries used were better than the ones Nigeria provided them with and that actually affected their general performance.
Cycling Federation Chairman Mohammed Nur Sherrif complained bitterly about the bicycles Nigerian cyclists used, saying that they were outdated.
The National Sports commission had promised the Nigerian contingent that kits and other equipment would be supplied them in Algiers. Sherrif said that they nearly did not travel with bicycles as they banked on the ones the NSC promised them. But, on a second thought, they did only to reach Algeria to use the old and outdated ones and concluded their events while waiting for the kits and equipment from Nigeria. It was such a huge shame as he said that bicycles are changed almost every year as new ones keep on emerging.
Nigerian athletes did not have kits. They appeared in their different colours, not uniformed. Even during medal presentations, the Nigerian winners would only be known when the announcers identify them. They had no Nigerian Track Suits for such colourful events. Big Shame.
The Nigerian government released money late for the Games and consequently the athletes could not embark on training tours before the games.
Brown Ebewele admits but would not conclude it was why Nigeria failed.
"Can you imagine the tennis coach saying that he did not win because they played on clay courts and that he had planned to practice on clay if they had gone on tour. Do we not have clay court in Nigeria? What kind of talk was that? In Abuja we won gold medals from tennis. The tennis team did not go on training tour then.
Somebody won silver in swimming and our people were celebrating it and I wondered where we are headed. In 1978 in this same Algeirs, John Ebitor and others won up to four gold medals from swimming and now we are celebrating silver. Are we going forward or backward?"
Many know that Nigerian sports have badly taken a turn for the worse and results from football, track and field, boxing, tennis, wrestling and other sports are a great testimony to the poor state of Nigerian sports which the Algiers all Africa Games have confirmed.
Africa's fastest man Olusoji Fasugba raced to the gold in 100m and shunned Nigerian flag to protest and make a statement against administration of sports in Nigeria.
The administrators had no hand in his victory. He had prepared himself, trained abroad and did not receive any help from those who wanted to cash on his victory to massage their ego. His action told the world that Nigeria had no hand in his victory and saw no reason to celebrate with Nigerian flag.
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