A TALE OF 2 OLYMPICS

A TALE OF TWO OLYMPIC MOVEMENTS - (Please let's stop this continuing celebration of mediocrity and let's get to work immediately)

I really don't support celebrating mediocrity in any form. Over the last few years, I have come to realize that Africa's bigger  developmental impediment is the acceptance of mediocrity as a norm and not corruption, as we love to think. Certainly, MEDIOCRITY trumps CORRUPTION in my books. The 'make we manage am so' mentality. Or the 'after-all, at-all at-all nah hin bad' syndrome.

In the case of our OLYMPICS journey, how else can we explain this: Exactly 20yrs ago at the 1996 Atlanta games, Nigeria's 2 Gold, 1 Silver  and 3 Bronze medals topped Great Britain on the medals  table at those games. We came in at 32nd position, while team GB with 1 Gold medal finished at the 35th spot on the overall medals table.

Britain said NEVER AGAIN and NO to 'make we manage am so'.  Their government went straight to work scrapped the previous Sports Council  structure and set up UK Sports an independent body, driven by the private sector, to fix the perceived problem.

Their mandate, amongst others, was to set-up and administer a new sports funding policy/regime for Olympic and Paralympic sport in the UK. Cleverly, It channeled lottery funding together with the hitherto insufficient Dept of Culture funding to this new PPP. The rest is history as they say.

Their 20 year development plan (with its 8yr gestation period)  led to 11 Gold in Sydney 2000. 15G in Athens 2004, 19Gold in Beijing 2008; 29G in London and now 2nd place(27G) in Rio - Britain's biggest medal haul at 67 medals in total.

Nigeria path since 1996: 1 Gold and 2 Silver in Sydney 2000; 2 bronze medals in Athens 2004; 2 silver in Beijing 2008; no medal in London 2012 and now a despicable 1 bronze in Rio.

Why do we do nothing, but lip service, after each games until 2months to the next Olympic Games? Even then, our preparations are then marred is one controversy or the other. Yet we expect a successful outcome at each appearance. PURE DEFINITION of MADNESS, or what?

Indeed, I hope you can see my tale of the 2 countries 20yr Olympic trajectory.

Secondly, let's also note that India with its 1.1b population (one silver @ Rio ), and Nigeria with its 189m people (1 bronze @ Rio) are literally at the bottom of the medal efficient or 'sports development' efficiency index.

Jamaica (and maybe Fiji) arguably tops the list with her 3.5m population and 11 medals in Rio (6G inclusive). Very little wonder that Jamaica's global cultural narrative has changed over the last 20yrs from one of violence, drugs(weed) and reggae,  to one of a successful sprint nation, tourism and reggae, if I may say so.

That perhaps is the best example of what sports does for a country amongst her peers. It's called SOFT POWER. We have missed out on this  relatively cheaper opportunity to global goodwill at our peril.

While I am not suggesting we must be Team GB, I guess my question is : Where is our bench mark?

This is why my kudos to the Dream Team is so muted.
God bless Nigeria!