The end has come.
Tòo soon, and finally, Nigeria can count its medals’ haul from Tokyo 2020 – 1 Silver and 1 Bronze. Obviously the number does not look as impressive as most of the performances by the athletes.
‘The Eye’ can confirm that the quality of performances here oscillated mostly between good and very good. Anything below this happened only in one or two instances, particularly where the poor performance was self-inflicted.
Otherwise, in all their events Nigerian athletes put up relatively good shows, and did their best that were, unfortunately, not in the medal winning zone.
Team Nigeria’s women’s 4x100m relays team comprising Tobi Amusan, Grace Nwokocha, Patience Okon-George and Ese Brume finished 6th in Heat 2 of the event
The Olympics are not only about winning medals but about participating to the best of individual and collective abilities. On that score they rate high. The more important thing is to be seen to do the best that one can do.
The consolation is that Nigeria’s teams, indeed, mostly consisted of young athletes, both in age and in experience.
They would have been too ambitious to think they could just come and cart away medals without earning them with the necessary talent, training, and mental and physical preparation, when there are participants from 205 other countries with similar intentions. That thought consoles those that do not get rewarded with medals.
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That is also the sponsoring spirit and attitude inside the Nigerian camp here. The officials keep reminding the athletes to look beyond the medals and more at their performances, and how they will shape their future and more realistic ambitions, particularly towards Paris 2024.
That creates in the athletes the feeling of a pass-mark coming out of Tokyo, and instils the hope that Nigerians back at home will see what the athletes see and give them more credit for their Tokyo scorecard.
From the news and information filtering in here, that hope may be a pipe dream. Many Nigerians are already at daggers-drawn, waiting for the leadership of the Tokyo team to return to face the fire of criticisms.
One Nigerian former athlete is stirring up what could generate into controversy and criticism of present good intentions. He espouses disapproval with the bonuses paid to the only two athletes that won medals at the Games. His argument is that the $10,000 bonus paid to the Silver medalist is exactly what the Minister of Sports in 1984 paid to the Olympian that won a similar medal at the Los Angeles Olympics 37 years ago.
It will be great to find out from any one of Innocent Egbunike, Henry Amike, Yusuf Alli, or any of those that were athletes at the games. Innocent Egbunike actually became the first Nigerian track athlete to win a Silver medal at any Olympics during those Games.
Otherwise, the athletes here in Tokyo are preparing to depart the city of Tokyo. They will represent the country at the parade during the closing ceremonies.
The good news is that Odunayo Adekuoroye has climbed down finally from the mountain of her disappointment with self. She neither ate nor slept for an entire day after her match, despite all the appeals and assurances by her colleagues and officials here that she is not to blame for her ‘failure’. The Minister of Sports has been playing a very fatherly figure here to all the athletes, always interacting with them and encouraging them to manage there failures as well as they would their successes. Many of them hurt for various reasons here.
The President of the NOC, Engineer Habu Gumel as well as the President of the Wrestling Federation also did their best with the wrestlers on whom so much depended before the Games. But it was until after spiritual touch was added by her greatest benefactor, the General Overseer of her Church, who had adopted her fully as his responsibility, that she finally calmed down, accepted her fate and rejoined Team Nigeria in its last-minute rounding off activities.
The Nigerian camp has finished its activities here and everyone is on the Countdown mode, waiting to depart the Games Village this weekend.
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The next stage for action in the Tokyo 2020 Games story now shifts to Nigeria.
The basketball players have all returned to the US. The table tennis players are back in Nigeria, and Funke Oshonaike is back in Germany. All the disqualified athletes have returned to their bases, mostly on the US.
So, all is very quiet here.
‘The Eye’ was just about to shut down for the night when shocking news poured like rain into Tokyo concerning some major sports personalities at home.
In the last 4 days, 3 stakeholders in sports have passed on. These are aĺl friends of ‘The Eye’.
A former President of the Nigeria Football Association, General Dominic Oneya, passed on. Until 3 days ago, he was active and regular with his prayer sessions on his social media platform.
Late Brigadier-General Dominic Oneya
A former international fooball player, a member of the Green Eagles in the late 1970s, died in his base in America. He played for several clubs in Nigeria before going to the US in the early 1980s to study and settled there. Segun Adeleke was a folk hero in the Lagos and Western Nigeria football axis.
Another Nigerian football administrator based in Gabon, Libreville, a former member of the Technical Committee of FC 105, one of the biggest clubs in Gabon, and an assistant to the former Vice-President and Head of the Army of that country, Alhaji Abdulaziz Jummah, died. A few days before his death, he too was very active on his social media platform.
These deaths came in a flood of bad news to Tokyo adding to the sadness around Nigerian sports. Add to these the scandal of a terminated PUMA contract with the Athletics Federation of Nigeria, and you have the substance of what will dominate the media space when Team Nigeria finally gets back ro Nigeria in the next few days.
Meanwhile, ‘the Eye- is about to head back to its place of hibernation. It is waiting to see the tail lights of the remnants of the Nigerian contingent here in Tokyo before it takes off on that invisible drone. It has been a great experience. It hopes all Nigerians enjoyed the ride on the daily dairies.
All thanks go to the sponsors, Golden Chance Bet, Winners Golden Bet and Bet Experience for making it all possible.
Segun Odegbami
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COMMENTS
Hahahaha PR jingoists are back. Trying give us a cosmetic smokescreened dimension to a disastrous Olympics as a cover up of their binge trip to Tokyo as sidekicks of their loud mouthed boss.
“…Obviously the number does not look as impressive as most of the performances by the athletes. The Eye can confirm that the quality of performances here oscillated mostly between good and very good….”
Indeed good and very good…. coming from the supporting cast of the minister who wants others to be held to “HIGHER STANDARDS”. The good and very good performances that won us nothing in previous Olympics has been replicated at Tokyo…hurray…let’s toast to it.
“…The consolation is that Nigeria’s teams, indeed, mostly consisted of young athletes, both in age and in experience. They would have been too ambitious to think they could just come and cart away medals…”
Hehehehehe, in an Olympics where 13 and 14 year olds won medals…? All of a sudden ours were young and inexperienced…?! Are they all younger than Usain bolt when he took the world by storm in 2004…? Or did they all have to be 45year olds and participating in their 6th and 7th Olympics like funke oshonaike before we should expect medals from them…?! Was the arrogant loquacious minister drunk when he was predicting a medal haul by TEAM NIGERIA weeks before the Olympics…? All of a sudden we have brought down to earth and now realize we talk too much with empty braggadocios rather than focus on top notch preparations. The 11 athletes who were disqualified as a result of the cluelessness and ineptitude of the man saddled with supervising and calling to duty all sports federations in Nigeria, were those ones also too young to win medals too…hence the need to sacrifice their careers on the alter of incompetence…?! How “The Eye” refused to see all the shenanigans and the global disgrace the sports minister and his ministry has subjected Nigeria to in the very eyes of the world in these last 2 weeks beats imagination. “The Eye” surely need another pair of glass and some shame at such lack of integrity to say the truth no matter whose ox is gored. In the words of our ancestors….our ancestors who had shame and knew what integrity and uprightness was, enu ti je dodo, ko le so ododo mo – the mouth has eaten dodo and cannot speak the truth anymore.
All of a sudden “…The Olympics are not only about winning medals but about participating to the best of individual and collective abilities. On that score they rate high….” Hahahaha….So countries like China, USA and Japan who are topping the medals table just wasted their time and efforts….. LMAOOo….they just wasted their resources laying down proper administrative and physical sporting structures, scouting for the best talents, giving them the right coaching, preparing adequately for games and thereafter sweeping all those medals they’ve swept. According to the blind eye(s) that accompanied our arrogant noisemaking talk talk minister to Tokyo, the Olympics is never about winning medals, participating alone would have earned you high rankings on the medals table…..and we were ranked so highly for our participation that we where ranked 70 something on the medals table….hurray….let’s raise our glasses to that too. That’s another “HIGHER STANDARDS” which Mr Sunday Dare has led us to. Pls if I may ask this “Eye” was it the IOC that did the ratings or the Tokyo LOC or ANOCA…? Even if they were to rank participation at this Olympics, TEAM NIGERIA’s wouldn’t even the in the top 100. We crashed out at the prelims of over 80% of our events, we had the highest number of banned athletes, we were the most poorly kitted (imagine giving 1 pair of Jersey to athletes representing us and even the athletes themselves have to wash them by themselves….. was the minister and his entourage doing their own laundry by themselves in their 5star lodgings), we were the only team recorded to protest at the games village, complaints from athletes here and there about the inefficiency and ineptitude ministry officials, officials trying to corner phones meant for athletes…..please how does our participation ranks high….?! This “Eye” needs to address the acute glaucoma developing in it ASAP before it reaches an advanced stage.
The 2 medals we won were won IN SPITE of all these self inflicted challenges brought upon our athletes by our “HIGHER STANDARDS” seeking sports ministry led by and populated by low standard officials. After failing woefully at their last ditch attempts to bribe our athletes to haul medals for them to cover their shame and masquerade success out of a colossal disgrace, tripling prize money few days to the end of the competition, when they’d ruined the careers of others, they now come out to tell us our athletes were young and inexperienced and that Olympics is not about winning medals but participating. No problem, next time, we will bring back the likes of Deji ALIU, Emedolu, Obikwelu, Onyali, Nku, Alozie, Falilat and 7 time participants like Segun Toriola and Funke Oshonaike, not forgetting the likes of Daniel Amokachi and Segun Odegbami (sidekicks of the minister) to represent us at the Olympics.
Good name they say is greater than gold…. but even our good name as a country was further lost at these Olympics. Only God knows if some of these foreign borns who chose to represent us would still want to continue representing us, seeing how useless, callous, self serving, self centered and inept our administrators are.
And they and their sidekicks think they can fool us with sponsored PR jobs….. hehehehe. We know those who are killing our sports and we don’t need to look too far away to see them. They were the same ones who promoted the hiring of a person who isn’t even a coach to lead the super eagles to Qatar 2020….. apparently they needed a puppet they can control since this onyinbo in charge at the moment is uncontrollable for them. They were the ones who also put “local content” idea in the head of the clueless minister since the player agencies they own have run short of funds and oyinbo rather selects the best Nigerian players available out there rather than allow the national team camp to be turned to another yaba market. And that talkative one too sheepishly and robotically lapped it up and came to vomit it in public
Thank God you all are already getting feelers from home of what awaits you all on your return. It’s time to hold some people to the terms of their offices. Some people only remember their job description when it’s time to scheme for the sack of Gernot Rohr…..LMAOOOoo.
Its high time some people just SHUT UP and SIT THEIR DAMN ASSES DOWN IN THEIR OFFICES AND DO THE DAMN JOB IN THEIR JOB DESCRIPTION.
Waooooooo, waoooo, woooooowwwww **clap clap clap***. This smoking hot Dr Drey is the version I always want to read from here.
I wish I could give you a thousand hugs. What a brilliant piece of intellectual rejoinder you got there. Nuff said.
Minus your Odewalesque temper, I dare say you are a detribalized Yorubaman (a rarity) whose opinions are always premised on strong, analytically verifiable datas!
My only area of disagreement with you is on GERNOT ROHR and your penchant for the ‘rofo rofo’ fight’at the slightest provocation. Lol. Of course we do not need to agree on that; on GR (I always see him holding us back or limiting our potentials just like Gareth Northgate. Lol). But one thing is clear; my admiration for your incisive prolific grandiloquent deliveries laced with facts and figures knows no bounds!
Pls keep it up bro.
Hahahaha @Father JP. You are highly appreciated. Feel free to disagree with me, its a free world….but i’ll be glad if you do so with facts and verifiable info….and not with handshakes that reach the elbow….that one is an invitation to a rofo rofo…..And you know kukute o mira jigi, eni ba mi kukute ara re nio mi…LMAOOooo.
But 1 thing we can all agree on is the fact that the face of those killing our sports are coming to the fore now. Some people whom we trusted as legends, who portrayed themselves as saints are now beginning to show their true self-serving sides…Thanks to Tokyo 2021.
“The essence of participating in the Olympics is not to win medals”…hmmm….Iddokay (apologies to Baba Sabiko). When SE crashes of of 2021 AFCON in the group stages I dont want to hear pim from them o.
https://youtu.be/OXbeWLqyiRw
Rofo rofo fight don start. Plenty of mudslinging and finger pointing even before the entourage returns home. I guess the sports ministry has finally found what will keep them busy till another Olympics.
Na Sidon look we day.
I can only say, ” what a people?” and not what a country? Nigeria doesn’t deserve this . Bunch of criminals only will be good for the hungry lion’s dinner. Many thanks @ Drey for sharing.
Quite an interesting and revealing interview. But I don’t understand why Arise news reporters will find it more convenient to blame Dalung for mess ups of Minister Dare. Is it because of his good English or because he has a background in the Media? Every administration should be held responsible for the mess ups under their watch. This Olympics has clearly shown that Mr. Dare has been fooling Nigerians for so long. It seems he is worse than Dalung. My main question now is: Can any good thing come out of this Buhari government.
I’ve always said it before, this one’s queens English is the only upgrade to Dalung. But we refuse to be deceived anymore. We will start holding them to the same “HIGHER STANDARDS” they demand from others.
All of a sudden “…The Olympics are not only about winning medals but about participating to the best of individual and collective abilities…”. Hian…Make I call Contri pipo make dem come see American Wonder.
Dr Dre and others u guys have done well, folks we need to stop wasting our time on Nigeria issues, Nigeria is a failed state, terrorists and bandits are the ones ruling this worthless country, nothing would change until this country is divided or we adopt a serious bloody revolution, trust me guys next Olympic would be worst these joy killers don’t care.Talking or protesting will never solve Nigeria problems, hunting igboho and Kanu down but protecting boko haram and bandits what a country. With the so called huge population of Hausa Fulani how many of them participating in the Olympic, we must say all this things, political correctness and cowardice will not solve our problems in the south. We can blame Yeye Dare all day, trust me folks the incompetent smelly mallams are in charge those stupid southerners are just poster boys.
Point of correction @Sunnyb, Nigeria is not a failed state.
I will like to educate you and others on the Nigeria problems.
We are not choosing the wrong nation but we have chosen the wrong leaders/rulers and politicians.
This is why Nigeria is a lawless country.
Am I communicating? Hausas are crying every day likewise Yorubas and Igbos.
What is the main problem of Nigeria? We are our own problems.
Again, Nigeria is not a failed state.
What is making USA, CANADA, GERMANY and other top countries ahead of Nigeria/Africa?
They have law and they follow their rules and regulations.
Also, transparency is key to any develop country.
I am trying to change the perspectives of those that believe Nigeria have to divide before they can be free or having their own freedom.
Is that true? Capital NO NO.
Are you with me ba?
Hmmm. Nonetheless, if we try to split, the level of hunger and poverty will be too much in the land because those carbals and oppressors will go with their tribes and they will reform again and start their atrocities as usual. Is that what you want?
Long story short, regional government is the only solution to Nigeria problem.
Every state in Nigeria should govern its own people. By doing that federal government will have lit to contribute in Nigeria.
The citizens of this great country have to change the way they do things first.
Nobody cares for each others as long as nothing happens to you and your family, you are OK. That is not good. No love among us.
More so, we don’t have to rely on the government for everything. We the citizens also have a role to play.
Further more, what do you expect when we have Amaju Pinnick in charge of our sports? A former politician for that matter?
What is the politician man doing with our sports?
Why Oga Rohr is still with the Super Eagles till today?
What is the achievement of Oga Rohr apart from qualifying Nigeria to Afcon and world cup over the five years?
His man management enough for him to be in charge of the Super Eagles?
Our system is faulty not our country. So, please, it will be good to rephrase that statement that Nigeria is a failed state.
You should know this by now that bad people are everywhere. We have them in Yoruba land, Igbo land and Hausa land.
Fulanis are not Nigerians. Do more research on that. Not all Fulanis are bad people idea but the name Fulani is what we don’t want to hear at this moment. The only thing we should do now is to be in charge of our country then Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba can have a better life.
if you are in doubt about this, check this out. Native people owned the land of western world but today, Oyinbo killed most of them and chased away the aboriginal people and now they are no where to be found.
Something like this has happened in obodo Oyinbo before but America, Asians
and Europe have never called their continent or their country a failed state. Why should we? Is that the solution? Is that our mentality or what?
We should never relents. The new day has come. EndSars is an eye opener for Nigerians. Our youth should rise up again. Our oppressors have no place to hide from now on.
We can still get it right because it’s never too late but we the citizens have to put the tribalism aside and join hands together to make Nigeria a well deserved and a greater place to live for we the citizens and the foriegners. Ire o. God bless us all. God bless Nigeria/Africa!!!