Odegbami: Story Of The National Institute For Sports – Incomplete Without Lasun Emiola!

He started to influence the appointment of the headship of the national institute with his anointed persons with a strong leaning from academia, not technocrats on the practical side of sports as was originally envisioned.

That’s when the derailment, the decline and decay started in the National Institute for Sports, with attendant effect on national sports development.

It is no surprise, therefore, that no Minister, since Anthony Ikhazoboh left office, has fully grasped the essence and place of the NIS within Nigeria’s sports development frame work, and attempted to put it right back on track. They all largely neglected it in ignorance of its place in the development architecture.

Today, the NIS is less than a shadow of itself. There is nothing of the original pieces of that institution left, apart from the dilapidated facilities and infrastructure. Nothing!

That was the situation I met in the institution in 2000 when I was made Chairman of the Governing Council. I was shocked to find that the management of the NIS had been trying desperately for years before that to get the National Technical Education Board, to accredit the Institute as a tertiary institution for the purpose of awarding National Diplomas like the OND, and HND. As noble as that objective may look on the surface it is a fundamental deviation from what the Institute was set up to produce.

Any football player that could read or write qualified to enroll for a coaching course to enhance his knowledge and hone his coaching skills. That’s why several national coaches only had certificates from a few days’ or weeks’ of coaching courses in all manner of institutions abroad. Even clinics served as much needed qualifications to embark on a coaching career without hindrance.

The NIS was conceived to bring an end to the traffic of retired athletes to Hennef, where Alabi Aissien, Christian Chukwu, and a whole host of other coaches had their coaching courses that gave them the necessary qualification to coach any of the national teams.

Late Professor Lasun Emiola

‘Diamond Toe’ Baby Anieke, a member of the 1949 UK Tourists team, embarked on a coaching career with a few weeks course at the same NIS. That’s why he could coach the Junior national team when Isaac Akioye, his team mate in the squad, plucked him from his drinking addiction and led him into coaching the Junior national team in the late 1970s.

I served sports as Chairman Governing Council of the NIS for 3 years (2000 to 2003).

When I arrived at the NIS, the place had lost focus and was agitating for academic accreditation.

My conviction was that there were only 2 ways to convince government that the NIS was heading in the wrong direction – bring back The German Institute of Sports that designed the original institution to remind government about its purpose; or introduce a new product or program that was working well elsewhere, and use it to convince government to tow that route. I chose the latter.

I shared my thoughts with the Director of the NIS at the time, Professor Lasun Emiola.

Together we embarked, in three years, on the most ambitious sports development project ever undertaken since the National Sports Festival was introduced in 1973.

With the Support of MTN who were introduced to the NIS by Mr. Dan Ngerem, the President of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria at the time, a passionate and consummate professional in sports administration, we invited officials from the Australian Institute of Sports, a global model sports development institute with excellent programmes at the time in Australia, to partner with the NIS, sign a relationship agreement, and undertake the design of a programme for all-round development of Nigerian elite athletes.

It worked like a clock. Even President Obasanjo, president of Nigeria at the time, witnessed the agreement signing ceremony between the two institutes in the board room of the Australian Institute of Sports in Australia during his visit there. Within two years the job was completed and Nigeria had a brand new 10-year Elite Athletes Development Plan leading to the 2016 Olympic Games. The project eventually collapsed like a pack of cards shortly after President Obasanjo left government.

The man that drove those reforms and initiatives, a programme that would have transported Nigerians sports far into the 21st Century, was Professor Lasun Emiola. He took it from me and ran with it till he succeeded. That’s the nature of the man – a true hardworker.

Last week Professor Lasun Emiola died at the Bayero University Kano. He served for 2 terms as Director of the NIS, from 1999 to 2007. After completing his tenure at the NIS he went to the University of Ilorin, and later to Bayero University Kano as a lecturer in the department of physical and health education.

As I write this, he has been buried in accordance to Muslim rites.

It is rather unfortunate that his huge contributions have not been acknowledged at all. Indeed, I have not seen a single major public announcement of his death, or a tribute to a man who was on the verge of writing one of the greatest chapters in the history of the NIS and the story of sports development in Nigeria.

Let this be my humble tribute, therefore, to Professor Lasun Emiola on behalf of the entire sports fraternity, a man of nobility, a great visionary, a dedicated sports administrator, a first-class scholar and a great family man. The story of the NIS shall never be complete without a chapter on his contributions.

My condolences go to his family, as I wish him a peaceful journey back to his Creator.