By Patrick Omorodion

Every country has one or two sports where it has a strong following and equally a comparative advantage at international championships. Some like the United States are strong in much more sports like athletics, swimming, basketball and boxing. They are also very passionate about the American football.

The Cubans are well known for amateur boxing while coming down to Africa, South frica’s strenght lies more in swimming and rugby and the East Africans very strong in the long distance races with Kenya almost having a field day there..

Nigeria’s first stronghold was in boxing where the Late Hogan Bassey won her honours in the ’50s. Other boxers like Nojeem Maiyegun and late Emmanuel Ifeajuna followed suit before the emergence of others like Isaac Ikhuoria, Obisia Nwankpa, Jeremiah Okorodudu, Davidson Andeh, Tony Konyegwachie, David Izonretei and a host of others.

In athletics, Nigeria was never lacking and it produced the likes Modupe Oshikoya, Felix Imadiyi, Charlton Ehizulen, Chidi Imoh, Olapade Adeniken, the Ezinwa brothers, Davidson and Osmond, Falilat Ogunkoya, Mary Onyali, Beatrice Utondu, Faith Idehen, Maria Usifo, Fatima Yusuf and the golden girl, Chioma Ajunwa, to mention just a few.

Football did not make any serious impact until in 1973 when the country won the All Africa Games gold on home soil in Lagos and in 1980 when she hosted and won the Africa Nations Cup also in Lagos for the very first time.

At global level, the frenzy for football grew to high heavens when in 1985, a group of young boys stunned the world when they lifted the FIFA/Kodak U-16 tiournament in China. The U-17 had also gone to win two more of this title in 1993 in Japan and in 2003 in South Korea, incidentally all in Asia.

These victories at the junior level have not translated into anything substantial at the senior level where the Super Eagles keep struggling to make an impact at the World Cup.

Because of the passion the people have for football, the governments in Nigeria, State and Federal, have kind of stuck to it and have termed it, number one among others. This is reflected in the amount of financial and material support the sport enjoys to the detriment of others.

This lack of support for other sports has led to the gradual death of some of the very viable ones like boxing where Nigeria gave Cuba and the USA a run for their money. Even athletics where Nigeria once rubbed shoulders with USA, is fast becoming a nightmare as the country continuously relies on one athlete, Blessing Okagbare, so much so that if Okagbare fails, then Nigeria fails.

Somehow, Okagbare is being over loaded, all in an attempt to get the desired gold medal. In 1996 when the government gave all the support to football, Ajunwa unexpectedly won the long jump gold, Nigeria’s first from any sport and the abandonement showed so much as she couldn’t find a Nigerian flag to celebrate with.

At the on-going World Athletics Champ-ionships in Moscow, Russia, the Athletics Federation of Nigeria, AFN are still bemoaning the lack of funds which prevented it from giving the athletes quality training necessary for top performance. As usual, the blame game will only last for a few weeks and we return to the same old story.

The neglect has continued till date. Last year, nobody looked in the direction of basketball and quietly, the Nigeria Basketball Federation, NBBF sourced funds to camp the players of the men’s team, most of whom were products of American and European schools and a few of the NBA.

They surprisingly picked one of the tickets for the London 2012 Olympics and the nation and government suddenly realised they had a basketball team who could jostle for a medal. But it was too late as the preparation they had from the little fund the NBBF could muster was not enough for top notch preparation to battle the sport’s giants like USA, Spain, Lithuania, Greece and Russia.

As you read this, the team just arrived from the USA yesterday where they had their last training camp ahead of the 2013 Afrobasket, basketball’s Nations Cup in Africa. But it would shock you to know that the federation scratched everywhere to raise money for the trials and camping the team had and they are expected to face strong teams like Angola whose annual budget of $US4 million makes nonsense of our quest to be Africa’s power house in sports.

The NBBF is not waiting to be praised by anyone and so it hosted the team to a reception/sendforth as they depart today to attempt to conquer Africa. Like they were not considered worthy enough for the All Africa Games gold but won it Maputo, Mozambique in 2011 and shocked all with the Olympic Games qualification last year, the team handled by Ayo Bakare head into the Afrobasket with the desire to do their best and win again to shame their critics and push the authorities to recognise their effort and give them the needed support as well as their female counterparts who are still struggling to commence camping for their own version of Afrobasket 2013 hoding in Maputo, Mozambique next month.