If you are familiar with the United States’ 100 dollar bill, you will be familiar with the face which adorns its front. It is the face of one of the country’s founding fathers that helped make the country what it is today, famously known by its citizens as God’s own country.

He is none other than Benjamin Franklin, a man of many parts. Sattwick Barman writing in The Indian Express described Franklin as “a quintessential polymath who in his life donned the hats of an author, an inventor, established the American Philosophical Society, served as a diplomat in France, and was a journalist and publisher”.

This famous American is remembered for his famous quote, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” Translated in other way, it means basically means that success is never accidental, you reap what you sow. Another of Franklin’s quotes is “Early to bed and early to rise, makes man healthy, wealthy and wise.”

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It is like Franklin, when he wrote or made these statements many centuries ago, had Nigeria in mind because, in Nigeria, those in positions of authority, especially in the sports sector never plan and therefore always run into problems and fail in the end.

Protests by Nigerian athletes are becoming a way of life because administrators who are supposed to manage these athletes who train and sweat for many weeks to represent their country think they are doing the athletes a favour. If administrators plan well, there is no way they will experience hitches in the execution of such plans which ultimately will bring glory to both their athletes and country and equally boost their (administrators) profile.

Let me take you back into history a little bit. Nigeria had been struggling to qualify for the World Cup right from after her political Independence in 1960. The 1962 World Cup in Chile being the first but the country couldn’t qualify until the 1994 edition held in the United States.

Her first appearance that year would have been glorious if adequate planning was done to ensure that the team and their officials had everything going for them.

The mistake of 1994 didn’t serve as any lesson to the managers of our football as a greater embarrassment was recorded four years later in France. After a superlative performance which saw the Super Eagles beat Spain, the issue of money reared its head before their game against Denmark. This affected their training because they argued over money till late at night before the game. The result against Denmark was very unpalatable and caused their ouster from the competition.

In 2004, another ugly scenario was repeated by the senior women’s team, the Super Falcons in Johannesburg, South Africa. After winning the Cup, the players refused to return to Nigeria if they were not paid their allowances. It drew the attention of the South African government and the entire world before the PDP government of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo intervened.

Far away in Brazil in 2014, another embarrassment was caused the country when the Super Eagles protested again. An embarrassed PDP government of Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan had to send his sports minister, Dr. Tammy Danagogo to carry cash to Brazil to pay the players before they agreed to continue with the competition. Of course they didn’t go beyond the second round.

Two years after, it was the turn of the Olympic football team which Samson Siasia handled. The team was left in the cold as between the NFF and the sports ministry headed by Solomon Dalung, Siasia didn’t know which was to foot their bills. But in order not to fail, he ran to his home state, Bayelsa government which came to his rescue and provided money for the team’s preparation. 

As it was the Olympics, the NFF left the responsibility for the sports ministry. But Dalung felt he was not carried along with their preparation and so washed his hands off the team who became stranded in the USA where they had gone to train. 

A benevolent American airline from the city they camped came to their rescue and airlifted them to Brazil early enough to meet their first match against Japan.

These embarrassments have not abated since the Brazil experience. Team Nigerian athletes had their turn at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 which however held in 2021. Athletes protested their disqualification based on the ineptitude of officials of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria, AFN.

Is it the protests by the senior women’s basketball team, the D’Tigresses who equally protested non payment of their allowances and bonuses? Or the recent one by the Super Falcons who refused to train for their third place match against Zambia at the Women African Nations Cup, WAFCON which ended last night in Morocco? They lost 0-1 to Zambia and missed the bronze medal on Friday night.

The embarrassments caused by sports men and women protests over administrators ineptitude pours like a running water from a Water Fall because the causes are never investigated and culprits sanctioned. And I bet we have not seen the end to it yet.