By Jacob Ajom

Outgoing Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare succeeded Solomon Dalong, a combative, boastful and effusive character that ruled over Nigerian sports like an emperor.

Dalong left Nigeria sports in more confusion than he met it and the scars of his reign are still noticeable in some of the sports federations today.

Like his predecessor, Mr Sunday Dare was never a name associated with sports before his appointment. It was surprising that he was named Sports Minister after Dalong who was angling for another term.

What difference has Mr Dare made since he assumed office in mid 2019?

Aware that he is at the terminal point of his tenure, Mr Dare himself has been speaking on his stewardship.

Addressing the press penultimate week, Dare scored himself high. Said he, “My job is done as Sports Minister. I have put in my best and I am ready to move on.”

He added that he had upped the ante for future sports ministers to build on. “When I leave, nobody will say sports is a child’s play. Rather, sports in Nigeria will from now be seen as big business,” adding, “one of the high points of my tenure was the reclassification of sports as business and the entrenchment of the National Sports Industry Policy, which of course, is a major achievement.”

Dare also listed other “transformative” policies like the “Adopt-an -Athlete and Adopt -a-Pitch” policy as some of his achievements.

He also noted that athletes were better off today because of an improved welfare package, especially for the elite athletes who are doing so well in the world circuit. He took special pride in the strides attained by the likes of Oluwatobi Amusan, Ese Brume, Blessing Oborodudu, among others as some of his achievements.

To his credit, the Moshood Abiola National stadium, Abuja and the National Stadium Lagos have undergone various levels of renovation through his adopt-a-pitch policy. Alhaji Aliko Dangote and Chief Kessington Adebutu adopted the respective national edifices. Despite the efforts, the Abuja stadium pitch remains in a very bad shape while the national stadium in Surulere Lagos has reached an encouraging state of renovation.

But a more discerning perspective on the three and a half years of Sunday Dare as Minister of Sports indicate that his tenure has not witnessed any milestone in terms of sports development. What most of the ministers, including Dare have supervised is Nigeria’s participation in international events without actually laying the foundation for success at such events.

Sports facilities

The construction and maintenance of facilities have remained a big problem in Nigeria. On assumption of office the minister promised that existing facilities will be maintained while new ones will be built in the country.

The story of national stadium Lagos remains pathetic as , apart from the main bowl that is undergoing renovation, the vast arena which has facilities for other sports such as handball, swimming, hockey, boxing, squash, tennis, among others remain dilapidated and abandoned.

Sports Development

Grassroots sports is dead. Before now, there used to be the Principals’ Cup, a football competition for secondary schools. Lagos, with the intervention of GTBank, held the competition for some years, but now it has gone under.

The only surviving grassroots-oriented sports programme today is the moribund National Youth Games that has not been held again since the last one in Ilorin in 2021. Delta State was supposed to host the next edition but it has suffered several postponements due to, what officials at the ministry said, were “circumstances beyond our control.”

The dearth of sports development which assumed a frightening dimension in recent past years is epitomized in Nigeria’s over dependence on athletes trained abroad. It is hard to find any single one discovered during the period under review.

This is due to lack of competitions both at the local and zonal levels. The National Sports Festival has lost its original purpose as it has been thrown open to all athletes thereby losing its essence of discovering budding talents.

“That is why the noise about the success of the ‘adopt-an-athlete’ policy is debatable,” a source at the sports ministry told our reporter. “Tobi Amusan, Ese Brume, Blessing Oborodudu among other notable Nigerian athletes making waves in the international scene could not have been products of that policy.

“These are names we have known over the years and believe me, you can’t produce a world champion in one or two years.”

Sports Federations

National Sports Federations midwife local sports, organise competitions and discover athletes for the country. The federations are affiliated to international bodies. They form the link between Nigeria and the international sporting community.

Elections into sports federations in the country have been marred by unhealthy tussles.

The sports ministry has been fingered in some of the confusion that has attended some of the controversies. Dare has not been able to steer clear from meddling in some of the controversies.

His biggest misstep was the sudden withdrawal of Nigeria from international basketball in 2022. The decision, which was later reversed, denied the national female Basketball team D’Tigress from going to the FIBA Women’s World Cup in Australia.

The Tokyo Olympics shame

Nigeria’s adventure at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics was engulfed in scandals. Ten out of 18 athletes declared ineligible to participate in the games were Nigerians.

The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), an independent body created by World Athletics that manages all integrity issues – both doping and non-doping – revealed that the affected athletes failed Rule 15. The key requirement in Rule 15 is that an athlete from a ‘Category A’ country must undergo at least three no-notice out-of-competition tests (urine and blood) conducted no less than three weeks apart in the 10 months leading up to a major event.

The Athletics Federation of Nigeria was culpable because they failed to guide the athletes. The affected athletes demonstrated on the streets of Tokyo.

As if that was not enough, star athlete, Blessing Okagbare was also sent home from the Olympics due to drug-related issues.

She was suspended a few hours before participating in the semi-finals of the women’s 100 metres race in Tokyo for testing positive for human growth hormone at an out-of-competition drug test.

Kits crisis

After the embarrassment of disqualified athletes over administrative ineptitude by Nigerian officials, one of Nigeria’s athletes, Chukwuebuka Enekwechi, who made the Shot Put final, shared a video of himself washing his competition jersey for his next outing.

The Minister of Youth and Sports Development Mr Dare refused to allow Team Nigeria to wear the Puma kits, because he was not privy to an agreement signed with the kit’s manufacturer.

That was the height of ‘it’s either me or no one else’ syndrome common with most autocrats. Nigeria’s image didn’t matter to the minister.

Olympic Medal

Team Nigeria won 2 medals – one silver and one bronze medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

The country was placed 74th at the end of the 2020 Tokyo Games and eighth best among the 54 African nations at the Games.

Ese Brume won the bronze medal from the women’s long jump event while Blessing Oborududu won the silver medal from the wrestling event’s women’s freestyle 68kg. It was Nigeria’s best performance at the Olympics in 13 years.

Commonweaalth Games

The Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games was the high point of Sunday Dare’s term. The country’s athletes put up one of her best performances at the Games.

At the end of the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, Team Nigeria amassed 12 gold, nine silver and 14 bronze medals, bringing the numbers to a total of 35 medals.

Failure in Football

The Super Eagles failed to qualify for the Qatar FIFA World Cup. Since 2013 when the Super Eagles lifted the AFCON trophy in South Africa, the best the Super Eagles achieved under the present dispensation is a third place finish in AFCON 2019.

The Sport Minister would also be remembered for meddling in the affairs of the Nigeria Football Federation, particularly, on the appointment and disengagement of coaches.

The confusion that attended the sacking of Gernot Rohr and the subsequent appointment of Austin Eguavoen, a development which cost Nigeria a 2021 AFCON medal and a World Cup ticket.

Domestic football sunk to its lowest level while the clubs performed poorly in CAF inter-club competitions.

The age-grade teams like the Golden Eaglets, Flying Eagles and Olympic Eagles have all been struggling under Dare’s watch. But there is a new found winning aura for the Eaglets who will soon go the U17 AFCON while the Flying Eagles have already qualified for the FIFA U20 World Cup in Argentina.

Former African champions, the Super Falcons too have qualified for the World Cup, holding later this year In New Zealand and Australia.

In all, Sunday Dare would be remembered as a Sports Minister who demonstrated so much passion but made very little in terms of real change to Nigeria sports.