By Festus Ahon

Seigha Porbeni, veteran track and field coach is now Special Adviser to the governor of Delta State on sports. He was the first Director of Sports in Delta State. He spoke on the 2016 Rio Olympic and why Nigeria did not do well. Excerpts:

What do you think was responsible for the poor performance of Nigeria in the just concluded Olympics?

You do not harvest yam when you know you spent months trying to cultivate cocoa-yam. We have never invested in sports. We say things on radio and in the newspapers without backing them up with action and funding. On October 1, we have exactly 1,187 days to Tokyo 2020 and the count down begins. You and I will be here when poor preparation will, again be the reason for poor outing.

•Seigha Porbeni

There must be a synergy between the Education Ministry and Youths and Sports Ministry. Sport is executed by the youths and most of the youths are in the schools. But there is nothing to show that both ministries are working together and there is a period where you can get these young athletes. You get them to a camp, well supervised, and you get them to be drilled by good coaches. There is nothing, there is no plan and you know who fails to plan have already planned to fail. Now, Glasgow was just four years ago; we came back with nothing. We made noise all the way; for a whole year, we did nothing. This is an Olympic year. There was no money for trials, there was no money for camping; you do certain trials to qualify to go to Olympics.

So, who will you blame for this poor performance of Nigerian athletes?
One, the Federal Government; they own this business of sports, just like Health, Roads and Ministry of Works. The value a nation places on sports makes a great difference. What value have you placed on sports as President? What value? Is it not only when you lose or win in football that you hear a little bit of statement coming from the Villa?

So what do you think is the way forward?
The way forward is for the Federal Government to take drastic decisions on sports. If they are really serious, then they should go on and make certain decisions that become policies. So first of all, put structures in order. Before I came from the United States of America as a student ready to drive my goals, the then Director of Sports, Isaac Akioye, may his soul rest in peace, brought Americans who had won laurels for Americans; the Lee Evans, the Roy Davis, the big boys, those ones who excelled in the 1968 Olympics; they were all here to train our people in the sprints, in the hurdles, in the long distances and even in the basketball.

They brought someone here in the basketball. I joined them coaching and they gave us a Volkswagen car, painted green white green with
Federal Government number plates. We divided ourselves into different groups. I was in Lagos, Lee Evans was in Ibadan, Roy Davis was up in the North, in Kano producing long distance runners. Don Kolmar was in Calabar, producing sprinters and hurdlers. We were like that, then once a month we would choose any of these? places to take our athletes. We had 400 meters, 600 meters outside those doing the 200 meters. They would run 350 meters to 400 meters just to know how they had fared. Then getting to any major competition, we would bring everybody together for a real trial that was open to all Nigerians training with others to come and try their luck among those we were training. That was planning.

We all know that government cannot do it all alone. What do you think well meaning individuals and organizations can do to boost sports in Nigeria?
Government can do this. Sports is very viable and it is when you produce good products that companies will buy. Right now what are you producing? Sponsors want to see their athletes in the media. First of all, where is the electricity? How many people will watch on television to see that my company is sponsoring a particular athlete? How many people buy the newspapers? If you are buying, it is because of interest you have on some news items. It could be sports, it could be about something in your village or town. How many people actually say, let me just buy a newspaper to know what is happening today?

It is just like? we are losing hope in everything; our judiciary; our ministries, we are losing it in everything including sports. Let the Federal Government take sports seriously. The Federal Government should cut down on security votes and work towards taking the youths off the streets, so they won’t cause you any mayhem and police will have less challenges. Health challenges will drop too. Look at the Niger Delta Avengers; tell the Ijaws today that you are going to make a place out of their creeks for rowing, canoeing, diving and all that. Some of these Avengers will be in sports camp instead of making trouble.

Finally sir, what will be your assessment of the current Minister of Sports?
You and I know that we have problem with this Minister. The Minister has not realized that he is in the Ministry of Sports; that he is in a sports world. He has not laid down a good structure and he has surrounded? himself with terrible advisers. If a man who comes into somewhere and immediately everything starts falling apart, then there is something wrong. The issue of N630 million is there, uncleared; we don’t know what is happening, the man that could help you removed him and he is the only core technical man that was in that ministry. Yakhmut Alhasan, the former DG, Federal Ministry of Sports, he? is a grassroots man.

I coached him in 1983. He tried his hand in Javelin, he left there and played volleyball for Nigeria. He is a core sportsman who went to school, read it; he had been in that ministry for a very long time, so he is a home boy. He is the one that should be telling you who is who. He is from your town; he should work with you like a brother. ?First thing you did was to remove him, creating so much vacuum. The people who advised him to remove Yakmut are the ones who should have been removed. Let’s go to another thing, there are some Americans here, employed, earning as much as $12,000 in a month, down to $10,000 a month, down to $5,000 a month; about four of them like that here. One calls herself Director of the High Performance; they told us that she is an American coach who has produced American athletes; we all just came back from Olympics; you can google her. Let us see the American athletes she coached before coming to Nigeria.

So the government first of all, should demonstrate that they value sports and other things will key in.