Ugly sides of 19th National Sports Festival in Abuja

By Albert Akota with agency report

New records were set, upsets recorded, new champions emerged but beyond that, the just concluded 19th National Sports Festival, in the view of many including athletes and coaches, left much to be desired in terms of organisation and execution.
Often fondly referred to as Nigeria’s Olympic Games, it was not out of place to have high expectations from the country’s biggest multi-sports event; especially after a six-year wait.
While a school of thought believes the Sports Ministry and Federal Capital Territory deserve to be praised for at least bringing the Festival back, others feel they deserve knocks for organising what they term a glorified ‘Inter-house sports’.

Lack of publicity
If there was one big disservice done to the 2018 19th National Sports Festival, it was in the area of publicity as many Nigerians including Abuja residents were in the dark as to what was going on in their immediate environment.
“Which match are they playing here or are the Super Eagles in town again,” the taxi man queried as we approached the National Stadium, Abuja, where the opening ceremony for the National Sports Festival was unfolding.
The ignorance of the taxi man who traverses the Abuja metropolis daily and often with his car radio on speaks volumes of the lack of awareness of the games.
It was thus not surprising that save for those occupied by the contingents from the participating states, the seats in the stadium remained empty for the duration of the games.
Nigeria’s queen of the tracks, Blessing Okagbare-Ighoteguonor, who was also in Abuja, not as an athlete but as a fan, bemoaned the lack of adequate publicity.
“Overall, it was amazing, but the crowd is not really what I expected to see,” she said.
“The energy was low and with sports like this, fans actually make a lot of difference, they come around to cheer you up and it is a different atmosphere with the fans around. We are just here, coaches and athletes, watching ourselves, which is not supposed to be for a major competition like this. However, the athletes gave their best.”
Ms Okagbare offered some advice for the subsequent hosts of the festival.
“For awareness, I don’t know how much of that was done because everywhere was so empty, no sponsor logo, nothing to show that something great was happening.
“They must put everything in place, from the airport, there should be something to create awareness that they are doing the NSF at that location, and there should be great awareness which they didn’t really do at this festival. That will be my recommendation ahead of the next championships.”

Transportation
While some have argued that given the fact that it was only ten months ago that the Federal Government agreed to take up the responsibility of hosting the Games after Cross Rivers State, which had been handed hosting rights defaulted, organisers of the games did not fare badly in terms of deliverables.
They also said given the difficulty in getting the money released from the government, the organisers of the games did not fare too badly in terms of logistics.
Others, however, believe that the argument fails to take into cognisance the fact that the organisers of the games could have leveraged on the influence of the Federal Government to attract sponsorship for the event.
They hold that for a game of this magnitude, there ought to have been shuttle buses conveying people and even athletes seamlessly from one competition venue to the other.
This was sorely missing as athletes on occasion had to hop into tricycles to venues to compete in their scheduled events.

Compromised Officiating?
While many will say that questionable officiating has always been part of past Sports Festivals, findings reveal that it got to new heights in Abuja 2018.
Some states for selfish reasons allegedly tried to compromise officials to get favourable results.
While there were some technical officials who remained above board and dutifully carried out their assignments, there were also some bad eggs who allowed themselves to be compromised and thus made questionable calls which marred what were obviously very competitive events.
“Referees, umpires and judges have not been impressive at this Games,” chairman of Edo State Sports Commission (ESSC), Godwin Dudu-Orumen, said during the festival.
“Their conduct has left a lot of questions unanswered and has certainly affected the quality of the festival.”
He also said the shenanigans of these officials put Nigeria at a disadvantage internationally.
“Now l know why our arbitrating officials hardly make it on to the international platforms,” he said.
He noted that the quality of officiating had cast a shadow over some of the victories recorded at the Games.
Even coaches were not spared by the newly appointed ESSC boss who accused them of colluding with the technical officials in perpetrating fraud at the festival.
Mr Dudu-Orumen was not alone here as a number of other athletes made similar complaints.
In this regard, the Sports Federations have a lot to do in calling their officials to order and applying stiff sanctions on those found guilty of colluding with states officials to influence the outcome of events.

‘Dry’ Opening, Closing Ceremonies
Save for the callisthenics display by young girls selected from Abuja secondary schools and, of course, the display by the singer, Small Doctor, the opening and closing ceremonies of the 19th National Sports Festival were largely ‘dry’ as it is said in the local parlance.
Even though the two ceremonies reportedly gulped so much money, they portrayed the organisers as far from serious as technical glitches here and there worsened an already bad situation.
Even, lighting the torch on the opening day, which was supposed to be the highpoint of the opening day of the festival proved to be too much of problem.
The whole exercise was more like kindergarten stuff and raised questions about the competence of those saddled with this critical aspect for the festival.
Accommodation
Having competition venues far from the athletes’ village was another minus at the just concluded Abuja Games as this development exposed the athletes to more stress. It, in a way had a toll on their overall performance.