Nigerian President Bola Tinubu did the unthinkable last week. As Nigeria hailed the women’s national football team for a hard-earned victory at the recent Women’s Africa Cup of Nations, (Wafcon) either excessively overjoyed, a manifest showboating, or an influence-seeking celebratory evangelism, Tinubu splashed gifts and cash rewards that lack precedent on the girls. As he hosted them at his presidential residence last Monday, Tinubu offered $100,000, (about N150 million) a three-bedroom apartment and a huge national award, the Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON), on all the 24-woman squad players and staff, “on behalf of a grateful nation”.
That the gifts were unprecedented is not even the argument. Recall that reward for previous Nigerian champions from competition wins have always been consistent. Super Eagle’s three-times winners got far less. In 1980, 1994 and 2013, Super Eagles players were similarly rewarded but Super Falcon previous players in their ten times of participation in WAFCON were haphazardly rewarded, the effusive reward system pioneered by the Tinubu government has the tendency of putting huge pressure on Nigeria’s reward system. In a Nigeria where there is humongous lack and poverty and where heroes in all sectors of the economy like teachers are treated with disdain, singling the girls out for such fanfare and splurge of gifts reduces national commitments.
Rather than embark on that effusive binge of showmanship, methinks the best the president could have done was to put up a system which will grow champions of the girls’ hue. One of such efforts would have been to put measures in place to grow grassroots sport development. Funding such and mounting necessary infrastructure for all categories of sports would have endured and solidified Nigeria’s championship position, not only in female football but all other categories of sport.
Equally, rather than this Father Christmas garb in July, government should have announced a sponsorship and scholarships system to student athletes from primary schools to university and beyond as they do in Japan, USA, Brazil etc. What would have memorialized those amazons’ win would have been a Hall of Fame which future heroes and heroines could look up to, while setting aside a funding pool for such heroism which would also include for physically challenged athletes.
Establishment of standardized preparations for athletes playing in major competitions such as Olympics/FIFA World Cup for Men and Women etc, would also have had long-lasting effects. Today, Nigerian sports associations are not only ineffective in their roles and duties for reasons which include wrong recruitment of leadership and executive members, as well as lack of capacity and creativity, corruption and unworkable plans are the bane of effective Nigerian sports administration.
All these together have resulted in many of Nigerian athletes changing their nationalities, as well as due to poor treatment. An example is Favour Ofili who just hinted Nigeria of her decision to move to Turkey following the AFN’s refusal to register her for an Olympics and World championships 100meters event twice in a row. The same Super Falcons who have become recipients of a tipsy Nigerian state’s gift that is akin to a drunken sailor’s, were not paid their previous games allowances until the semi final match against South Africa. It took the president’s intervention before the NFF could pay them.
What Tinubu did with that splurge of rewards was to equalize rewards with money. In saner societies, a handshake with a national leader is an eternal emblem that athletes wear to their graves.
