GLASGOW 2016 Commonwealth long jump gold medalist Ese Brume and 15 other athletes are to report at the Port Harcourt camp of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
The athletes who did well at the last Tuesday Over-Distance competition organized by AFN at the University of Port Harcourt based AFN High Performance Center are Knowledge Omovoh, Okolosi Oghenekome, Odele Tega, Akerele Atanda, Avnaherhe Oke, Simeon Friday and Afam Ogbuagu.
Ese Brume photo credit: Ese Brume
Others are Ogbonna Prosper, Afeez Abduraman, Odigbo Rita, Nwichi Ngozi, Isah Salihu, Ugochukwu Ottah, Ehige Josephine and Igbinosun Isoken. Coach Kayode Yahaya is the only coach invited by the federation.
As the only daughter of my parents, house chores were shared between my brothers and I, mine was kitchen and sweeping related while the guys carried out the harder tasks, my brothers trimmed the grass on the mini football pitch in our house then, sadly, the pitch is long gone now when we all left the house, a mini flat sits on the football pitch today.
Men are stronger of the sexes but have disappeared from the Nigerian Athletics scene. With focus on the sprinters, all we have now is the likes of women like Blessing Okagbare, Ese Brume and so on, hence my query, where are our Men?
In the past, male athletes like Chidi Imoh, Olapade Adenikan, the Ezinwa brothers, Davidson and Osmond and lately Olusoji Fasuba, Francis Obikwelu, Umaru Mohammed, and so on did so well and brought honour to Nigeria.
That glorious era is now in the past, gone like a candle in the wind. we have been waiting for over a decade for replacements and it seem like an impossibility.
Gone are the days when primary/Secondary school Inter-house sports, NUGA, NIPOGA Games and the National Sports festival were used to discover young talents, some even said you can get a girlfriend or boyfriend during those periods when people come out to mingle and enjoy Athletics.
However, the National Youth Games that held in Abuja last year was not productive as none of the 8000 athletes has made it to the national team, so what is the problem, has interest of our men folk in athletics waned so much that a single athlete cannot be found?
The men are no longer dedicated to athletics, the question remains what happened, are they lazy or is it because of poor remunerations or the way they were handled by the AFN, some athletes in camp don’t even get paid, even ignored after injury. All I see are women, the performance of our men’s team at the last commonwealth games was not good enough, women on the other hand did a lot better.
It appears more sports like football has drawn away potential sprinters, given the frenzied following that has become the lot club football in recent times.
But it also seems the poor attention given by the AFN in keeping those that were discovered is a challenge.
“Man must survive” as the saying goes. He must also take responsibility and take care of his home, Francis Obikwelu, a former Nigeria Athlete left and naturalized in Portugal, he later won silver medal at the last Olympics for his adopted country. What is the way forward?
The veterans need to come out to mentor the younger generation, it is expected of them to be front-runners and with that they will inspire the talented and willing athletes, it is only natural for them to speak out.
The Athletics Federation on their part should work in engaging our local athletes, treat them well with great financial package and training facilities, enrol some in good schools if possible and with that we can locate our missing men. It is a personal plea from me to you, Dear men please come back and serve the nation.
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