Dalung, Rio was a wreckage foretold

Around mid-June, one of Africa’s most decorated table tennis players, Segun Toriola, raised the alarm. He said Rio 2016 could be the country’s most disastrous in recent times and no one should wonder why: the athletes have been left on their own to look after themselves. 

The problem was already there before Toriola came out. He only lent his voice to a familiar Nigerian sport – buck passing. It’s four years since the last Olympics in London and serious countries are either already in Rio or on their way. But Nigeria being Nigeria, we’re still very busy doing everything except the things that are important to the outcome of the games.

Our officials are kicking our athletes around like football and at least four of them who have reached their wits’ end have gone to the public to beg for air ticket money to Rio. Reigning African champions Nwanneka Okwelogu (discus) and Tosin Oke (triple jump); African 400m relay silver medalist Regina George; and Nigerian 100m champion, Seye Ogunlewe, have resorted to ‘Go Fund Me’ web and social media campaigns to raise funds from friends, fans and family.

A former minister told me on Wednesday that even during Ramadan, a few of the Nigerian-based athletes who were refused their allowances were calling him for pocket money.

But we saw it coming. So, it’s foolish to ask how we got here. For nearly one year now, the the sports ministry has been trying to find out what happened to N2.9billion released in August for the All African Games and the Olympics. The money was released to the National Sports Commission under Alhassan Yakmut, before the commission was scrapped and merged with the ministry of youths and sports.

It seems it would be easier for the camel to pass the eye of the needle than it would be to get this Yakmut fellow to say exactly what happened to N2.9billion one year after the money was released to the NSC on his watch. Sports Minister, Solomon Dalung, has made all the right noises about the need for the last NSC leadership to render account.

He even said that there was no law backing the existence of the commission, yet the commission has existed for years, gorging itself on public funds, including the latest N2.9billion, which is more than the total capital expenditure and over 75 percent of the total recurrent expenditure of the entire sports ministry in the 2016 budget.

While Minister Dalung is busy fighting his critics and following FIFA President Gianni Infantino around like a porter, it seems the last thing on his mind is to mention the name, Yakmut. Why was the name omitted in his Twitter blast? It’s incomprehensible that the man who was NSC’s chief executive officer at the time the N2.9billion was disbursed has not been called to tell the public what happened to the money. Instead, he’s still a regular on every ministerial delegation to Brazil, months after he was redeployed to the Niger Delta ministry.

The Bureau for Public Procurement has investigated the matter for nearly one year and ended up with promises of more investigations. It appears that the strategy is to stall until the eve of the games in the hope that public outrage would force the government to release a fresh wave of funds that would ultimately bury the current scandal.

As for the Nigeria Olympic Committee, we’ll probably need to set up another committee to find out exactly what this committee is doing. The last time I checked, NOC President Habu Gumel, was offline. Instead of talking about what the NOC is doing to redeem our athletes from their current misery and the country from disgrace, Gumel was fantasizing about two million visitors expected to visit the Nigeria House in Rio. It’s a house of cards and Gumel would do well to prepare for record visits.

That’s not strange really. Our officials never have to worry about money for flights, hotels, or their personal comfort. They know how to get the money without the discomfort of providing any results.

It’s different for our athletes, who very often, have to take their fate in their own hands. Before the sports ministry wrote them letters to pay their way to Rio, some of them had scrapped their way to the African championships in Durban South Africa in June. They paid their way, knowing it was pointless waiting for the sports ministry or the NOC that was out of touch and out of sense.

It’s a measure of our seriousness for Rio that Nigeria was conspicuously absent at the IAAF U20 championship which ended in Poland recently. Eight African countries, including Djibouti, took part and athletes from Kenya and Ethiopia placed second and third on the 38-nation medals table. Our athletes were absent because they could not pay their way and the letter from Dalung asking them to fend for themselves from now on was well on its way at the time.

I know the sports minister is looking for enemies everywhere and he’ll be right to find them in anyone who forgets that he was appointed only last October and that the budget was not signed off until a few months ago. I sympathise with him. But excuses are not an Olympic sport. At least not yet.

We should go after those who want to sweep the N2.9billion unsettled accounts under the rug. And that shouldn’t take forever since recipients of the money have either been redeployed in the sports ministry or are not too far away from Dalung’s backyard. But while we’re at it, can someone please release a small part of the N72billion recurrent expenditure for the sports ministry so that our athletes can pay their way to Rio?

The way it’s going, it’s no longer about medals or records. Of all the medals prediction sites I have checked – and please help me if you will – not one features Nigeria, which will be participating in ten events, including ones where we won medals before. Before Toriola said it, Rio was a disaster foretold.

Dalung and co must find a way to manage the wreckage.

Ishiekwene is the MD/editor-in-chief of The Interview magazine and member of the Paris-based board of the Global Editors Network