Culture of Fiasco

The National Statium, Abuja

Hiccups recorded in the just concluded FIFA Under-17 World Youth Championship in Nigeria brings to mind similar problems which trailed previous international sporting events hosted by country
By Chidiebere Onyemaizu
Nigeria, like several other developed and/or developing countries of the country, is not alien to hosting major international sporting events. The just concluded FIFA Under-17 World-Cup is for the country the latest addition to a long list of international sporting events it hosted in recent time. But somehow, the memories which such big events leave behind are often laced with inelegant commentaries.
Essentially, from the 1973 edition of the All African Games staged in Lagos, the 1980 African Cup of Nations, the 1999 edition of the FIFA U-20 World Youth Championship, the COJA 2003 Games in Abuja to the 1998 African Women Championship in Abeokuta – and in 2002 and 2006 in Warri respectively – Nigeria and Nigerians, it does appear, have rather reaped more pains than gains and more jeers than cheers.
For example, the 1999 FIFA Under-20 Youth Championship was marked by several hiccups and missteps on the part of the Local Organising Committee (LOC). One paramount consequence of the poor preparation was low turnout of spectators occasioned by the late release of tickets by the LOC. The LOC had made the tickets available for sale just few days to the April 3, 1999 kick-off date of the tournament.
Besides that, some of the LOC officials had, allegedly, sold a bloc of tickets to individuals, who later resold them in the black market at exhorbitant rates.
Just as was also the case in some venues in the just concluded under-17 tournament, foreign and local journalists acrredited to cover the 1999 FIFA under-20 championship complained stridently about the antics of the LOC officials as regards the issuance of media kits and gifts normally made available to journalists who cover such competitions.
In the first one week of the 1999 championship, Nigeria’s image as a country where nothing works further nose-dived when a 16-minutes power outage occurred at the Ibadan centre and desrupted the Mexico-Ireland tie. The Irish coach was later to blame the outage for his boy’s failure to shine in the match.
Further slur was to be cast on Nigeria’s image when FIFA’s press officer, Siegler Markus, made the rounds of the stadia to check facilities and discovered that the telephone lines were not working.
It was at the Nigeria ’99 that FIFA, nay the world, came to terms with an audacious display of “African time”. During the the opening ceremony, officials could not utilise the in-between events, thus the opening match had to start five minutes behind schedule, prompting the then FIFA media co-ordinator, Keith Cooper to complain that “time is very important in FIFA- organised championships. Five minutes delay means a lot to FIFA. This is because of international television viewership and satellite stations.”
The 2003 COJA Games also shared inelegant characteristics with Nigeria ‘99. For example, nearly all the delegates to the games suffered inadequate transport arrangements, despite the 990 BMW cars provided for the games by the then Olusegun Obasanjo government.The BMW cars were, allegedly, not deployed for the purpose for which they were procured.
Many COJA officials, for instance, had as many as three cars attached to them while dignitaries moved about in hired cabs. In fact, Jean Claude Nganga, at that time Congolese Sports minister and head of the organising committee of the inaugural All African Games held in Brazaville, Congo, in 1965 was stranded in a Hotel because no car was provided to covey him to the venue of the COJA Games.
There was also accreditation fiasco during the COJA Games. Because of the accreditation bottlenecks, some foreign journalists had to leave for their countries long before the end of the games. In particular, the accredited media centre was provided with a paltry 25 computers for media organisations numbering over 1,000. The implications was that there were delays in obtaining results and other vital information on the games. Besides that, COJA computers, sometimes had wrong information fed into the system.
The ‘festival of shame’ that was the COJA Games did not end there. Major sporting apparatus, in some cases, were not just inefficient but were in several circumstances outrightly not provided. Athletes, for example, were shocked to discover that COJA had not provided any weighing scale for the competition.
This had resulted in the hiring of the facility at N5,00 per day, but the owner was soon to take it away because COJA officials failed to pay him. This ugly situation severely disrupted the weightlifting. The COJA Games were also not immune from official heist and corruption, which quite often characterised events of such magnitude in Nigeria. The inadequacies and ineffiencies which hallmarked the competition, not a few believed, was a function of misappropriation by the officials of a large chunk of the N24 billion provided by the Federal Government for the games.
There was also side talks of contract scams involving top government functionaries and COJA officials. They allegedly, frittered a chunk of the resources through over-bloated contracts awarded to friends, cronies and top government officials.
Essentially, in the run-up to the COJA 2003, the LOC regaled the nation with tales of its preparadeness to showcase Nigeria to the world, via a classy hosting of the games. But as it later turned out the fiesta which attracted over 6,000 athletes from over 50 countries earned for Nigeria huge embarrassment, rather than admiration and deficient rather than profit. For example, at a point the World Bank was forced to raise concerns about the billions of naira expended on the construction of the Abuja National Stadium, which was done, principally, for the games.
A country allergic to maintenance culture, the COJA 2003 Games left in its wake a 60,000-seater stadium (the Abuja podium), a cycling Velodrome, indoor and outdoor sports arena, a swimming complex and a massive athletes’ village. Some of these structures are gradually decaying as a result of lack of maintenance. A respite, however, has temporarily come the way of the mainbowl of the stadium courtesy the just concluded under-17 world cup.
The story of African Women Football Championships which Nigeria has hosted severally, also has a chapter or two of bad commentaries regarding shoddy organisation. This ranged from bad pitches to the problem of logistics.