Seasonal Affliction and Bureaucracy is Emblematic of Why Nigeria Continue to Falter on Sports Greatest Stage -By Issa Babatunde Ahmed

Like a custom and seasonal affliction, the trends of Nigeria national teams or athletes to seek funds on their own in order to represent the country at an event is at play again. Though Nigerian athletes have always managed to air their global ascendancy regardless of the obstacles, from unpaid allowances, crowd funding and begging for kits.

A model in Nigerian sports that has made many talents ditched the country as the sporting federations are either cash trapped or besieged by corruption, most federations now hijacked by political influence and funds allocated by government either disappears into thin air or doesn’t get to the athletes until it’s an issue on social media.

The Nigeria Basketball men’s team are on the brink of going to Tokyo 2020 Olympics without their official kits. D’Tigers have been impressive in their warm-up games to the Olympics defeating top ranked teams like United States of America’s dream team and Argentina but they could be heading to the world’s foremost sports competition without official kits which was donated by their China-based sponsors

The kits are held in the custody of the Nigeria’s custom services slammed with thousands of dollars in customs duty, the cash-strapped Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) is applied for a waiver so they can pick up the kits donated by their China-based sponsors.

“There was a bit of delay in documentation to get a waiver because it is between two ministries,” NBBF vice-president Babatunde Ogunade told BBC Sport Africa.

“The ministry of sports and that of finance are talking to each other. The ministry of finance has to give the approval for customs for those kits to be released.

“It’s something that should have been done before now, but they are still on it. It’s basically a delay in communication and documentation.”

This seasonal affliction and bureaucracy is emblematic of why Nigeria continue to falter on sports greatest stage. The customary ill-preparedness was in full swing at the last Olympics in Rio 2016, Team Nigeria received their Olympic kits 13 days after the games kicked off with most athletes already done at the event.

Nigeria’s football team were stranded in Atlanta and did not arrive in Brazil until hours before their first match in Manaus, Brazil due to lack of funds. The Athletic Federation of Nigeria sent mail to Athletes to fund their own flights to Brazil, Several athletes took to crowd funding to raise money for their tickets but the then minister of sports, Solomon Dalung said the statement was misconceived and sent without his authority. 

The Nigeria Basketball team departs for Tokyo 2020 in Japan from their USA camp on the 19th of July is still crowd funding for supports; for training and logistics via GoFundMe. However the Federal Government through the ministry of finance has eventually granted the Nigeria Basketball Federation an import waiver to their kits, after an uproar on social media by the fans who got excited with the impressive runs of their Basketball team, one can only hope the kits gets to the team before the games commences later this month.