Nigeria athletics is looking good to get back to global reckoning again after the unprecedented feat performed by our contingent to the just held World Athletics Championship in Nairobi, Kenya.
From the blues, the worthy ambassadors chalked up an impressive medal haul of four gold and three bronze to place third in the overall performance chart which athletics watchers described as fantastic and a harbinger of glory days for the sports Nigeria had dominated in Africa for many years and also a force in the world.
Indeed, lovers of athletics of that era will always recall how the likes of Chidi Imo, Olapade Adenaike, Innocent Egbunike, Gabriel Okon, Mary Onyali, Falilat Ogunkoya, Yusuf Ali, Tina Iheagwam, the twin sensation, David and Osborne Ezinwa and most recently, Blessing Okagbare among others wrote Nigeria’s name in gold because of their scintillating performances in track and field.
We recall how these stars were richly rewarded with scholarships for tertiary education by universities in the United States of America which helped greatly in shaping their lives.
Though football is still a dominant sport because of its huge fan base and followership, athletics in that era in Nigeria gave the round leather game a good run because the administrators were imbued with an uncanny passion to achieve set goals.
Unfortunately, the gains of those times were lost to visionless and inept leadership which was characterised by infighting, altercation, and ego by administrators that ushered in the ‘years of the locusts’, leading to the misfortunes that befell athletics.
The good news, though, is the change in the leadership of the track and field with the new man at the helm, Chief Tonobok Okowa, already gave us glimpses of what awaits in the business he is steering the ship.
Chief Okowa, the new President of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), has identified athletes’ welfare, grants, training, encouragement for overseas studies, and early preparations for competitions such as the Commonwealth Games in the UK next year as key to making a success of his tenure.
And what a better way to kick start his reign than the Nairobi outing where our young athletes whom he described as the “future golden generation” did the nation proud.
God on his side, he will make his time at the athletics body one that will lead to the return of Nigeria to the global stages again.
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