Today sixty three years ago, Britain’s Union Jack flag, Patrick Omorodion was lowered in Lagos, then capital city of the most populous black nation on planet earth, for the Green and White flag, signalling the dawn of a new era.
The country gained Independence, allowing the natives to rule over their affairs for the first time since after it was amalgamated by the colonialists in 1914.
Over the years, the Independence has turned out a flag Independence as the country is still dependent on foreign countries for its development despite having home-grown professionals in most of the sectors.
For the purpose of this Column, I will limit myself to sports, which many have described as the only sector of our national life that not only gives the citizens cause to smile sometimes but unites us as a people despite the diversity in tongues and tribes.
I recall how Nigerian athletes gave their American counterparts stiff competition in athletics, especially in the sprints. That was when we always had one or two of our athletes in the final of the 100m or 200m races as well as showing strong presence in the 400m and relay events.
Back then, Jamaica, the small Caribbean country of a population of less than three million people, just about double the population of Bayelsa state, the least populated in Nigeria, was not reckoned with in athletics.
But while Jamaica has made giant strides in the same sport that Nigerian athletes dominated in Africa and challenged the United States, Nigeria has been on steady decline, even losing her supremacy on the African continent.
In football, Nigeria didn’t win the African Nations Cup until in 1980, 23 years after the inaugural edition in Sudan. Till date, the country has only won it thrice while Egypt and Cameroon have won it seven and five times respectively.
At the U-17 level, the country, apart from winning the maiden edition of the FIFA World Cup in 1985, has won it five times, more than any other country in the world. Yet this has not translated to victories at the U-20 or senior levels.
The Flying Eagles have reached the final only twice while the best the Super Eagles have attained is the second round when countries like Cameroon, Ghana and Senegal have all reached the quarter-finals.
Morocco upped the ante at the last World Cup in Qatar, becoming the first African country to make it to the semi-finals. We have made some impacts in basketball, wrestling, table tennis, boxing and weightlifting both on the African continent and the world but going by the human resources we have, we have not really attained our full potential.
Marvelous
Britain’s Union Jack flag, Patrick Omorodion, Not Yet Uhuru at 63