Salwa Eid Naser who dumped Nigeria for Bahrain, won a medal at the 2017 World Championships as Team Nigeria performed abysmally . It exposed the country's inability to manage its athletics talent, reports Tana Aiyejina. There doesn't seem to be an end in sight for the talent drain that has hit Nigerian sports in recent years, as depicted at the IAAF World Championship London 2017 which ends today in London.
Sports buffs back home were made to endure another agonising championship, as the country’s contingent once again ended without a single medal or mention on the podium.
However, as one Team Nigeria athlete crashed out after the other, other Nigerians, who had dumped their country of birth, were doing their country proud winning medals for their adopted nations.
Blessing Okagbare couldn’t make the 100m final while the other female athletes struggled to reach the semifinals of their events at the London Olympic Stadium. Further misery awaited the team as Onome Nathaniel was disqualified from the women’s 400m hurdles semifinal after finishing fifth while Margaret Bamgbose, Patience Okon-George and Yinka Ajayi all crashed out in the semifinals of the women’s 400m.
African champion Tosin Oke (triple jump), Chukwuebuka Enekwechi (shot put), Samson Nathaniel (400m) and Edose Ibadin (800m) failed to advance from the preliminaries of the men’s events.
Top on the list of athletes in London who dumped Nigeria was Bahrain’s 19-year-old Salwa Eid Naser, who capped a remarkable journey that started many years ago in Nigeria, continued in Bahrain, had memorable moments of glory in China, Colombia and finally the UK along the way.
The emerging athlete was born in Nigeria to Nigerian parents and raised here before switching allegiance to Bahrain in 2014. She was a former school sports champion in the 400m before her movement to Bahrain.
Naser, who was known as Ebelechukwu Agbapuonwu while in Nigeria, beat former world champion and now 14-time World Championships medallist Allyson Felix and Shaunae Miller-Uibo in Wednesday night’s 400m final to finish second behind American Phyllis Francis.
At 19, it made her the youngest ever woman to reach the podium over 400m at the IAAF World Championships. She had won gold at the 2015 World Youth Championships and the 2015 Military World Games for her adopted nation.
She had also put on brilliant performances earlier before the final. After erasing the Bahrain mark – 50.57s – also set by another Nigerian-born Bahraini athlete, Kemi Adekoya, at the 2016 Rio Olympics in the first round heats on Sunday, Naser did better in the semi-finals to book her ticket to the medal round in style, clocking yet another national record – 50.08s – in the process.
“I wasn’t surprised because I know what she’s capable of doing,” former triple jumper and 400m runner John George Obeya, Naser’s coach, who was also born in Nigeria but has been based in Bahrain for several years, said.
Several other athletes of Nigerian descent have been making waves for adopted nations at the championships, while the country continues to lose her best talents due to a structure stakeholders believe has failed abysmally to create an enabling environment to breed world-class athletes.
Ayomide Folorunso, who competes in the 400m, was born in Abeokuta to Nigerian parents but relocated to Italy with her mum at age eight, and started competing for the European country since 2013. She reached the semifinals of the 400m and ran a time of 56,47, while Team Nigeria’s Onome Nathaniel was disqualified.
But the 20-year-old says Nigerian authorities never showed any serious sign of approaching her, another area where officials have been lacking, as the structure on ground hardly meets the standard of these overseas-based athletes.
“I absolutely feel half Italian, half Nigerian. Actually, Italy saw me first. They always had a doubt about me being Nigerian and asked after me but there was never actually a serious call (from Nigeria). So, it was Italy that wanted me and I went for Italy,” Folorunso, who won gold at the 2017 European U-23 Championships in Bydgoszcz, said.
Aminat Yusuf Jamal is another Nigerian-born Bahraini athlete who competed in the women’s 400m hurdles in London. Though she crashed out in the heats, she won two medals at the 2017 Islamic Solidarity Games in Baku, where she achieved her personal best of 56.90s. Edidiong Odiong, a 2013 400m African youth champion for Nigeria, also competed for the oil-rich Arab nation in London.
At last year’s World U20 Athletics Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland, Precious Moses, now known as Moussa Ali Issa, Iman Isa Jassim, Basira Sharifa Nasir (Lolade Shodiya), Aminat Yusuf Jamal and Edidiong Odiong all represented the Arabs.
For the Arab kingdom to turn Nigeria’s talents into world-class, all they needed to do was grant the them citizenship, which in some cases include a change of name, create an enabling environment for them and they’ve got world beaters on their hands ready to take on the best.
Born in Lagos on May 17, 1994, Morolake Akinosun relocated to the US with her parents at an early age. The young sprinter was a member of Team USA’s 4x100m women squad that won gold at the 2016 Olympics and the Pan American Junior Championships in 2013.
In London, Akinosun would have to turn to the relays for a medal chance after placing fourth in 11.12s in the 100m behind winner Tori Bowie (10.94s), Deajah Stevens (11.08s) and Ariana Washington (11.10s).
Despite the fact that Nigeria lost some of these athletes to countries where they were born, the country has also been hit by the loss of home-grown talents to other parts of the world. This has been adduced to the inability of the sports authorities to identify, nurture, groom and also create an enabling atmosphere for the athletes to thrive.
Thus, coaches, retired and active athletes believe Nigeria’s loss will always be the gain of the likes of Bahrain, who have world-class facilities, superb welfare package and the right atmosphere and platform to propel athletes to global stardom.
“Nigeria only have the raw materials for talent production, but with no factory to process them,” Athens 2004 Olympics bronze medallist Deji Aliu, said.
The resultant effect is that Nigeria, once the dominant force in the sprints and relays in Africa, have been overtaken by countries like South Africa, Ivory Coast and even Botswana.
South African Wayde van Niekerk is one of the outstanding athletes in London winning gold and silver respectively in the men’s 400m and 200m respectively while Ivoirian Marie Josse Ta Lou claimed silver in the women’s 100m.
Culled from Punch
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