Why Nigeria is down – Urhobo

•Urhobo speaks on the role of politicians and poor runs of coaches Coach Toni Urhobo, is one of Nigeria’s best athletics coaches.

 He was thoroughly groomed in sports and education by a system which laid a solid foundation for Nigerian youths. Coach Urhobo, during a chat with Ben Efe on the sideline of the All Nigeria Championships in Warri, Delta, talks about sports development and how the country got it wrong. In the past coaches like you went round the schools, discovered young athletes and brought them to limelight. Over time we enjoyed these successes in the 1980’s and some part of the 1990’s.

But the story is different now, where did we get it wrong? We are doing lot of things wrong now and it is hard to blame them on the present administration of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria. Things have fallen apart over a long period and when experts, genuine experts with the right qualifications are not encouraged to come and assist then what you have is a reign of mediocrity.


 This is precisely what is going on right now in the system; not just in sports alone, but in other areas of our national life. There is crisis. Politics now appears to be the most lucrative business. I believe that we have professionals who are ready to come into the system and change the way we do Toni Urhobo Toni Urhobo things. But they aren’t encouraged to come in. I will give myself as a typical example. I know that I can compete with any professional coach from any part of the world to produce some of the best athletes…but I cannot do it for peanuts. Sports is one of the biggest industries in the world and it is not something you leave in the hands of unequipped government officials. If you don’t have training for business you don’t go into it…sports is big business.

What will you recommend for sports development? Sports is for the youths and where does it start from? It starts from the kindergarten. Four, five, six, seven and eight, those are the real grassroots ages for sports. And what is the body saddled with the responsibility to handle sports at that levels? It is the Ministry of Education. We all grew up as grassroots sports men and women, young. During our days; I am talking about 50 years down the line, the colonial masters built specials schools known as Government Colleges throughout the regions and they got these schools equipped with all the modern facilities. They brought in qualified technical officials…my games-master was trained in Loughborough, England.

He later became the chief coach of this country, director of sports for University of Ibadan and director of sports for Midwest. Late Mr. Ian Wynter, he was trained in physical education in England. When you have such quality persons in the secondary schools things will be in proper perspective. That is where training begins. Back then you had inter schools competitions; Government College Ughelli vs Government College Umuahia, Government College Ughelli vs Government College Ibadan. There was an intercollegiate competition between all the government colleges in the country. And we had the season divided into three seasons. We had season for football, we have season for athletics and we have season for cricket. This was what the colonial masters laid down and as we are talking today, this is the same programme running in other countries like USA. They have season for basketball, season for baseball, season for football and now soccer is growing. These organisational structures were set several years back, but sadly when Nigerians took over, they ran down all these structures left by the colonial masters.

They destroyed the system. There is no way an organisation at the federal level can control school sports. The school sports were in the domain of the Ministry of Education, but when they took it from the ministry of education, the principals of these schools just stayed out of it. And again, government came up with a stupid policy of taking over schools from the missionaries. It was the most senseless thing that they have done. Because even the schools that were under government, they had problems managing them. They took over all the schools in the country and that was the beginning of the down fall of the school sports system. Everything about sports and education just broke down.

Every year we hear billions being budgeted for sports. But we don’t see any sign of development anywhere. Sometimes you read in the news that our athletes cannot travel or they are stranded somewhere? I sympathise with those at the Sports Ministry, because they also inherited a bad set up. It is not easy for the body to handle a country as large as ours with over a population of 170 million. The youths form a larger part of that proportion, there are a lot of potentials and everywhere in the world the youths play a very important role.

 If you do not provide an enabling environment for the employment of these youths then there is going to be a problem. Sports is the strongest avenue to get the youths involved, because if you produce one world champion you are providing job for over a thousand people. I was recently in America and I followed their tennis a lot. Just one lady; she has won over three grand slam titles this year alone. Cumulatively, without sponsorships and endorsements she has made over 15 million dollars and this lady has been doing it over ten years. Serena Williams and her family have fantastic establishments and academies that have employed thousands of youths.

Imagine if we have in Nigeria two or four world champions, a lot of young people will get employment. I think our sports administrators should get in line to understand the management of sports and know that it is an area, if properly organised that can take charge of youth employment. Why are qualified people being ignored? Well I may not be definite. I think the lack of proper understanding is solely responsible and it takes team work and cooperation to develop any sporting organisation.

When you have matured individuals in such position and they have the interest of the youths at heart, I don’t think that they will not open up to help from outside. My appeal to organisers of sports is for them to be able to understand and seek assistances from experienced persons. I believe that like the Jamaicans did, some of us should come together and form a kind of an association to get closely in touch with government officials and let them know there is so much they can do to improve on the present situation. It is not track and field alone. Look at football, boxing and the others. Where are the Dick Tigers, Hogan Basseys, Davidson Andehs and other Nigerian greats? A state like Cross River embarked on a grassroots development and we are seeing some of the products. Others like Delta State, Edo State and Anambra that should be catchment areas for athletics seem not interested in a similar programme.

What is your submission on that? I will advise key persons in government to see sports as big business. In this part of the world there is so much crowded responsibility in the hands of the man at the top and that is the state governor. And instead of distributing powers to the various organs of government, they hold on to power. Most times policies cannot be executed without the consent of the governor. It is almost the same thing at the federal level. A lot of our governors don’t see sports as a big business, they don’t see sports as an avenue that can generate funds for their governments and therefore do not see the need for a proper sports organisation. For instance, the American government collects taxes from football, basketball, tennis and even soccer and it is massive.

 In some States alone the facilities they have are more than what the entire Nigeria can boast of. It is government that puts most of these facilities on ground and then also invite private individuals and companies to participate. Once you have a well organised structure on ground you leave sports in private hands. Our politicians think sports is just for glamour, it is big business. Sports is one of the biggest revenue yielding businesses. What is the solution? State governors should appoint sports commissioners who are knowledgeable in sports and not people who will only be interested in the jamborees.

You watched the athletics trials. From what you saw, do you think there is hope for the sport in the country? Well, I do not want to discourage the youths. I am still very hopeful and that hope hinges on the fact that they should be able to learn from their mistakes this time and get the right professionals to assist them for the success of this country. If they go out there and they fail you and I will not be happy. It is a shame and disgrace that Nigeria who used to do well in all the sports is now a laughing stock of smaller nations.

Who were these countries when Nigerian was dominating athletics in Africa? The potentials are still there and with the few that we have we should be able to produce world class athletes. Nigerian coaches are never happy when they hire foreign coaches. You want to say something on that? Well, I do not want to specifically criticise the present administration because I have, from my personal observation, noticed that there is very little change in the performances of the Nigerian coaches in terms of the contributions.

You don’t need millions to bring out a top performing athlete; I say that because I have been involved with the system for many years. I have been involved in the system as an employee of the government and I have trained up some athletes on my own… top class athletes. I think that the technical inputs of some the home-based coaches are very unimpressive.

 They’ve got to do a lot more for the AFN to have a full trust on them. A lot of the potentials I have seen here are world beaters, but it is the technical ability of the coaches that is responsible for the standard of performance. There is no reason an athlete should be running around the same time for two- three years. That is purely technical and it is not because they don’t have the money. However, I know that there still need to be encouraged, some of them are unemployed.

Everywhere in the world any federation can go anywhere to get any professional that can help them.