The Paris 2024 Olympic Games cannot be forgotten in a hurry, especially as the Giant of Africa ended up winning no medal at all.
Yes, Nigeria won nothing, as in nought, nil, zilch – ah, my Thesaurus has just started crying in lexical exhaustion.
A tear for the old-new anthem, “Nigeria we hail thee” that never got one chance to hit the Paris skies in patriotic ululation throughout the Olympics.
Nigeria is now the laughing-stock of the whole wide world as the eternal sleeping giant that is so frightened of waking up.
Time was when China used to be the sleeping giant of the world which made Napoleon Bonaparte to say: “Let her seep, for when she wakes she will shake the world.”
China is now awake and shaking the world, economically and otherwise, such that in Paris2024 the country of Chairman Mao could afford to donate to the USA an entire female team that the won gold medal against the self-same China in the table tennis team event!
Unlike China, Nigeria dashes out her own sporting talents to other countries without having even average stars to represent us.
Our very own beautiful Yemisi Ogunleye, originally from Ekiti State, won a historic gold medal in short-put for Germany in a contest that Nigeria was more invisible than oxygen.
The graceful lady, Salwa Eid Naser, won the silver medal in the women’s 400 metres for Bahrain, but her original name happens to be Ebele Agbapuonwu of Onitsha, Anambra State.
Not even laughing gas can make one laugh when a country of 200 million people budgets all of N12 billion for the Paris Games and only comes home completely empty-handed.
And to think that Nigeria went to the Pari2024 Olympic Games with all of 88 sportsmen and women plus uncountable officials, hangers-on and body-no-be-wood courtesans!
Not so long ago, Nigeria used to boast of the crème de la crème of world-class sprinters such as my guys Chidi Imo, Olapade Adenekan, the Ezinwa brothers, Francis Obikwelu and so on, but at Paris2024, there was no Nigerian sprinter to crow about in the glamorous 100 metres men final.
In the female version of the 100 metres event, no Nigerian athlete was in sight as Julien Alfred of St Lucia, the country of my dear poet Derek Walcott that can only count on a population of 200,000-odd persons captured the gold medal.
Botswana has a population of less than three million, but her sprinter Letsile Tebogo achieved the feat of being the first African to win the 200-metre gold medal.
Nigeria’s sports minister John Enoh has since come up with the sob story that the humiliating outing was due to insufficient preparation.
Countries participate in the Olympic Games once in four years, just like the national elections, and one top politician of the ruling party has just revealed to me that the lazy youths of Nigeria always fail the country because they are not as alert as the politicians.
The politician insists that it is quite imperative to get the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to help Nigeria fix her woeful performances in the Olympic Games.
The next Olympic Games is due to come up in Los Angeles, USA, in 2028, and it is therefore crucial, according to the politician, to get our INEC officers to implant themselves as officials at the games.
Trust the ever patriotic INEC to stop the stopwatch to declare a Nigerian sprinter who is not even in the race as the winner!
Even if there are protests, INEC can get the Supreme Court to declare the Nigerian sprinter as the Supreme Court-declared champion of the Olympics!
Once Nigerian athletes are thusly assured of victory, it would stop them from indulging in the Japa business of going abroad to run for other countries.
The politician left me with the message that the youths of Nigeria should “be prepared” like the Boy Scouts to win the Olympics by learning the power game of “grab it, snatch it and run with it!”
Uzor Maxim Uzoatu is a renowned poet, journalist and author
