Whoever says the Bible is not a complete guide for man should think again. This is because everything happening in this world today is recorded to have happened from time immemorial.

Right from creation, man has always erred. And man has always passed the buck, never willing to take responsibility for his actions.  

We are told in Genesis Chapter 3 verses 3-13 how the first man and woman refused to accept responsibility for disobeying God’s orders about the forbidden fruit.

When God asked them why they did what they did, Adam passed the buck first, blaming Eve. Eve in turn blamed the serpent for deceiving her.

The same way Aaron, Moses’ assistant, like we are told in Exodus chapter 32 verse 23, blamed the people for making him build the golden calf for them to worship.

It is still playing out today in the world, especially in Nigeria. It has always been the norm with sports administrators here who put their greed for pecuniary gains before the interest of the country.

Theirs have become one blunder too many. There is no competition ever attended by Nigerian athletes that officials don’t commit one blunder or another and then pass the buck like they are again doing at the ongoing 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France.

We all know that the sports ministry supervises all sports federations. It is also known that Nigeria is a member of the Olympic movement which is controlled by the International Olympic Committee, IOC.

The IOC deals with member nations through their respective National Olympic Committees during Olympic Games and every other activity and not through their sports ministries.

Whenever athletes are going for the Olympic Games, the respective federations draw up a list of their qualified athletes and pass it through the sports ministry to the Olympic Committees, in our case the Nigeria Olympic Committee, NOC.

The NOC then submits the list as presented to it, after due checks with the respective federations to the IOC.  

It is therefore preposterous how an athlete, Favour Ofili who qualified for an event for the Olympics as a national champion could be omitted from the event and till now, no one is claiming responsibility for it.  Officials of both the Athletics Federation of Nigeria, AFN and the NOC have been playing on the intelligence of Nigerians with the buck passing game after the sports minister, Senator John Enoh requested to know how or why it happened.

It is not enough for the AFN to brandish a list they claim they handed over to the NOC, thus blaming the NOC for bungling the registration. They should go further to find out from the IOC what happened if they are sure of their allegation.

On the part of the NOC, this is not a time to keep mute. They should make public the final list of Team Nigeria athletes they must have endorsed and passed on to the IOC to put this matter to rest.

For the sports minister, this is not a time to take sides and blame either the NOC or the AFN. He must find out who is responsible for the national embarrassment, which is not happening at the world stage for the first time, and the culprit made to face the music, like God did to Adam and Eve.

The failure to register Ofili is not the only embarrassment caused Nigeria at the ongoing Olympics. We are also told how our athletes are presented with two sets of kits, one procured by the sports ministry and the other by the NOC.

This one, if it is true, is based on the greed of officials of the NOC as provision of kits has always been the responsibility of the sports ministry which manages the athletes on behalf of the federal government.

At best the NOC should only assist the sports ministry distribute the kits to the athletes when they get to the Games Village. It is also supposed to ensure that the athletes are without blemish, meaning they are clean of banned substances. If this was done, we wouldn’t have had a boxer disqualified from partaking in the Games even before throwing a punch for a drug related offence.

This is a repeat of what happened at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games which took place in 2021 when 10 Nigerian athletes were disqualified from competing after they failed to undergo mandatory tests ahead of the Games.

This was a failure of all three bodies, the sports ministry, NOC and AFN as they didn’t do their job prior to the Games.

This brings to mind the role of the NOC President, Engr. Habu Gumel who seems to be biting more than he can chew. He is wearing too many caps at the same time and therefore has no time for Team Nigeria that is supposed to be under his watch in Paris.

He is more engrossed with his duties as an honorary member of the IOC after serving 10 years as an executive committee member. I gathered   that he has now delegated his NOC duties to his first vice president, Chief Solomon Ogba, who may be finding the new duties on a new terrain rather herculean. Again this raises the question why Gumel should be holding multiple international sports positions that has in no way benefitted the country.

The positions give him four votes during NOC elections, the major reason he has defeated Engr. Sani N. Ndanusa in the NOC elections twice in a roll. He is now on his fifth term as President.

I believe it is high time Gumel stepped aside for another administrator to take over and bring fresh air to Nigerian sports. This should be the next task for sports federations because Gumel is not indispensable.