Obikwelu and his Portuguese odyssey
The 2004 Athens Olympic 100 Metres silver medalist, Francis
Obikwelu, although a Nigerian by birth has, for all intents and purposes,
renounced the country and with considerable bitterness too. He is now a
Portuguese, a very proud one at that. Responding to questions about Nigeria,
soon after winning his silver medal, a visibly angry Obikwelu had this to say:
"Let's not talk about that. Let's talk about my country, Portugal. I'm
Portuguese. I'm very happy and contented to win this for Portugal."
Francis Obikwelu was born and raised in Nigeria. In
fact, he was a member of the Nigerian 2000 Sydney Olympic team. Before then, he
had won the sprint double as a junior athlete for Nigeria in 1996. He was a
member of the 4x100 Metre relay quartet that won medals for Nigeria at the 1997
and 1999 World Championship in Athens and Seville. He also won an individual
medal in the 200 Metre race in Seville as a Nigerian.
His sudden change of heart came after the 2000 Sydney
Olympics Games, where he was injured while competing for Nigeria and, according
to him, the Government refused to pick up the bills. This is the same
Government that regularly spends millions of Naira on aged and well-to-do
public officials, their families and their friends at the most expensive
hospitals overseas but refusing to help a budding sports hero who was in dire
need. Abandoned and neglected by Nigeria, Portugal played the Good Samaritan,
rescued, rehabilitated and gave him the needed facilities to become what he is
today - a proud Olympic medalist. That, unfortunately, is the story of
Nigeria.
The case of Glory Alozie is yet another one.
Neglected and abandoned, the female sprinter walked away into the warm embrace
of Spain which promptly granted her full citizenship status. Expecting such
individuals to continue to love Nigeria would be playing the ostrich. And it is
only in this cynical context that the obnoxious dollarisation of the salaries
of certain public officers in the present Government makes sense. Why sacrifice
for a nation that did not contribute to my development, these “expatriate
Nigerians” must have asked. And because the Government has no answer, it
could not require them to be patriotic “for free”, hence the dollar
concession. But it remains an unhealthy development, no matter its
rationalisation, that will certainly hurt the nation down the road just like
the present embarrassment at Athens.
It is a well known fact that millions of Nigerians
are currently scattered all over the globe seeking the proverbial greener
pastures or fleeing from the inhospitable and unbearable situation in the
country which are made even harder by the punitive policies of Government.
Others who are still around are doing all they can to flee, if possible, dump
their citizenship as soon as possible because of the enormous hardship which
they face in the “midst of plenty”. In the field of sports,
particularly football, for example, it is safe to say today that but for the
foreign nations that have hosted and nurtured them in world- class
environments, Nigeria would have since been forgotten in all international
competitions.
The Obikwelu story should therefore be a wake-up call
to the fact that there is a lot wrong in the way our citizens are shabbily
treated by the Government. It must be a very deep feeling in the young man
that, even at his moment of victory, he was still not willing to talk about
Nigeria, his country of birth.
Can we in good conscience blame a person whose career
was almost ruined by the neglect and incompetence of his country and who, like
an abandoned child, was rescued by another country? It is easy to say in
response that the nation can do without the likes of Obikwelu. But any country
that either by default or deliberate policy allows her best citizens to be
frustrated into other nationalities would soon find herself in extinction.
The immediate consequence of this state of affairs is
the painful loss of the opportunity to win a medal at Athens. The long-term
consequences would include the worrisome fact that we would be breeding a
population that would eventually be absolved by other more forward-looking
nations. That is in addition to the fact that the name of Nigeria would soon
become odious even to her own children.
It is already a notorious fact that the incidents of
brain-drain have brought our universities to mere shadows of their original
forms. And from the look of things, many more brains would still drain away,
what with the evidently anti-intellectual posture of the Federal Government in
which ASUU and other critical bodies are treated as expendable items.
We hope that Obikwelu’s bitterness would soon go away
and that he eventually retraces his steps back to his motherland because there
is really no better place than “home”. But all that would depend on
how soon the government understands the necessity for investing in human
development by paying appropriate attention to the needs of her citizens.
