BY JOSEPH ODOEKWU
Five-time Olympian, Bose Kaffo has stated that most of the people who are currently criticizing the Sports Minister will be worse if appointed to serve in the same portfolio alleging that even in our own little offices some of us have failed to live up to expectations.
Kaffo, who represented Nigeria in five Olympics from 1992 to 2008 stated this on Saturday while delivering a lecture on Paris 2024-Rising from the Ashes during the 4th edition of the Sports Sports Awareness Forum which took place at the Abesan Youth Centre in Lagos.
“It is sad we all accuse the sports minister for performing badly, but have we ourselves done any better?” ‘We all have our hands in the poor state of Nigerian sports and we must be ready to take responsibility rather than thinking it’s one person”
“The sports administrators, sports journalists, coaches and everyone who plays a role in encouraging age-cheat are all guilty”. “At times, even the journalists know the truth about the real age of an athlete, but do they blow it out?” “So let us stop blaming the minister alone and take responsibility for our actions too.
The former table tennis player also charged the Abesan youth centre to get two children from their estate and try to develop them to become an Olympic athlete. She insisted that once the community identifies their area of strength in sport, they can concentrate on that and further improve on it rather than following up on every sport and yet not making a significant presence in the Olympics.
Kaffo, who is also the Secretary -General of the Athletes Commission regretted that Nigeria does not take development structure seriously. She charged Nigerians to look forward to the forthcoming Youth Olympics, Dakar 2026, which will be hosted in Africa.
“The Dakar 2026 Olympics is just around the corner and it comes before the main Olympics”. “It affords us an opportunity to test our young athletes ahead of the 2028 Olympics so that we can get adequate preparations and not like what we did during the Paris 2024 Olympics”.
“I also remember that even before the Paris 2024 Olympics, I analyzed Nigeria’s chances and I saw the doom ahead”. “I knew we were not going to get anything positive because we dreamed of a podium finish and yet had a poor start to the games” ‘Amusan who was our hope was not doing better before the Paris Olympics, and that alone was a sign which we ignored”.
Kaffo further added that preparing for the forthcoming Olympics should be encompassing and athletes should be taught basic things such as how to eat, what to eat and when to eat. She further noted that aside from the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympics, attention should be given to the Sports festival, African Games and all youth games ahead of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
