- Safiu Kehinde
Commentators have knocked Nigeria’s Minister of Sports, Senator John Owan Enoh over the inability of the country to get it’s Olympic Cyclist a bicycle for her competition.
The cyclist, Ese Ukpeseraye, had expressed appreciation to the German Olympic team for lending her a bicycle to be used for racing in the ongoing Olympic competition.
“Due to the short notice of me competing at the keirin & Sprint, #teamNigeria I had no bicycle to race with on the tracks. In d spirit of sportsmanship the German team @bunddeutscherradfahr came to my rescue by offering me a bicycle.Thank you” Ese had posted on her X handle.
Following backlash from netizens, the Sports Minister had responded, giving reasons for the incident.
“My attention has been called to a post on social media by Ese Ukpeseraye. After reading the post and some follow up comments I swung into action.
“Ese’s post seems to have been grossly misunderstood, perhaps also because it didn’t seem to give proper context to the matter in perspective.
“It is important I make some clarifications. Abinitio, Team Nigeria qualified for one road race in cycling and prepared for it in terms of training and the appropriate competition equipment.
“Team Nigeria was fully prepared for this road race until two weeks ago after the Cycling team with the rest of Team Nigeria had already left for the Olympics, that a communication from the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) was received reallocating additional slots to the Cyclist Federation of Nigeria (Kerin and individual sprint).
“This reallocation to Nigeria was due to the disqualification of a country, leaving Nigeria as the next eligible to make the list of qualified countries to compete.
“Unfortunately, this additional slot required the use of a different competition equipment in terms of biking.
“For this track race reallocated to Team Nigeria, a very special equipment (approved specifically for the Olympic track game) is used.
“It’ll take months to have it delivered after ordering and making payment. To therefore get Ese to compete, the Federation through Ese’s Club in Europe and working with a German owned Company, got a ‘Track Bike’ for our cycler Ese.” the Sports Minister had posted.
This, however, did not go down well with netizens as they lashed out at the ministry.
“2 days left, a country of over 200M people is yet to win a medal, not even bronze. My Honorable minister sir, this isn’t good at all.
“There has to be a proper overhauling of the NOC and AFN.” An X handler, Ibukun Aluko, commented.
Another X user, Spotlight Abby, described the incident as inexcusable, stressing that the bike is very much available and not difficult to get.
“I find it inexcusable that they couldn’t get Ese a customized Keirin cycle bike 2 whole weeks after her participation was approved.
“Fuji Bikes, Cinelli, Cervelo sell these bikes and trust me, nothing is too hard to get if you know where to look.
“These companies are prepared for times like these and they’re not building from scratch.
“This also means Ese never had this bike to train with in the first place. So the official plan was really just to BORROW?
“Decent efforts to at least borrow one which may not be a good fit for her, but this is not good enough. Let’s do better.” Abby wrote.
Similarly, Damilare Odulesi described the Owanenoh’s excuse as ‘untenable’.
“As usual, untenable excuses. But I don’t have strength for this matter, I would have asked what happened to Favour Ofili who missed her 100m race because whoever was supposed to fill in her name for the competition failed to do so. Does that also take months to import?” He wrote.
Another X handler, Tomori Simisola, disclosed that the bike does not take much time to be delivered if the Sports Minister had taken swift action.
“I could have ordered it for her from any country of the world and get it delivered to her anywhere she is,in 48 hrs.
“All you have to do was contact us as a procurement company and it would have been ready in no time instead of ruling it off saying 2weeks wasn’t enough to get the machine.” She wrote.
However, an X handler, Shafil Hamidu, admitted that the Ese’s post was misunderstood while urging the Ministry of Sports to do improve the way nations like Jamaica and Kenya has done.
“Thank you very much for your clarification. By reading the original post, I know that there’s some context to this misunderstanding.
“However, in the future, we need to have a complete cycling team with equipment for this country.
“We should not be depending on cyclists and sport persons of Nigerian origins that are living abroad to achieve our dreams.
“Nigeria, as a nation have to develop sports as it is done in Jamaica, Kenya, and some other developing nations that are bringing medals and glory to their country.
“The fact that they are not as big as Nigeria implies that they do not have human resources, and talents, as we do.” He wrote.