NIGERIA-POLITICS: Diplomatic Games Before Atlanta

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

LAGOS, May 10 1996 (IPS) - If Nigeria’s pro-democracy groups have access to Washington’s ear, they would be urgently advising that Nigeria be banned from this year’s Olympic games in the U.S. city of Atlanta.

“The international community has imposed various sanctions on Nigeria and no room should be allowed to deflate the sanctions until Nigeria is brought back on the path of real democracy,” Fredrick Fasehun told IPS.

Fasehun, a member of the umbrella National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) believes “even if we are allowed to attend the games, it will expose the Nigerian people to international ridicule as Nigeria is a pariah nation.”

According to the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), “if the international community wants to be sincere and see us through our problems, its approach to assisting us should be multidimensional.”

A senior CLO official notes this should also include sports. “Nigerians love sports, especially football, we always want to see our boys play and shine and take the glory of our country to places, but certainly not at the expense of the general welfare of the citizens.”

Asking not to be named, he continued: “If anything, the human rights situation in Nigeria has worsened, especially since the hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists while more political detainees have been added to the list of detained persons”.

He stresses, “anything that will sensitise the generality of the public to their immediate problems of political crisis, human rights abuses etc., will be quite invaluable, such as being exempted from the Atlanta games.”

Nigerians are quite well aware of the political and economic crises they have laboured under since the military annulled presidential elections in 1993, but in a sports-mad nation, advocating an Olympic ban has not met with rapturous approval.

“Though the government stands to gain publicity wise if we attend, the citizens stand to gain more. Nigerians can raise their heads high anywhere in the world when we do well at such games,” says Emmanuel Ndukuba, spokesman for the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria.

“Though we cannot dissociate politics from any international games, the Olympics is not an American-organised event, it is purely an International Olympic Committee event, so I don’t see the U.S. stopping Nigeria from attending,” he told IPS.

“Nigeria’s participation is not only for the country but also for the continent of Africa. The issue of politics should not be brought into the games at all.”

Fasehun, however, thinks otherwise: “There is no forum as political as the Olympics. The Palestinians tried to settle scores with Israel at the Munich Olympics in 1972 so the Olympics is a political forum that could be used to achieve an aim.”

The aim of the Nigerian military government would be to signal their easing back into the international fold and to benefit from the wave of patriotic support that would accompany the Nigerian team’s outing in Atlanta.

Preparations by the 82 athletes in the nine events Nigeria is competing in are underway.

Upping the ante, Sports Minister Jim Nwobodo says the task ahead for everyone concerned is to win Nigeria’s first Olympic gold medal. Since the country’s maiden turnout in the 1952 Helsinki Games, only eight medals have been won — four silver and four bronze.

But concern remains that the road to Atlanta is far from clear, with the U.S. keen to maintain the pressure on the government of Gen. Sani Abacha over his human rights record and less than certain compliance with his own exit date of 1998.

On Apr. 23, a Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group reviewing Nigeria’s progress on democratisation, recommended a sports boycott, freezing of the overseas assets of the military leaders and cutting air links. Britain was able to delay the moves pending consultations with Washington and its European partners.

“The U.S. may ditch Nigeria at the last moment. They may allow us to prepare for the games and then at the last minute come up with reasons why Nigeria cannot be at the games. That is the situation we now find ourselves in,” says Christopher Abiodun, a civil servant and self-confessed sports lover.

“The Nigerian government can decide not to allow our athletes to go because of the perceived position of the U.S. government on Nigeria,” he noted. “After all, we boycotted the (Africa) Nation’s Cup in South Africa for a similar reason after much training.”