Not many people know that ace Footballer, Segun Odegbami has a new job. He does. And we can tell you that authoritatively. We can also tell you that he is involved in a new plan to transform Africa, using Sports. He is part of the current moves being made by the NIIA and Air Peace Airline to honour the 1976 Olympic heroes on the 28th of July, 2023.
What does he make of the moves by the NIIA & Airpeace to honour the 1976 Olympic heroes, forty seven years after Nigeria boycotted the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games and evacuated its athletes from the event? Segun Odegbami is a member of Team Nigeria that went to the Games that has been described as the most shattering experience for many of them.
“It is a nice project. That is what is called Sports Diplomacy, using the power of Sports to change the world. Recall that this 1976 Olympics is an event that we did not even participate in. We went, but we did not participate in it. For political reasons, our journey to our dreams, and aspirations were truncated. Somethings you thought only gods could achieve didn’t happen, we were at the door step of achieving those things and suddenly they said go home”.
“It was the biggest disappointment in the lives of some of us. That was in 1976. And some of us never got over it, no recognition was ever given, they were never rewarded, nothing was ever done. And every time I saw some of us that went, I felt sad, depressed, frustrated. I have been wondering: Why can’t we do something? Why can’t we set up some kind of Welfare Funds, that will be managed by those who understand it?”.
“So that we don’t have this whole country littered with Sports Heroes who are not doing well”.
“Those are some of the things driving me also. And when I sold the idea to the NIIA and I disguised it nicely in some other conversations, the D.G immediately got the message”.
“The DG of NIIA is a genius. That man is a deep philosopher and a genius. It didn’t last 1 minute, before he got it and he bought it”.
“He now made me an offer I couldn’t resist. He made me an Associate Fellow of NIIA and Head of the Sports and Diplomacy Unit of the NIIA. I couldn’t refuse it. It is not as if I am paid for it. I went in their with my creativity and experiences and my new knowledge about what you can do with Sports”.
“It was easy to start to sell those great ideas which the Institute bought, which supported the Chairman of Air Peace Airlines desire to honour and reward the 1980 group. He wanted to reward the 1980 group because he was an athlete himself. He was a footballer before in Ibadan. We were playing together. So, he knew so many of those players. Even now that he is a very successful person, whenever he runs some of us like Christian Chukwu, Emmanuel Okala, myself he will always identity with us”.
“So, he wanted to do something. So, we combined it. He read the story of the 1976 athletes and he said Oya let’s go. And that is why we are bringing to Lagos a story that impacts the whole world. That boycott of Olympics in 1976 impacted the whole world. It changed the world. It ended some people’s lives. But it created a new dimension in Sports in the world. For the 1st time it showed the power of Sports to change the world”.
“It did. Because 27 African countries, boycotted the Olympics and that has become the worst Olympics in history”.
“It took them over 30 or 40 years, for Canada to pay off the debt of the Olympics games. They still carry the scars of that Olympic games till today. And it is that boycott, that supported very strongly, all those developments in South Africa. We had soldiers who were fighting”.
“We had a government who was funding other governments there. Nigeria was in the forefront of the liberation struggle in that part of Africa. And the boycott just reinforced it. Because it is at the Olympics that everybody congregated and still congregate”.
“It is a celebration. And to now have the celebration truncated. It made a very, very strong point. And after 1976, other things happen. In 1980, there was crisis in Moscow”.
“In 1984, there was another boycott. America boycotted. And some countries in the West boycotted in 1980”.
“The East boycotted the Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984. So, everybody became afraid, of the power of Sports, as a result of what Nigerians led, 45 Nigerians, who have never, nobody has ever referenced them, not to talk of recognising or rewarding, we have come to unearth history and now the thing is reverbrating all over the world especially in South Africa and abroad”.
“Can you imagine that a lot of young South Africans don’t even know the story of our relationship. They didn’t know that we sacrificed our career, opportunities, our dreams, so that they can get the freedom that they enjoy”.
“They didn’t know that our government under Chief Olusegun Obasanjo invested $61 billion dollars, in those days, to South Africa for their liberation struggles”.
“Not just South Africa, but other countries like Mozambique, Namibia, Rhodesia, those frontline states, Nigeria was investing in them. Nigeria was investing in South Korea and Singapore. We were the most powerful black nation on earth”.
“At Montereal, we demonstrated the strength and power of Sports, but people don’t relate to them. All I am saying is that beyond winning a medal, or trophy, Sports is the most powerful tool on earth for Development, Health, Advancement, Unification, Social Integration, as an Industry (it is one of the fastest growing industries in the world) for so many things.
“But you have to see and appreciate Sports for that. Many don’t see it.”
“What we are doing is like laying a foundation, step-by-step. We are on a journey to 2034 which starts now in 2023. It starts on July 28. On that day we would be celebrating heroes, people that didn’t even participate in Sports, we would also be celebrating the 1980 group, that actually brought Nigerians together after the war, in 1970. That unification did not happen till 1980”.
“What we are planning is going to be the foundation of a journey, that will take us to 2034. When we start to appreciate the power of sports and what it can do, and we connect it with the politics of our political grandfathers, those who were our leaders at independence, in the late 50’s and early 60s, the Nkrumahs of this world, the Senghors of this world, Hail Selasie, Jomo Kenyatta, Julius Nyerere, Tafawa Balewa, those people had a dream, before the dream was truncated. They had a dream of a road running from Cairo to Cape Coast, from Hyden to Daker, of a rail line across the West African coast line, of an integrated Africa, of a United Africa. At a point they said one Army for Africa. But the colonialists saw the danger in allowing a big, united Africa continent emerge and how it will affect their access to raw materials that built up the West. So, they halted it and created crisis among us and so the division totally divided Africa with crisis all over Africa, everywhere, even here in Nigeria.
As sophisticated as we are, see how divided we are. See, where we have bled our country. So, we need to reset the buttons of our development again, the foundation. Patrick Lumumba says if Africa does not unite we would perish. We are there already. There is a new world order. Russia and Ukraine are fighting. Do you think that their fight does not have anything to do with us here? It has, of course. The world is one. We are connected”.
“So, what they are doing there, all the wars and crisis, there is a realignment. Russia and China are now coming together”.
“Brazil, Russia, India and so on are coming together. Everybody is aligning except Africa”.
“So, Africa has to find a way to come together and collaborate and become one. We must have our own trade among ourselves. We must make this place a big tourist destination, a bordeless continent”.
“These are lofty dreams but it can be achieved”.
“That is what is happening in Europe. We are not talking Sports now. But the Sports element comes in. Because that will be a catalyst. That could be the clue to bring about this kind of relationship that we are talking about. So, we have just started, with this revisit to 1976, which is the foundation of the demonstration of the power of Sports. Everybody will see it now”.
“We want to come together again. This time it will not be for Sports. It will be for other things – the Arts, the Culture, our Music, our Dance, we are excelling in those things. And these are called Soft-Power Diplomacy Tools. Davido is one of the biggest artistes in the world. He is filling stadia up and down. He has connected it now with the power of what he is doing to achieve loftier dreams”.
We are starting a 10 year project that will start on July 28 and end in 2034. It will terminate in either Abuja or Dakar in the Summer of 2034 when West Africa led by Nigeria will host the World Cup and we would do what Qatar did to their country, in West Africa. That is the dream. To use Sports to achieve the fastest development project in history, located in West Africa. It is not about winning. The football that they are going to play will be the least activity, but that is the most powerful activity and around it we are going to wrap our Dance. We would wrap our Music. We would wrap our Fashion. We would wrap our Tourist destinations. There is none like ours. All the slave camps where 12 million Africans were shifted from in Badagry, Accra, in Ivory Coast, in Sierra Leone where they returned to, in Liberia where they returned to, in Senegal where they took them out, all those places will become the biggest tourist destinations for black people on earth”.
“You will come from 22 diasporan countries, from Trinidad and Tobago, from Brazil (with the 2nd largest black population in the world), they will come from Jamaica, they will come from Antigua, Barbadoes, the US, they will come, come, come”.
“It is not that they want to make here home. Those who want to make here home, are welcome. But they will come with their sophistication, resources, education. They will come back home and do some things for Africa. They will go back to America”.
“They also belong there. But you see, there will now be this collaboration and it will open up this 300 million market of West Africa and make it borderless. You can wake up and just drive to Accra or for the weekend like we used to do in those days. Or you enter the Train. Or you go to Iddo and enter a luxurious train that will take you to Dakar. You don’t need a Visa”.
“We would start doing business. And our security men are collaborating. Our Immigration people are collaborating. What will make us collaborate? It is hosting the World Cup in 2034 in West Africa. The World Cup will compel you to do all of those things. You must have provision for medical facilities along that West Coast that you say you want to host the World Cup”.
“You must have the best Security architecture, your Immigration must be seamless. People must be able to move from one venue to another across West Africa. You must promote Entertainment. That is the dream. That is what we are working on ooo. That is the dream from some small heads and small minds. To win the World Cup is not the Vision. It is good to win the World Cup”.
“But that is not Vision, even to some of us who are crazy football people. Qatar didn’t host the World Cup to win it. But it is now the No 1 tourist destination in the world. It is the No 1 Sports destination in the world, it is the No 1 shopping destination in the world. It has the tallest building in the world. Haaa! The world has helped Qatar to develop itself to become the No 1 destination point of this world, with the World Cup”.
“We have to start thinking big. We cannot be myopic. We cannot reduce our thinking to pedestrian levels”.
“So, those are the things exciting me for the few years we have left”.
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