NIS: How not to run a sports talent factory for excellence
Established in 1973 to power Nigeria’s quest for wearing glory, the Nationwide Institute for Sports (NIS), Lagos, seemed as if it could possibly possibly have did not stay up to expectations. It has, up to now, struggled with the comely identification of its aims and aims, as smartly as easy how to attain them. This has triggered stakeholders to ask its rejuvenation to fulfill the country’s desires in sports construction, GOWON AKPODONOR experiences.
Among several numerous causes, sports institutes are supposed to equip coaches and sports managers with the specified instruments to effectively construct aggressive athletes for the country.
The Australian Institute for Sports (AIS) is a glaring symbol of this endeavour, with the lots of position that it has conducted within the resurgence of the country’s sports since the Nineteen Eighties, thrusting them up the ladder in world sports.
The UK Sports Institute has, since 2002 thru the final four Olympic and Paralympic cycles, evolved quietly and effectively into an organisation constantly appearing at a world-main stage, contributing to over 1,000 British Olympic and Paralympic medals.
There's additionally the United States’ Nationwide Institute for Fitness and Sport (NIFS), which specializes in study, education, and service associated to human health, fitness, and athletic performance. It additionally supplies programmes and certifications for assorted audiences, from folks looking out for fitness and vitamin steering to mavens within the sports discipline.
The U.S. sports institute utilises study to construct programmes esteem the “Wellness Accomplice”, which delivers month-to-month wellness programs and exercise tutorials for coaches and managers to impact on their athletes.
In Nigeria, the federal govt established the Nigeria Institute of Sports (NIS) in 1974, a Three hundred and sixty five days after the 1973 Nationwide Sports Competition, with the purpose of coaching and retraining the country’s coaches and sports pills personnel.
The coaching, amongst numerous issues, was once expected to help the coaches produce the foundational files and functional abilities to educate at assorted ranges, from grassroots to skilled; have holistic athlete construction files by finding out to construct efficient coaching programmes; understand athlete physiology and foster mental resilience.
It was once additionally designed as an avenue for profession versatility for the coaches and managers to have opportunities in sports clubs, faculties, fitness centres, nationwide sports federations, and as non-public coaches.
With assorted services and products, including coaching fields and courts, working tracks, sports science centre, a gymnasium, physiotherapy services and products, a sports book library, and hostels, the NIS has the total components required to rival its counterparts in Australia, Big Britain, and the United States in developing champion athletes.
Glory days
In its early years, the NIS met its duties. Particularly, within the create-up to the botched 1976 Montreal Olympics, the NIS served because the first coaching camp for the country’s athletes sooner than they moved foreign to elevate in assorted trials and competitions ensuing within the Games.
Nigeria’s preparation for the Montreal Olympics was once rated because the most productive from Independence up to that duration sooner than the country led the boycott of the Games in advise towards South Africa’s Apartheid regime. The beneficiaries of the NIS coaching job incorporated Charlton Ehizuelen, who was once the area’s easiest long and triple jumper within the create-up to the Montreal Games, and Bruce Ijirigho, a 400 metres necessary particular person, who was once expected to employ a medal in Canada, as smartly as boxers Davidson Andeh and Obisia Nwankpa.
The NIS additionally conducted a important position in Nigeria’s African Cup of International locations victory in 1980, because it additionally served because the preparatory ground for the Green Eagles sooner than the championship.
The institute additionally boasts some carried out athletes and coaches, including Chioma Ajunwa, Nigeria’s first Olympic gold medalist, who's an alumna of the institute, as smartly because the slack Enormous Eagles manager, Shaibu Amodu.
The college additionally made the slack coach Yemi Tella, who led the Nigeria U-17 football crew to a gold medal on the 2007 FIFA U-17 World Cup held in South Korea.
Perennial neglect
OBVIOUSLY, these glory days evaporated formula support because the college, which fell staunch into a depressed utter from the slack Nineties, has remained comatose up to now, with most of its hitherto-reverted services and products left to rot by successive governments.
Now, what was once meant to function a nationwide centre for wearing excellence, providing world-class services and products, coaching, and enhance services and products to elite athletes all over assorted disciplines in Nigeria, is a shadow of the aims of the founding fathers.
Indeed, what was once constructed to be Nigeria’s means construction factory has now become one huge tournament centre, web hosting all formula of functions, from book launches to marriage ceremony ceremonies and non secular actions.
Its gymnasium, which was once constructed to the most productive world current in 1974, now serves leisure bodybuilders, who have found better employ of the services and products than the owners of the structure.
Some stakeholders elevate that one in every of the ironies of the NIS is that the institute fared better in some unspecified time in the future of the military period than with the civilians because many of the managers of the college since the introduction of democracy are politicians, about a of whom know little or nothing about managing services and products of such magnitude.
In step with these stakeholders, outdated military governments went to huge lengths in looking out for out competent administrators/technocrats to speed the institute, and no longer accurate of us with political affiliations to the ruling govt.
The form of technocrats was once faded Secretary Traditional of the Supreme Council for Sports in Africa, the slack Dr Awoture Eleyae, who served as NIS’ pioneer predominant from 1974 to 1983.
Eleyae was once joined in 1976 by three German consultants, Hoerst Beyer, Prof H. Dubberke, and Heinze Marotzke, to evaluation the Institute’s curriculum prepared earlier in 1975. These technocrats situation the well-liked for the institute to construct fine athletes and officials for Nigerian sports.
Evaluating the NIS to the Australian Institute for Sports, the stakeholders stay that the Nigerian version has no longer made a meaningful contribution to the country’s efforts on the Olympic Games, the formula the AIS has.
Since 1974 up to now, Nigeria has obtained accurate three gold medals on the Olympic Games compared with Australia’s 167 gold medals since 1981. Big Britain has obtained 207 gold medals since 1981, whereas American athletes have obtained a total of two,765 medals (1,105 of them gold) in some unspecified time in the future of the identical duration.
Structural defects
THE NIS’s glaring failure has constantly elicited many questions, prominent amongst which is: “What's the misfortune of the NIS?”Responding to this, a faded Green Eagles Captain, Segun Odegbami, who was once the NIS Board of Trustees chairman between 2003 and 2005, acknowledged the considerations are many.
“I left the NIS 12 years ago. Our design then was once to model it after the Australian Institute of Sport. Nonetheless these working the Sports Ministry did no longer understand the conception and needed an academic establishment to award diplomas that had been equivalent to OND and HND.
“Sadly, entry abilities, allege of the programme and duration create no longer meet the standards of these abilities, and therefore constituted a deviation from the recent conception of the institute,” Odegbami acknowledged.
In step with him, the NIS mute struggles up to now with comely identification of its aims and aims, and uncomplicated how to get there. Asked why Nigerian athletes are mute being trained by foreign faculties, Odegbami acknowledged: “The NIS cannot recount any athletes pondering its total setup and personnel, and curriculum. That is why Nigerian athletes are no longer a a part of the deliverables from the NIS.”
Odegbami was once blunt in describing the NIS as an institute with free of fee. “The NIS has free of fee. It does no longer equate to anything else within the govt. or non-public sector schemes. At easiest, it accurate reveals that some stage of coaching has taken pickle without known substance to its cost.”
Moreover, Odegbami feels that the yearly funds of the NIS cannot help the institute attain any meaningful progress.
“I don't have any conception of the funds. Nearly nil beyond what is ragged to pay salaries and a little repairs be aware,” he acknowledged. For a Los Angeles ’84 Olympics weightlifter, Emmanuel Oshomah, there is a broad disparity in study services and products between the NIS and numerous foreign sports institutes, namely the Australian Sports Institute.
“The Sports Institute in Australia is smartly-geared up with unique services and products, enabling coaches to salvage complete coaching. We don’t have such on the NIS in Lagos.”
Oshomah additionally acknowledged that the NIS has challenges in assembly world standards thanks to its heart-broken budgetary allocation and policy inconsistency. “Despite the efforts of indigenous lecturers to fulfill world standards, challenges persist, namely regarding punctuality and adherence to schedules, that will hinder progress.”
Certificate issued by the NIS, he acknowledged, is handled with disdain by athletes, who now elevate to recount in foreign institutions. “The need for foreign coaching amongst our athletes could possibly possibly stem from priorities and decisions. While the NIS certificate holds recognition in West Africa, athletes could possibly possibly ask broader world recognition and opportunities equipped by foreign institutions.”
Incumbent Director Traditional of the college, Philip Shaibu, additionally cited two non-public unfavorable experiences with the NIS in a most modern interview. Acknowledged the faded deputy governor of Edo Converse: “I was once one in every of these Nigerians who felt that nothing was once happening on the NIS. Among the unfavorable experiences was once when Edo Queens superior for the CAF Champions League in 2024, and I noticed our coach, Moses Aduku, sitting within the stands. I asked why, and he instructed me he wasn’t allowed on the bench because his NIS certificate wasn’t recognised.”
CAF rules stipulate that coaches must meet particular licensing requirements to sit down down down on the bench in some unspecified time in the future of interclub competitions such because the CAF Champions League or Confederation Cup. Head coaches are required to elevate a CAF ‘A’ License or a excellent PRO License from a sister confederation (e.g., UEFA, AFC), whereas assistant coaches must comprise a CAF ‘B’ License.
Shaibu described the incident as a serious warning sign and an emblem of the broader credibility disaster going thru the institute. He likened the NIS to the engine room of Nigeria’s sports ecosystem—particular person who desires to be smartly serviced to create at an optimal stage.
Tepid efforts to revive establishment no longer sufficient
SEVERAL efforts to revive the institute died once their initiators left place of work. Frail President Goodluck Jonathan promised to situation up a numerous sports intervention fund to cater to 6 severe areas to promote coaching, education, and welfare of retired and performing athletes.
Jonathan needed to make employ of the fund to enhance sports institutions, especially the NIS in Lagos and Abuja. The dream died with his administration.
Earlier, the Olusegun Obasanjo administration had tried to revitalise the NIS thru a bilateral relationship with the Australian govt between 2001 and 2002, which led to the division of the institute into two palms, i.e. the Education/Analysis and the Athlete Style Centres.
The Education Centre, located in Lagos, was once saddled with the responsibility of ensuring the production of prime-fine sports manpower and sports study, whereas an arm of the institute was once created in Abuja for the Athlete Style Programme aimed at discovering, harnessing, and nurturing younger, gifted athletes into high-performing elite athletes. This conception additionally died in infancy.
Moreover desirous of resuscitating the NIS, President Bola Tinubu accredited N1.88 billion for it as a part of the 300 per cent raise for the sports sector within the 2025 funds.
Tinubu’s “extra special” funds of N94.9 billion for sports in 2025 is considered as a intrepid step to revitalise the field, because it's some distance a vigorous raise from final Three hundred and sixty five days’s N31.24 billion.
The sum of N18.59 billion was once allotted for the rehabilitation and restore of mounted sources, which consist of the NIS. Shaibu’s appointment as DG is with a ask to resuscitating the comatose college.
“What I noticed this day is unacceptable. This establishment was once meant to be a centre of excellence, nonetheless it completely’s now a shadow of itself. That must change straight away,” he acknowledged after he toured the power upon resumption.
Shaibu declared a utter of emergency on the institute, asserting: “Restoring the NIS is no longer accurate about buildings; it's some distance ready reviving our sports ecosystem from the grassroots. Coaches, trainers, and athletes deserve a world-class coaching atmosphere.” He additionally acknowledged that there's an pressing must rebrand the institute for Nigeria to construct Olympic medallists.
Nonetheless Dr Theodore Chukwuemeka, a Physical and Neatly being Education expert, acknowledged the unique circulate would slay esteem the others sooner than it if sure current issues are no longer seemed after.
He acknowledged: “The unique director current and the Federal Authorities must map to a decision within the occasion that they wish the institute to return to its position as a world athletes’ breeding centre. If right here is so, they have to present the services and products and modernise their architecture to fulfill the realities of the day.
“The hostels are no longer match for purpose. For elite athletes to stay and recount there, befitting accommodation desires to be equipped for them, else no prime athlete will must care for within the NIS in its most modern misfortune.
“The curriculum desires to be reviewed to address most modern realities, whereas superior and experienced lecturers desires to be recruited to have the academic desires of the institute. If we create no longer create this stuff, it implies that we're mute politicking with the institute. The DG will direct outrage, employ headlines, and when he’s carried out his bit, there’ll be no comparability of sooner than and after. It’s the routine.”
