As a filmmaker, journalist and fan of Nigerian Athletics, I arrived at the World U20 Championships in Bydgoszcz in July with two broad goals in mind.

Firstly, I wanted to assess first hand the performance of Nigeria’s Junior Team, most of whom I had met a year ago at Top Sprinter Genesis, the inaugural edition of a Reality TV Athletics talent search in Nigeria which my company, Making of Champions, had produced. Secondly, and most intriguingly for me, I was keen to investigate the growing trend of Nigeria’s best athletes pitching tent for other countries, particularly the Kingdom of Bahrain.

I was looking forward to seeing Precious Moses again, the best young quarter-miler we had discovered across Nigeria at our Top Sprinter “Auditions” in 2015. He won the 400m in Enugu in 48 seconds, the fastest time across all five Auditions we held nationwide. He had been on the cusp of Nigeria’s youth and junior teams, even being called up a couple of times, only to be dropped at the last moment.

At Making of Champions (MoC), we were quite excited about Precious, perhaps one of the most special talents we had identified while traversing the corners of Nigeria to find talent. We had hoped to recruit him into one of our MoC Track Clubs, to be trained by the likes of Olympic Medallists Deji Aliu or Uchenna Emedolu. Unfortunately, while we were still figuring out the logistics and funding to bring him in, we received word that Precious had relocated to Bahrain, and the rest as they say, is history.

Within a year of arriving in Bahrain, Precious had received his Bahraini citizenship and would compete at the World U20 Championships for his newly adopted nation, just as another Nigerian-born athlete, Abbas Abubakar Abbas had done two years ago, when he won 400m Bronze for the Kingdom of Bahrain.

Continue rading here: http://www.makingofchamps.com/2016/08/01/bahrain-drain-the-exodus-of-nigerian-athletes-to-the-kingdom/

Watch these videos as the athletes explain their situation as most of them were dropped due to nepotism hence they switch allegiance


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LGrNrbLWhc&feature=youtu.be


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctXBcQuXbKs&feature=youtu.be


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg3_sngpRfI&feature=youtu.be


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg3_sngpRfI&feature=youtu.be

Though I was not born then but I believe that Nigeria was not ripe for independence when our fathers fought for it and got it. The hastiness has led us where we are today.

waleadex:
Though I was not born then but I believe that Nigeria was not ripe for independence when our fathers fought for it and got it. The hastiness has led us where we are today.

Yeah. If not for corruption, We should be competing with UK or USA as the most developed country

Too bad! These are the kind of things our sport minister should be concerned about

Our main problem as a nation is

Corruption and negligency