The presidential candidate of the Labour Party, (LP) in the 2023 General Elections, Peter Obi has expressed disappointment in Team Nigeria over their poor outing at the Paris 2024 Olympic games.
Despite fielding 88 athletes and numerous officials, Team Nigeria will be returning home without winning a single medal.
Expressing his disappointment, Obi noted that the Team Nigeria’s lacklustre performance was a reflection of happenings in the Nigerian system.
According to him, the N12bn spent on the team didn’t reflect in their performances at the competition.
Obi made his displeasure with the team known on his official X handle.
His Tweet reads “Now that the Paris Olympics 2024 has officially ended and our dear Team Nigeria, despite the huge financial investment made into the project, is returning without a single medal, let me unreservedly register my displeasure with the performance of our team and their handlers.
“The rascality and recklessness that has continued to characterise leadership in our nation in nearly every department. The general impression that has come to stick is the one that portrays our country as a joke, even on the international stage.
“At least nine African countries won gold but the giant with over 200 million people came home without even a bronze! We invested about N12 billion in this year’s Olympics, which is almost twice the amount budgeted for the entire Ministry of Science and Technology for this year.
“We must now interrogate the relationship between this huge investment and our dismal outcome. Sad stories like this are our lot only because we have refused to embrace competence and capacity over routine and favouritism in Nigeria.
“Let us consider the case of Favour Ofili, a Nigerian professional sprinter who trained for years for the 2024 Olympics, only for her name to be recklessly and wrongly removed from the list of athletes for the 100m race at the Olympics by Nigerian sporting authorities.
“What explanation can anyone give about Annette Echikunwoke, a former Nigerian hammer thrower, who was frustrated by the same rascality of some Nigerian leaders, making her switch her allegiance to the United States, where she eventually won a medal in the just completed Olympics?” He noted.
According to Obi, Team Nigeria should come back and restrategize ahead of the next competition.