Paris 2024 Olympics: Peter Obi blasts over ‘reckless’ removal of Ofili’s name from 100m event, Team Nigeria’s medal less outing

In a series of posts on X on Sunday, Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 General elections, has expressed his disgust with the Team Nigeria’s failure to win a ‘single medal’ despite the ‘huge financial investment’.

Obi said the N12 billion earmarked for this year’s Olympics ‘is almost twice the amount budgeted for the entire Ministry of Science and Technology’.

‘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,’ Obi wrote.

‘The rascality and recklessness that has continued to characterize 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.

‘How can one explain that a country like Jamaica spent less than 5% of what we spent on our contingents for the Paris Olympics 2024 and won as many as 6 medals.

‘Yet with our huge financial investments and large contingent, we could not win even a single medal?’

Obi frowned at the ‘reckless’ removal of Favour Ofili’s name from the team by some officials despite training for the Olympics.

‘This is over N136 million (about $85,000) spent on each of the 88 Nigerian contingents to the Olympics, and no single medal was won while Jamaica, a nation which spent far less than we did, a total of about $2300 on each contingent, won 6 medals; 1 Gold, 3 Silver and 2 Bronze at the Olympics,’ he said.

‘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?

‘These same professional athletes were denied the opportunity to represent our nation in Tokyo 2020, for similar reasons of administrative recklessness.

‘What a country! What a shame! When do we stop these rascalities that always rob our nation of golden opportunities to make a positive change?’