Sport and society | Nigeria News Network

?Sporting disappointments symbolise Nigeria?s social crisis

Over the past few months, Nigerian sport has witnessed a persistent pattern of heart-breaking reversals. The country?s football has seen the Super Eagles fail to qualify for the African Nations? Cup (AFCON) currently taking place in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. The Under-23 men?s team was unable to book a place in the football event of the 2012 London Olympics, a failure which was similarly shared by the Super Falcons, the senior women?s team.?

As bad as they are, these disappointments in the sporting arena are actually indications of a deeper malaise, namely the precipitous decline in many of the social aspects of Nigerian society. The setbacks in sport, while serious enough in themselves, are merely symptoms of wide-ranging inadequacies in the country as a whole.

Perhaps the most significant of such shortcomings is the state of the nation?s security. Nigerians are being assaulted on all sides by major threats to their lives and wellbeing. Apart from the instability and bloodshed generated by the Boko Haram menace, there has been a clear upsurge in armed robbery, kidnapping and other violent crimes.?

What is most shocking is the impunity with which these acts are carried out. Whole gangs of criminals routinely hold up law-abiding citizens on the nation?s highways, in their homes and at their places of work. Kidnapping has become so rampant in some parts of the country that it is a virtual cottage industry. The security forces are arguably doing their best, but it is obvious that they are simply too poorly-trained and ill-equipped to tackle the rising wave of crime effectively.

Nigeria?s increasingly insecure society is further aggravated by the corresponding erosion of time-honoured traditional mores which placed a high premium on the virtues of honesty, hard work and good neighbourliness. In their place has emerged a crass materialism and the consequent enthronement of a mindless get-rich-quick ethos. Many Nigerians no longer feel any compulsion in taking unfair advantage of their compatriots, no matter what their relationship to them is. Fraud, deception and trickery have thus become a constant danger against which every citizen must be on guard.

Rising criminality and negative social attitudes in any society are closely related to the availability of jobs and the quality of education being provided. The country?s failure to deliver on these critical dividends is particularly distressing. Unemployment rates are soaring, but they are especially high for the teeming number of youths, many of whom are graduates of tertiary institutions. The delivery of educational services is characterised by low quality, decrepit infrastructure and continual disruption.?

If Nigeria is to ensure that it attains the sporting successes its people crave so badly, the poor social conditions which negatively affect the lives of its citizens must first be rapidly improved. The Jonathan administration has made much of its desire to improve national infrastructure and enhance the ability of the economy to create jobs. It must now show that its pronouncements are more than just an attempt to get the populace to accept the removal of ostensible fuel subsidies by embarking on comprehensive works programmes that would simultaneously improve infrastructure, generate employment and reduce crime.?

In achieving these laudable aims, the Federal Government would do well to look at states like Lagos, Ondo and Rivers, where the intrinsic links between sport and society have been utilised in developing sustainable social policies. In those states, sport has become a primary strategy for engaging the energies of the youth, even while skills-acquisition programmes are set up to ensure that they become useful to themselves and society. Victory in sports can only be guaranteed by victory in society.

Source: http://www.newsnet.com.ng/2012/02/sport-and-society/

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