Tobiloba Amusan riled the lords of the Nigerian athletics community recently. By her video on Nigeria’s kits for the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 2025, she also triggered the country’s sports fraternity as well as those Nigerians who are conversant with sports administration in the country.
Tobi Amusan – our current best foot forward in athletics – did a bold asko o (a way some children and women in Ibadan shrug their shoulders in defiance) to the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) with that video. Through that video – the first of its kind from usually reserved Tobi Amusan – was her way of saying ‘I don’t care anymore’ to whatever her action might lead to.
Miss Amusan also didn’t care how the AFN officials might decide to fume over her video. And I think this is because, through her talent and years of hard work, she has rightfully earned her place at the table of Nigeria’s untouchables. Beyond working her way to that level of becoming an untouchable, she is also, in a way, the favourite among millions of Nigerians – a favourite untouchable.
But she is one untouchable in the positive sense of the concept – in the sense of thinking aloud or saying boldly that the AFN officials and their ilk must not ruin our only medal hope in the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo with their shenanigans.
We had only just recently lost Favour Ofili from our quiver of potent sports arrows. The young top talent dumped Nigeria for Turkey just a few weeks before the Worlds. She had a very bumpy ride with our athletics lords of the manor and decided she had had enough.
Amusan, in that video of hers with the accompanying commentary, said all that needed to be said: Nigerian sports administrators have refused to learn. And she is quite right. She made the video look like a jolly ride – a casual cruise through the turbulent ocean of painful realities our sports men and women face at every opportunity to sail. Favour Ofili could not weather the storm, just like many other Nigerian athletes who also switched allegiance from Nigeria with some painful memories.
But Miss Tobi Amusan chose to speak, stand up, and fight because she has risen to a height where the ruinous hands of our system manned by our athletics lords can no longer touch her. That is one of the reasons she is untouchable, apart from the huge gap her personality would leave in our athletics if anything happened to her.
With her position in our sports, especially with the fretting Nigerian population about what just happened with Miss Ofili, Amusan did not just earn her bully pulpit; she also earned a right and the might to point out the correctable wrongs.
The Yoruba liken such untouchables to the household king’s goat (the Baale’s goat). They call them Ashemalu – eranbaale.
While Tobi Amusan thoroughly riled top officials of the AFN, they could only watch just as helplessly as the hungry fowl would mope at the corn in a corked bottle. She indeed rode the moment well and passed her powerful message, regardless of the hurried, haphazard response and face-saving measures the AFN eventually came up with. Interestingly, such was also the kind of response they gave to the searing departure of Favour Ofili from the Nigerian athletics firmament. It was quite typical and seemed like something usually drawn from an annoying template.
Tobi told the world, from far away Tokyo in Japan, some of those things our leaders would not want us to tell even from the corners of our abodes in Nigeria. Embedded in her message are those embarrassing situations we face daily, and which are often muted with questions like ‘Are you the only one?’ We are hushed so as to keep our collective mortification away from outsiders or non-family members. The Yoruba refer to such a situation as egbòilé. But Tobi Amusan refused to make this occasion one of egbòilé.
She spoke up and compared what Nigeria’s athletes received as competition gears in Tokyo 2025 to what other countries’ athletes were given, although her message carried much more meaning than just that. Her verdict also is devastating! She made a video of our athletes’ kits to the Worlds while laughing at the laughable kits and sneered openly at the despicable offering.
Perhaps, Miss Tobiloba Amusan must have been bottling that burden for a reasonable period of time. She only had to let the bubble burst this time. Those Nigerian athletes who could not bear it, and who are not in a position to pull the ears of our lords in sports administration like Miss Amusan could, just decided to quit to find solace elsewhere. Unfortunately, that list of disgruntled Nigerian athletes is rapidly growing by the day. Nothing is being said about it right now. Nothing is being done about it right now. Nigeria and Nigerians would only rise when another Tobiloba Amusan-like episode happens. No lessons from the long past. No lessons from the immediate past exemplified by the Tokyo 2025 held from 13 September 2025 to 21 September 2025.
The AFN has moved on from the letdown in Tokyo. They have clinked glasses to celebrate Tobi Amusan’s lone silver medal and taken solace in the glimmers from the budding talents. They also celebrated the records set by others, especially Ezekiel Nathaniel’s new national record in the 400 metres hurdles. They are not inspired by the surge of Botswana, the meticulousness of Ethiopia, and the staying power of Kenya. We have silenced our planning drums and folded our thinking mats. We are now back to debating owambe and owanbe, blind-sighting serious issues until they sweep us off our feet.
We celebrated the last WAFCON and the girls’ exploits on July 27, 2025. We hailed and cheered the squad and described the girls’ win as historic and unprecedented. We are right about all of that. We were also happy because of the happy ending which erased all the blot that had stained the processes that led to that momentous victory. Like the safe delivery of a much-desired healthy child, the end justified all the means of preceding troubles.
But did anyone remember that the kits meant for that WAFCON got to the girls only at the quarter-finals of the competition? Their kits were delayed at the Moroccan customs after they arrived in the country late. We have forgotten that our girls made a show of the makeshift kits they had to use at that major tournament.
Just like in the case of Tobi Amusan and the Tokyo 2025 kits, which the AFN said were on their way, the NFF too ran from pillar to post to battle the Super Falcons’ revelation and only got the kits at the quarter-finals of the tournament. What if the Super Falcons had been eliminated earlier?
These common scenarios are what Miss Amusan and many Nigerians are trying to constantly point out about our sports and sundry national life. Not many expect officials to answer the salient questions. But they must be asked anyway. Why do the kits arrive late? How come the necessary plans are not made as and when due? Why do we always end up in such situations?
Why don’t we punish such embarrassing national malaise? One of the best crops of Nigeria’s U-17 boys failed to qualify for the World Cup not because they were not good, but because an NFF official failed to bring the boys’ passports to Ibadan where the match was played. Who was that official, and was there a penalty?
The flagship of our national sports teams, the Super Eagles, once played an official international match in hurriedly cut-to-size shorts from their tracksuits. Who brought us that national shame? What happened afterwards?
For the 2026 FIFA World Cup, our Super Eagles are currently dangling precariously at the precipice. If we fail to qualify, that would be the second consecutive time. Africa is guaranteed to be represented by nine countries in that tournament, up from the current five representatives. Yet, Nigeria, Africa’s sports powerhouse, is heading towards the exit door of the qualifiers!
Why must we perpetually live as a country of reactions only, and willfully choose to stand against proactive actions? Our life as a country is replete with examples of reactions to everything we ought to have proactively taken care of. I think we should use our tongue to count our teeth!