Yesterday we ran the interview our Sports Editor Tony Ubani had with the Sports Minister and Chairman, National Sports Commission, NSC, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi on the problems with sports in the country. Today, we run the concluding part of the extensive interview. Enjoy it.

We have talked a lot on football. Looking at sports generally, do you think we have done well in our 52 years of independence?

Do well? No. We have not done well with sports. Yes, there are great strides that we have taken in the past but they are not enough to say we have actually achieved much. Individually, we have had people doing well in the Olympics but in the overall measurement it is still very low for a country so talented like ours. I do my measurement with the Olympics because that is the pinnacle of sporting competition in the world.

If we base it on that, then, we have won 23 medals in all since we began competing at the Olympics in 1952. Now compare it to what only Michael Phelps has won as an individual and you begin to ask yourself whether we have really done anything at all. It is a painful reality. As a country, it is right to say that 52 years after, we ought to have achieved more.

It is in that contest that we begin to ask what can we do to go up as quickly as possible. We need to find out what we are doing wrong and address the ills as quickly as possible.

It would have been easy to compare it to some other sectors in the country and say sport has done so well because we have won gold and in FIFA ranking we reached 5th spot in the past. We can begin to say sports is by far the best in Nigeria because we always win or reach the final but we cannot say some other sectors can be measured as the fifth best in the world now or in the past.

The vision is to do well in the Olympics where the rest of the world is measured. In football for instance, it is always given that Brazil will win every World Cup but we don't get such rating when it comes to the African Nations Cup. We have won it only twice. We won the 1996 Olympics soccer gold but until now we are yet to win any major cup. Why is it so? The ideal setting for our football should be that it should be assumed that Nigeria has the best team to win the Nations Cup whenever it is being played.

Honourable Minister sports have given us a lot of resources...

Yes it has but I am not looking at anything in isolation. The question is why have we not made the best use of the resources?

How much? N2.5bn for the entire Olympics?

Yes, but why have we not done more? We ought to have achieved more than we did? If some other countries were able to give N20bn, why couldn't we provide that? The question is have we achieved as much as we should? I am saying that we have not achieved as much.

But If you say sports has not achieved much, what then can you say of other sectors. Can we say anything about the energy sector for instance?

You can take that defensive approach if you want but it is not helpful. For instance I can say the sports sector is doing well; it is the best because it is with sports that Nigerians are well known all over the world. Our football is envied no matter how we have treated it. At the Paralympics we were ahead so many and we are rated as the best powerlifting country. We were in the finals of at least six events at the Olympics even though we didn't win any medal. But if we take that approach, it won't take us anywhere.

When Team Great Britain went to Atlanta and won only two medals and the entire nation went into mourning. They did not come back to look at the aviation sector and say what is your position?. Comparatively, we can say that sport has been the sector that has been able to withstand the different crises and difficulties that this country has passed through.

But if you look at it in absolute terms for a country like Nigeria in the last 52 years, is that the best we could have achieved? We had Atlanta '96 gold winning team which means as the Minister I should be able to walk in and ask for the template used in winning. But do we have any? The answer is no. I want us to get to the level where such things are possible; a situation where things can be worked out in concrete terms for continuous use no matter how many changes in administration is made. Let's prepare for Rio the way we should. The associations must be able to develop a system which the next person taking over can also use as template.

But do you think government is a continuum in Nigeria?

Transition is a major problem in Nigeria. I have suffered it in Kwara State. I set out with the most aggressive basic education reforms in Kwara and this ordinarily should take about 10 years to achieve complete breakthrough but I was never going to stay for that long. When I left the follow up pattern changed.

But many ministers have come and discarded things from their predecessors?

I know things happen that way but if we are able to put together something fantastic down for Rio before leaving, not even the wildest animal would want to throw it away.

Are you sure...

Yes, it can and that is why we have to strengthen the federations. If they are good and strong with quality concrete programmes and projections, no minister will come and kick those things away. The federations should be the ones building and driving the systems. We are meant to provide just guidance, some funding and policy guidance. And that was why I asked for their Rio programmes when we came back from the Olympics but the first ones I got were of very poor quality.

So when will the federations go?

Do I have the powers to kick them away? (Laughter) I don't think so but they still have some time to serve...

But the Olympics is over...It is usually the year of the Games and perhaps after Sports Festival

All of you would say I am interfering. Some of them still have terms to go. They didn't all start at the same time.

What about the ones already due. Some of the elections simply throw characters as in football...

The truth is that we have chosen to have five elite sports that we can properly develop. Perhaps equip them with some Olympic Performance Directors to help prepare them in concrete terms for the Olympics. We really need to develop the capacity of these federations which I think we have not done over the years. It is when their tenure is over that we can then call them and begin to look at their statutes which incidentally are not as binding as that of football. If we build concrete working and organised federations even Satan cannot come down and disorganise it. If the system is working fine, he will have no choice because he will be incapacitated.