Nigerian sports development… Between Sokoto and Sokoto

As a writer of a weekly column, sometimes I run out of subject to write about. The mind goes into ‘idle’ mode, blanketed by the innumerable moving parts of life. Scanning through my mind for the ‘bigger’ stories often obscures the smaller and, sometimes, more significant ones that could turn the tide of events and even history.

That was my situation yesterday. The biggest news in the world was of Mr. Donald Trump returning as the 47th president of the United States of America.
Even in my little village it was the subject of some conversation. One would rightly ask: ‘what has Donald Trump got to do with the price of fish at the Wasimi weekly market?’ Plenty, as it turned out later.

For 17 years, I have been running a specialised sports secondary school located in Wasimi. Before Mr. Trump’s first coming in 2016, my school was preparing, processing and sending a minimum of four of the best 20 student athletes that graduated every year, to colleges and universities in the USA. These USA institutions had interest to recruit exceptionally gifted young and qualified Nigerian student athletes and offered them scholarships. It was a process that was running smoothly until Donald Trump became president for the first time.

With Trump in power the conditions for transiting to the USA became more challenging, and more difficult than the proverbial camel passing through the eye of a needle.

In the four years since his exit from office till now, the immigration has improved only ever slightly. It is still a trickle that may now be truncated by Trump’s anti-immigration pronouncements.

One can now start to appreciate the link between Trump’s victory in the USA elections and my humble investment in the lives of young Nigerian student