The games of the 8th All Africa Games, COJA 2003, began on October 7, 2003, and ended on October 17, 2003. In Abuja the capital city of Nigeria. The multi-sport event Abuja 2003 featured 53 African countries participating in 22 sports with Nigeria topping the medals table. Even though the newly constructed Abuja National Stadium served as the main venue, other manageable sporting events were scattered around other venues in the Federal Capital City.
Considering that this was the second time Nigeria was hosting, organisers were under pressure to win the event having in mind that it was a rare opportunity to win on home soil.
Through a splendid spectacle put up by the Nigerian athletes the country was able to emerge as the overall winners. Nigeria topped the table with a total of 240 medals, made up of 85 Gold, 90 Silver and 65 Bronze. Nigerian athletes outshone in various disciplines as Deji Aliu made a record time of 9.95 seconds in the100 meters men while Vivian Chukwuemeka set the record in Shot Put women with 18.12 meters.
Queen of the tracks Mary Onyali bagged gold medals in 100 and 200 meters, women. In the high jump women, Gertrude Banda of Malawi set a new national record with a jump of 2.09 meters. Overall, the 2003 8th All Africa Games, otherwise called ABUJA 2003 or COJA 2003 by the locals, were marked by impressive performances, cultural exchange and significant investment in infrastructure.
One memorable aspect outside of track and field events was the Ekhaya Hospitality Exchange Programme. This showcased South African Products and Culture featuring entertainment, meetings and networking opportunities. Despite the allure of the games, many saw it as the most expensive event in Nigeria’s history including high ticket prices.
The 8th Africa Games demonstrated a high level of infrastructural breakthroughs as the new ultra-modern 60000 seating capacity Abuja National Stadium was built, replete with its other accompaniments like the Velodrome and high-capacity sports halls for indoor games. The Games Village, which has provided accommodation for a good number of citizens, is today one of the dividends of the games contributing to Abuja’s urban development not to talk of the gigantic 60,000-seating capacity Stadium [main bowl] with other sports halls, pitches and other multipurpose facilities for both indoor and outdoor games capable of hosting multi-international events.
Despite a few positives derivable from hosting the games, COJA 2003, fell into the hands of the “professional” Nigerian politicians who tried to outdo the other on how many contracts they could grab from the Organizing Committee. Abuja became a kind of Mecca as politicians in the capital city abandoned governance and used the window of the games for contract chasing. Members of the National Assembly as well as those in the executive arm were not left out. The games became a major project for the government at the time, political considerations dominated contracts thereby jettisoning merit and competence.
As a result, undue pressure was exerted on members of the Organising committee who were besieged by these politicians. The distractions were out of this world. From alleged orders not just from above, but from the “topmost of above”, to the alleged physical participation in the award of contracts and payments. If anyone needed to see Nigeria inside out, one needed to take a trip to the headquarters of COJA at the time.
The CEO of COJA at one point had to be rushed to the hospital in an emergency. A lot of allegations and counter-allegations were afoot but cases of security, overinflation of contracts, heavy militarization of Abuja during the games, transportation bottlenecks, accommodation mix- ups in the games’ village and overpoliticization of the games were cases in point
The entire atmosphere elicited some form of pity on some of us as staff of the LOC, especially those of us who were journalists as those not in the committee were also pushing “to enter” and those who felt they couldn’t enter, sought to destroy everything through their write-ups and broadcasts.
But like a typical Nigerian setup, it withstood the theories, real and false narratives. Even the weather did an intervention during the opening ceremony like what Sophocles in his famous ancient Greek tragedy, Oedipus Rex, referred to as Deus ex Machina. A part of the new state of the earth Velodrome was blown off during the ceremony and trust naysayers, they went home with a lot of trajectories but in the end, the 8th All Africa Games came and went leaving with it memories and gains which stood out for Nigeria and the rest of the world. Hosting of the 8th All Africa Games, COJA2003, helped to modernise Nigeria’s sports infrastructure at a level not seen since FESTAC’ 77.
