2014 NUGA Games: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

The 24th Nigeria University Games Association (NUGA) Games is a biennial event and this year's edition was held at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun.

The year's NUGA Games commenced from February 12 and ran through the 22nd. Games held were Athletics, Badminton, Basketball, Chess, Football, Squash, Swimming, Hockey, Handball, Table Tennis and Tennis.

However, a total of 431 medals were won in all categories by the participants from different universities with UNIPORT going home with 63 gold medals, 20 more than the second UNILAG and then the host university OAU.

Commenting on the just concluded NUGA Games, an OAU athlete, Temitayo Ramon who played Table Tennis said, "though, during the games, I didn't really have time to go round, it was from the games to my hostel but I know there was conflict among the athletes and referees but it was just wordy conflict.

Tradition is that, a succeeding event outshines the previous ones, but for Ramon, she never prayed OAU will host the games again. "It wasn't encouraging at all. OAU didn't encourage its athletes at all."

This shows that ambiance of festivity was nothing to write home about and close to nothing was done for the build-up for the Games.

The OAU part three History Education student said, "the NUGA Games wasn't prepared for. We didn't have time to practice, we just played. When we asked our coach for ball, he said, 'we should just go and play, if we lose, that's left for us and if we win, it's our luck'. In fact, I planned not playing until other co-athletes begged me to just play for fun.

"Up till now, I've not be paid my medal money."

Continuing she said, "even when other schools had arrived for the games, OAU had to postpone the event for four days. I will never play for OAU gain," she said.

Ramon added that, "there was a day I went to the cafeteria, I saw some people around the corner smoking weed during this period. I was really irritated."