The 13th African Games has just ended in Ghana, with Nigeria coming out on familiar second position on the final medal table with 120 medals (47 gold, 33 silver, and 40 bronze).
The overall medal count was lower than the 130 medals won in Morocco, though the Ghana outing yielded a slight increase in gold medals.

Weightlifting emerged as the goldmine for Nigeria, with lifters amassing an impressive 16 gold medals alongside 10 silver and 6 bronze medals.

Before the Ghana edition,  Nigeria had won 1326 medals  in past 12 past editions. Further breakdowns of medals are 470 gold, 428 silver and 428 bronze medals.

The history of the All African Games which has now be rechristened to African Games can be traced to the early 1960s, when the French-speaking countries of Africa including France organized the Friendship Games. The Games were organized by Madagascar (1960) and then Ivory Coast (1961). The third games were set for Senegal in 1963. Before they were completed, African Ministers of Youth and Sport met in Paris in 1962; as a few English-speaking countries were already participating, they rechristened the Games as the Pan African Games. The Games were granted official recognition by the IOC as being on par with other continental Games such as the Asian Games and the Pan American Games.

In July 1965, the first games were held in Brazzaville, Congo, now called the All-Africa Games. From 30 countries, around 2,500 athletes competed. Egypt topped the medal count for the first Games.

In 1966, the SCSA was organized in Bamako; it manages the All-Africa Games. The second edition were awarded to Mali in 1969, but a military coup forced the cancellation of the Games. Lagos, Nigeria stepped in as host for the Games in 1971. The Games were finally held in 1973 due to the Biafra War, which had just ended in Nigeria.

In 1977, the 3rd Games were scheduled to take place in Algeria but due to technical reasons had to be postponed for a year and were held in 1978. Continuing the pattern, the next Games were scheduled to take place in Kenya in 1983, but were pushed back to 1985 and finally took place in Nairobi in 1987. Abuja, Nigeria hosted in 2003, In 2007, Algiers once again hosted, becoming the first city to repeat host. The 2011 edition of the All-Africa Games was held in Maputo, Mozambique in September 2011. Brazzaville hosted the 2015 edition in honor of the Games' 50th anniversary.

Before the last games held in Ghana,  50 nations have won at least a single medal in the African Games, from 54 National Olympic Committees participating throughout then history of the Games. 

Now, that the 13 edition of the Games have ended in Ghana, Nigeria has continued to maintained her second position which is gradually becoming a birth right for the country, and has now become a source of worries to many in country, but the Sports Administrators looked unconcerned about it, in as much as the estacodes are rolling in. It has not bothered them that the only time that Nigeria came on top of the medals table was in Abuja 2003, and close watchers can say how it happened. 22 years and more counting, the egg heads in the Sports Federations are not thinking beyond their nostrils, but, they would be out to 'fight to finish' to emerge as leaders of the Sporting Federations, but without a clear cut programs that can move their sports beyond where they found them.

Agreed that countries make use of games that they have comparative advantage over others, but, we have seen countries develop towards penetrating the areas of others to make maximum impact. We saw Namibia penetrating of short distance races, we saw Ghana do the same. The threat of Liberia in the short distance races  at the just concluded games cannot be wished away. It's a known facts that swimming, gymnastics, weight lifting have the highest numbers of medals in games of such magnitude, but what efforts have we made as a country to develop towards the games. No doubt, we continue to hold tenaciously to weight lifting, before drugs penetrated into it. Then, other countries took over. Thank God, we are back on track.

However, it's pathetic that we cannot use our numerical advantage to produce swimmers, gymnasts that will compete favorably in these games. 

Box 18 was amused when the Minister of Sports  said that the preparation for the next African Games starts immediately. We are already used to those political languages which had yielded no fruit in the past. The Minister's directive may literally means "two weeks" to the games.

The time has come to remind our administrators that champions are not made after a game. Developing a champion involves a long term strategic program, that is pursued to the end. We can caught the gymnasts, swimmers young from schools, develop them patiently until they become world champions.