But the west African nation drew a complete blank at London 2012, despite sending a seemingly strong squad of 53 athletes competing across eight different sports, and afterwards President Goodluck Jonathan called for a "complete overhaul of Nigerian sports administration".

Speaking yesterday in Lagos, NOC President Sani Ndanusa said that in line with President Jonathan's directive, they were partnering with the armed forces in order to encourage sporting participation and to produce medallists at Rio 2016. 

He said this was because they have both the facilities and expertise in sports which provide multiple medal opportunities in the Olympics, such as shooting, swimming, boxing and other combat sports.  

This comes at a time when the Nigerian military have been engulfed in a struggle against Islamist separatist group Boko Haram...following various instances of schoolgirls being abducted ©Getty Images



Meanwhile, Ndanusa also announced that a partnership had been re-established with the National Sports Commission (NSC) in order to improve the structure and organisation of sport in a long-term sense, as well as enabling more medals to be won at the Youth Olympics and Commonwealth Games this year, and in Rio in two years' time.

He claimed the partnership would particularly help with the preparation of athletes for international competitions, with the NSC credited for creating a High Performance Centre so as to do this. 

Aligning with the NSC could also bring commercial benefits as there would be more incentive for corporate organisations to support their programme because they would enjoy tax rebates, he added.

Ndanusa also urged local councils to build sports facilities that would aid the discovery of talents all over the country, amid an insistence that sports administrators have learned to repackage, re-strategise and become more serious after the "failure" of London 2012.

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