CHIOMA AJUNWA: MY YEARS OF WAITING

Nigeria’s Queen of Athletics, golden girl Chioma Ajunwa, opened a window into her miracle-filled life, narrating how God took her from ground zero to the zenith of global glory and acclaim. Today, the Chief Superintendent of Police, who gave Nigeria her first Olympic gold medal, continues and concludes the moving story. Enjoy it.
So, your mother never re-married?
No, she never remarried. She stayed single to train her children. That was why I did everything humanly possible to make happy when she was alive. I was ready to do anything humanly possible to make my mother happy because she really suffered for us.
What was the cause of her death? Was she sick?
Yes, my mum was sick, briefly, before she died. When my mum was alive, she hated dirty environment. She kept everywhere sparkling clean. She loved clean environment. She also loved to dance. When she was strong, she was always praying to God to take her life if any sickness wants to come and deny her the ability to walk around and dance. That was exactly what happened. My mother had this massive stroke and after three days, she passed on.
Had she been hypertensive?
Somehow she was, but it wasn’t much. It wasn’t worrying her. Besides, we provided adequate medical care for her. We never expected it could come down to stroke. We weren’t expecting such to happen to her. It was really painful that it happened.
Was she on medication? Anti-hypertension drugs?
Yes, she was on medication but her condition wasn’t severe. And anytime I
travelled home, I used to take her for medical checkup. But what I believe is
this: death is a necessary end. It would come when it would come. Anytime death decides to come, there’s no escape.
Were you at her deathbed? Where you with her when she was dying?
Sadly, no. I wasn’t there. That was the most painful thing that ever happened to me. I was in the United Kingdom and I never had the opportunity of seeing her before she died. In fact, I was making bookings for a wheelchair with television to aid her movement when I return home. I was particular about the one with TV because my mother liked watching television a lot. I was in Argus where I had gone to order for the wheelchair. I was told it was it was out of stock and that I had to wait for three days. Then, my phone rang. It was my elder brother. His voice was very low. I asked him if he was
crying, he said no. I immediately felt what happened because I was already told of my mother’s condition. Later, I called the number and demanded to speak with my mother, but they told me she was not around. I told them I wanted to get her a wheelchair. They told me not bother about it. Later, when I got home, my brother called again and gave me the bad news. I was told that my mother had died. I felt very bad and cried because I didn’t see her cry or laugh before leaving us.
What pained you most about your mother’s death?
The fact that I was not around when she died and the fact that she did not live to see me get married and give her grandchildren.
Was your mother anxious about you getting married early? Or was she disturbed that you weren’t fast on those things? Yet, she wanted to see her grandchildren?
No, she wasn’t anxious, though she always told me to come home, that she wanted to talk to me. Before she had that stroke, I heard she was angry because one my cousins took her car out and she wanted to go out. My cousin left her stranded and she got angry. That was how the problem started. And before anybody knew it, she was battling for life.
In the midst of all the challenges that you faced, what kept you going?
One thing I love about myself and my home is that we built ourselves under the canopy of God and my mother made us to understand that whatever we do in life, that we should involve God; and we should be fervent and consistent. So, with all the challenges I had, I was always praying, fasting and thanking God. If you ask people that know me, they will tell you that I am a very cheerful giver. It has been God all through because I know where I am coming from. It is just like you coming from a place where they say you can never be successful, but you are just forging ahead. So, it is not by my power but by God. So, that is why I am always close to my God because he has been keeping me going.
You got married over eight years ago and had to wait for that long before children started to come. What was the period of waiting was like for you?
I thank God I married a pastor.
Your husband is a pastor?
Yes.
Where?
He is a pastor in the Chapel of Gospel Ministry. And we had strong faith in God that He would work out His purpose, which would be His perfect will for us.  We believed so much in God and that everything that happens to man is for a reason. I also believed that at the appointed time, things would get better. Actually, I continued believing God, I never backslid. I had faith that someday I would conceive because from my family line, there is no barrenness.
Was there any pressure from either family?
There was no pressure. If I say there was pressure, I would not be sincere to myself. Although people were worried that I had not conceived, I always told them that at the appointed time, God would definitely visit and reward me. There were also backbiters who kept saying: how would she conceive when she had used all her life on running and jumping like monkey? But at such times, I normally reassured myself that if certain things don’t work out for one person, it does not mean they won’t work for someone else. After all, Mike Tyson became a champion at a young age in 1985, and he fought most of his youthful life. Yet, is he not a dad? It does not mean that he was father of all boxers. But our people have such a myopic and archaic understanding.
Instead of them to be civilized, they would still be thinking on the awkward side. I remember that day in the stadium in Australia, during the 1994 Sidney Olympics. Sunday Baba was on lane 8, and they were calling him ‘tired leg’. I wondered why anybody should call him that. Somebody flying your flag? But that is our people for you. They don’t like anything good even when you are working for them. But didn’t that same tired leg lead our relay team that won silver? And did that silver not become gold in this year Games (2012 Summer Olympics in London) when the International Olympic Committee said the former gold medal-winning team cheated and re-awarded the gold to Nigeria? So, who was the tired leg? But, that is Nigeria for you.
Chioma, your husband is a pastor and you are a deaconess. I just wonder how were feeling in those days of your waiting for children, when, Sunday after Sunday, families were bringing their new born children for dedication and you and your husband had to dedicate them? How did you feel then?
I must confess, as a human being, there were times I really felt terrible. But, in such moments, what I used to do was to pray that I, too, would carry my own baby one day and I will give thanks offering.
You never felt jealous or envious of the luckier couples in those years of waiting?
As a human being, those feelings are bound to come. Sometimes, I will stay back at home and cry to God, and wonder why was my situation like that. I went to church and crusades regularly, and I worked so hard in the church just to make sure that God answered me, although I also knew that these things don’t come by your power but by the Spirit and power of the living God.
On the whole, what would you say you learnt from everything that happened to you?
I learnt to be fervent, consistent and be a cheerful giver. God has been giving me and blessing me at every point. So, I feel obliged to help people around me. If there is a way I can bribe God, I will do it because he has done so much for me. He has been so faithful to me. I mean, looking at where I am coming from, and look at where I am today. Take my job as a police officer, for instance. God has been so kind to me. Normally, the ranks I am wearing, today, ordinarily I am not supposed to be wearing them but God made it possible. So, because of that, I naturally have pity and love for the less privileged because I know that once upon a time, I was a less privileged person, myself.
I have a foundation (Chioma Ajunwa’s Foundation). This foundation is designed to help upcoming Nigerian athletes, common people on the streets, people in the villages that would naturally want to come out and do sport but do not have the opportunity. This has been a problem in Nigeria because nobody wants to go to the village to fish them out. My foundation helps to do that. My foundation helps to train the young athletes and tell them about doping, about how to avoid the pitfall of banned drugs in their sports because while I was competing, I fell victim of drugs and I was banned.
How did the issue of drug happen? How did you get entangled in the drug problem?
Well, it’s a long story.
Tell us in a nutshell…
The issue of drug happened before the Olympics. We were in camp and there was an issue of camp training and we were the hot legs preparing for the Games. Each of us had family problems and we had to solve them. And how do we get money to solve them, help our families, if not from the Games? Because we were working for the government, we expected them to pay us so we could support our families. But they (the IOC officials) refused to pay us. They would rather pay the foreign-based athletes and leave us, home-based in the cold. And we were the hot legs, medal hopefuls for the country. And Baba Ogun said no, they should pay us. He said our families depend on us, that they should give us at least half of our money, which was $10,000. They even cut our camp allowance! Imagine such injustice!
So, we said if they were going to give us half payment, we were not going for training. Along the line, on the first day of training, we told them ‘this is what we think should happen. We said that camp and provision allowance should be paid completely. While we were having the meeting, my first secretary then, Mr. Dele, told me that if I continued to follow this line (of protest) it wouldn’t profit me. And they (fellow athletes) started writing letters of protest. And this made them to stop me from entering the stadium because they thought I was the leader, in fact, the mastermind of the letters. And God knows, I didn’t know anything about the letter.
The press even carried the letter then. So, I was called and I told them I don’t have any idea of any letter. But they all said I wrote the letter. So, they asked me to leave the camp. I pleaded with General Musa and he begged them to forgive me. I was asked to kneel down and begged the big man (names withheld); and I obeyed. I knelt down and begged for forgiveness. But from what happened later, the big man never forgave me. He never forgave me.
So, what drugs were you taking while in training?
Me? Drugs? I wasn’t taking anything. That was why I went to my boss and told him point blank that I was innocent of the accusation. But once you are tested and the result is positive, then, you are on your own. So, all athletes should be careful of what they eat and drink, even the medications doctors give to them, because Nigeria is not like Europe. Because unlike Europe, where nobody sells any drug to you without the doctor’s prescription, you could have common headache here (in Nigeria) and you go to the chemist and you request to buy an analgesic, and they give you something more powerful than paracetamol or panadol. How are you supposed to know if such drug contains banned substances when you are not a pharmacist?
I remember one time, when I was in London, I had flu (catarrh, cough), and I went to buy something for the flu in a grocery store. But they told me no, that I should go and get my prescription. Though I couldn’t breathe well, I had to go back the following day with a friend who registered me with her insurance card. Their people are being protected but it is not our culture here to protect our athletes.
Here you can get yourself entangled with nonsense at anytime without knowing it and you are on your own, out in the cold with nobody to help you. That is why I founded this foundation to educate athletes about drugs, and their effects in sports. I need to educate them so that they don’t fall prey to ignorance because ignorance is not an excuse in law.
In your darkest hour, as an athlete, in that hour when it seemed the whole world had abandoned you, there was somebody who believed in you. That person, I think, is Segun Odegbami…
Oh yes, Chief Segun Odegbami, great man. Yes, he believed in me. He was my strong pillar of support.
How did he come into the picture?
It was when somebody, one Mr. John Martin, came in from UK called me, to do a documentary here. And in the course of his work, he told them he knew me before the verdict. He said ‘that girl is natural, she is raw, raw talent, and she can never be on drugs’. That must have moved Chief Segun Odegbami, as he now picked me up, and he went and called the people (testing athletes) from outside the country, and took us to the National Stadium where they did the test.
After inspecting the place, they said: is this where the test was carried out? They said, if this was the place the test was carried out, then, we should have no case to answer. Even Emmanuel Maradas, who is from Senegal, was shocked at what he saw. He also came, and he also told me to be careful of the big man. He came and met me in my fabric shop at Igbobi Salu, and said the big man never meant any good for me. But today, I thank God, and I am also grateful to the former Olympics chairman, who gave me one thousand dollars to continue training. Although he is late now, he really tried for me. I will never forget him.
Do you feel you were punished for a crime you didn’t commit?
That is the more reason I took it upon myself to train these people, because here in Nigeria, you can get anything over the counter in any pharmacy or chemist shop. If you are sick, you can just walk across the street and you will get drugs to use. There was a time I had injury over there and I was given hydrocortisone. Here in Nigeria, a person could be sick or get injured, and he goes to a clinic to buy drugs, and they give him codeine. When such a person is tested, the result will be automatically positive for banned substance. But most people do not know. That is why I have been telling our
athletes that before they take anything, they should always go through the label, prescription, expiry date and so on. Because if that thing has expired and you consume it, you never can tell what the side effect will be. As an international athlete, if you are being tested and the test shows positive, and you start saying you didn’t know, nobody would believe.
If you ask Nigerian athletes, if they will be true to themselves, they will tell you they know I am not the kind of athlete that will say ‘I will not run here,’ ‘I will run there.’ That’s not me. They know me. I run everywhere. I’m not selective. The point I’m making is, if I was on drugs, I won’t be running everywhere. I will be choosy on the kind of race I want to run. But I was all over because I was innocent. I don’t select where to run. So, I say to our athletes, both budding and established ones, stay away if they do not know what they are buying from the pharmacy or the chemist.
Please, stay away. In this course of this work (with her foundation), I have met with the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA; I have collaborated with the Federal Ministry of Sports, the A.F.N. (the Athletics Federation of Nigeria), and the Nigerian Olympic Committee to educate our athletes on the effects of drugs and the kind of multivitamins they can take, and the ones they should never touch, even with a long pole. So, if we can have more people coming together to educate our athletes, I believe there will be changes.