The 'Made in Nigeria' label has been decidedly shunned at the All-African Games in Africa's most populous nation. Everything, from cooks and T-shirts has been imported for the occasion.
Even the dazzling opening ceremony of the Games, locals lamented, is not entrusted to Nigerians. The multi-million dollar contract went to France-based event managers ECA2.
When cooks at the village hosting 6,000 athletes were brought in from South Africa, Nigeria's team promptly complained they found nothing to pander to their Nigerian tastes.
"We have complicated equipment needing foreign expertise and we want the food to be of international standard, that's why we imported the South Africans," one organiser said.
Despite facilities being ringed by military and paramilitary forces, thieves broke into the Games village and carried off dozens of imported fans, premium products, in the hot, dry capital of Abuja, where temperatures easily touch 36 degrees celsius.
"They were really good, these thieves," said a Games official. "They used foreign techniques, gaining access to one of the flats via the roof, avoiding ground detection."
Branded T-Shirts and other merchandise to celebrate the Games were shipped in from Guatemala in South America, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore.
Asked why the T-Shirts could not be printed in Nigeria, one merchandiser replied: "We really wanted top quality, so we decided to import."
The Games' media centre is being managed by global oilfield and information services company Schlumberger. Twenty terminals serve 1,500 journalists, who have been banned from using their own personal laptop computers at Games venues.
Nigerian Sports Minister Musa Mohammed is hoping to add the icing on his imports cake by bringing enthralling striker Obafemi Martins of Italian Serie A side Inter Milan to Abuja.
But Nigerian journalists said on Tuesday the Italian soccer giants have so far refused to release Martins, arguing that the Games are not a sanctioned event of the world's soccer governing body FIFA.
"The Games are not over yet, I cannot despair. I still believe Martins will make it," Mohammed told Reuters.
