Sports federations still aiming high

Although it was easy ride to victory for candidates like Engineer Sani Ndanusa and Engineer Habu Gumel, it was not the same story for other returnees like Chief Solomon Ogba, Tijani Umar, Dauda Yusuf and Justice Danlami Sanchi who had to overcome stiff oppositions to return to their respective positions.Just as it is common with […]

Although it was easy ride to victory for candidates like Engineer Sani Ndanusa and Engineer Habu Gumel, it was not the same story for other returnees like Chief Solomon Ogba, Tijani Umar, Dauda Yusuf and Justice Danlami Sanchi who had to overcome stiff oppositions to return to their respective positions.
Just as it is common with all elections in Nigeria, efforts by the electoral committee chaired by Director of sports development in the National Sports Commission, Dr. Bolaji Ojo-Oba to organise credible elections were met with condemnations from some of the candidates who alleged attempts by the committee to manipulate the process in favour of certain candidates.
Consequently even as some of the aggrieved parties did not come out in the open to vent their agitations, a faction in the basketball family led by former board member and proprietor of Dodan Warriors basketball club of Lagos, Col. Sam Ahmedu (rtd) vehemently protested and expressed lack of confidence in the process.
It was therefore not a surprise that on the day of the election, there was heavy presence of security personnel at the venue of the election. Although there was no noticeable sign of security breaches, the committee did not take anything for granted as it security was tight.
Thus, apart from the basketball federation election where there was a walk out by four delegates obviously from the camp of Col. Ahmedu, making way for the incumbent president to be returned unopposed, all other elections went on without major incidents.
Thus, at the end of the day, most of the presidents retained their positions but there were some upsets in federations like wrestling, weightlifting, Table Tennis, Cricket, taekwondo.
Lagos Commissioner of sports, Waheed Oshodi stopped the incumbent Kayode Abdul Wahab Omotoshe, to emerge the president of the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation. In taekwondo, George Aashiru in his fifth attempt aborted the second term bid of Jonathan Nnaji. Olympian and former technical director of wrestling federation got the better of Austin Edeze. There was also another upset in cricket where Mr. Emeka Onyeama upstaged Kwesi Sagoe to emerge the new president. In weightlifting, former deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, Chibudum Nwuche defeated Chimdi Ejiogu to lead the federation for the next four years.
With elections won and lost, it was then moment for earth moving promises of redemption and transformation for the different sports by the newly elected presidents. President of Handball federation, Daudu Yusuf said “there is nothing to celebrate. It is for me to go back immediately and think about how to deliver on my campaign promises. That is the most important thing. I am thinking about the challenges ahead”.
Hugely relieved president of Athletics Federation, Chief Ogba gasping for breath due to the suffocating battle he faced before retaining his position said “I am grateful to my board members who have confidence in my ability to lead the federation again. I want to say that what we witnessed was a worthy election and that would spur us to really work and take the sport to a greater height.”
Tijani Umar of the basketball federation called for all aggrieved stakeholders in the sport to immediately close ranks for the good of the game. He also said his board would use the next four years to complete the work it has started.
“Without any doubt we are going to give more attention to capacity and development aspect of the game. We are going to streamline the number of commissions we have to make them as manageable as we can. If you don’t have your officials, the referees, the technical officials and everybody around the game on the same page and same level, it is always a problem. We won’t develop because the interpretation is going to be stunted. So I believe that capacity development is going to take a huge chunk of what we are going to do. The greatest thing is that this is an opportunity to move forward with every programme that we were not able to do in the last four years”.
Mr. Emeka Onyeama of Criecket Federation said it is time to build bonds and bridges to take the sport to every nook and cranny of the country. “The truancy in the last administration made sponsors to pull out. We shall be involved in building bonds and bridges to bring back sponsors. It is our main focus this time. The old board was governing cricket as if it was cowboy or old school boys’ kind of affair where some group of people feel they have to perpetuate themselves in power.
“They didn’t want any other person from any other state to be actively involved in cricket. And that was why it appeared as if cricket is a Lagos game or a Lagos State game say to say. I did not go to school in Lagos. I went to school in today’s Ebonyi State where we played cricket well back in the 50s, 60s and 70s. So it has never been a Lagos State game”.
For former Olympian and Commonwealth Games gold medallist, Daniel Igali, who emerged president of the Wrestling Federation, the time has come for the sport to have a functional constitution and fixed national championships for junior and senior wrestlers.
“The first thing we would do is to set a proper frame work for wrestling. We do not have a wrestling constitution and as you and I know, a constitution is like the bible to a church. So we must have rules and responsibilities for everyone involved in wrestling.
“We are also going to propose that maybe the last week of March every year is Nigeria’s national wrestling championships so every athlete knows that is how he or she will be selected for the national teams.
“The last national championship we had was about two years ago so we have been recycling champions from about 2 years ago for our national activities”, he stated.
That was the extent of enthusiasm exhibited by most of the recently elected federation presidents. Each of them has four years to bring about the necessary development in their respective sports but how they are going to achieve set targets will depend on their ability to woo and bring on board the corporate world.
Interestingly, few hours after the elections, the federal government announced the appointment of former Deputy Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on sports, Gbenga Elegbeleye as the new Director General of the National Sports Commission. Apart from his membership of the House committee on sports, Elegbeleye’s pedigree in sports administration is not known but he will be expected to guide most of the even more experienced presidents to take Nigerian sports to the Promised Land. For now, everybody is exuding so much confidence but how he and the federations presidents will fare, only time will tell.