Ogun
State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, has rewarded two Paralympics medallists-Lateefat
Tijani and Isau Ogunkunle who represented Nigeria at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics
Games.
At
the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, Tijani won Nigeria’s first gold medal in the
women’s 45kg para-powerlifting, while Ogunkunle lost at the quarter finals in
the para-table tennis.
Abiodun
hosted and rewarded Tijani and Ogunkunle alongside Adesokan Dorcas, who a won
gold medal at the All Africa Games, Morocco 2019.
The
Governor rewarded each of them with one million naira for their exploits in
international competitions. The governor also gave the coaches the sum of
N500,000 each for their contribution to the success of the athletes.
BUHARI
REWARDS COMMON WEALTH MEDALIST
In August 2022, President
Muhammadu Buhari hosted members of Nigeria’s contingent to the recently
concluded 22nd edition of the Commonwealth Games staged in Birmingham in
England, at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja, at a colourful ceremony. The highpoint
of the reception was the award of national honours and cash rewards to the
medal-winning athletes that made Nigeria proud at the Games.
A total of 54 member countries,
represented by 5,054 athletes, descended on the beautiful city and competed for
honours in over 283 events in 20 sports.
Nigeria posted her best
performance in the annals of the jamboree with a total of 35 medals, broken
down to 12 gold, nine silver and 14 bronze to place 7th on the overall medals
table at the fall of the curtains on the 11-day Games. By that stellar outing,
Nigeria came first among member nations from Africa, beating her traditional
foes, South Africa, to the 9th place.
Australia made the largest haul
of 178 medals made up of 67 gold, 57 silver and 54 bronze, beating the colonial
warlord, Britain, to the second place with 176 medals, comprising 57 gold, 66 silver
and 53 bronze. Canada completed the top three with 92 medals: 26 gold, 32
silver and 34 bronze.
What made Nigeria’s victory
spectacular was the sizeable contingent of 94 sportsmen and women with athletes
taking the lion’s share of 33 runners in her 15th appearance in the quadrennial
Games. It was a complete departure from the old tradition of presenting
unwieldy number of contingents with estacode-crazy officials accounting for
about 40 per cent.
Also worthy of note was the
choice of sports in which Nigeria has comparative advantages, namely athletics,
wrestling, judo, boxing, para-athletics, para-weightlifting, para-table tennis,
table tennis and weightlifting, sweeping medals across the sports. The only
black leg was Grace Nwokocha who was provisionally suspended by the Athletics
Integrity Unit (AIU) for doping. Grace ran Nigeria’s anchor leg in the 4×100
women’s relay final.
Among the athletes who made
Nigeria proud and were deservedly honoured were the new kid on the block and
serial record-breaker, Tobi Amusan. After some initial setbacks in her meteoric
rise to stardom, Tobi emerged as the phoenix from the ashes and announced her
final arrival at the World Athletics Championships held at Oregon, in the
United States of America a couple of months ago where she displayed her passion
not only for winning gold medals in her favourite 100m hurdles event but also
smashing records into the bargain. The technically gifted and fast runner has
gone ahead to set more records across many meets.
Others were Ese Brume, Blessing
Oborodudu, Odunayo Adekuoroye, Amarachukwu Obi, Favour Ofili, Adeyinka Benson,
Shogbamu Bolanle, Muritala Fatai, Ibrahim Abdulazeez, Sule Nasiru, Funke
Oshonaike and the legendary table tennis player, Aruna Quadri.
Speaking at the grand reception,
President Buhari expressed delight at the great honours the athletes won at the
Games. He pledged to reward outstanding performances by the Nigerian athletes
and described them as worthy ambassadors.
He said, “I am very pleased
that you displayed at both personal and group levels great sporting talents and
delivered for your country great podium performances.”
The President also bestowed the
deserving athletes with the national honours of the Officer of the Order of the
Niger (OON) and a cash reward of N200m to members of Team Nigeria.
It is the second time the
nation’s sportsmen and women would be so honoured by a sitting president. The
first time was in 1980 when the Green Eagles won the Nations Cup Tournament in
Lagos during the regime of Alhaji Shehu Shagari with houses to boot.
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2024-06-05 at 10:44:31