How ex sports commissioner of Edo state helped Nigeria win the 2003 Africa games
Ifeanyiwrites
Posts: 104
in Sports
Brown Ebewele was a former commissioner for sports in Edo state. Here is his account of how he helped Nigeria bag the Africa games title back in 2003:
I started athletics right from primary school to secondary school, I went to St. Gregory’s College, Obalende, with a Lagos State scholarship as a school champion. I also went to the university with a scholarship because of athletics. So, all my life, I’ve been a track and field man and a government scholar.
You know, I’m a very tall man and right from the beginning, I was bigger than my age mates. So, rom when I was small, I started running because of my size, I was also throwing, playing football, there was no sport I didn’t take part in. My parents had to come to school to see my teacher. By the time I got to secondary school and they (parents) discovered they couldn’t stop me, they had to allow me continue with sports, especially when a scholarship came from it.
I played football as far as UAC ground in Lagos at secondary school level as a defender And as a defender, we would always go down while tackling. And we would have a scar by the side of the hip and since you would still practice the next day and still had to fly, eventually, I just said, ‘what am I doing with football?’ When you are walking you had to start using your hand to separate your cloth from your skin because of the pains, so, that was how I quit football. Otherwise, I was a good footballer too.
The interesting thing is if you went to a good secondary school in Nigeria, the American system is very simplified, so, if you have a good background, you don’t have any problem doing very well in an American university. For those of us that went to good schools in Nigeria, going to the university in America and combining it with sports was not a big deal for us.
Up till now, if you are a good athlete and you want to go to school in America, coaches are looking for athletes to give scholarships to. They are more desperate to take people that are ready to school , that are good athletes.
It’s not every athlete that can go to school. Like I told you, if you don’t go to a good school in Nigeria, and you go to America through the back door, then you won’t excel. That is why you see a lot of Nigerian athletes who went to America and didn’t come back with a degree, because you cannot manipulate the American system.
I don’t think winning the All African Games is the most important thing I should be remembered for. When I was a director, I employed 845 youths as pensionable workers, which is the empowerment of youths; I think that is more important than winning any competition – youth empowerment. Right now, I am the coordinator of Team Edo, I have already engaged 322 athletes, pensionable, not on contract but on a permanent employment. There are some states who don’t engage their athletes, they keep deceiving them until the athletes get old. That’s why today, you see many former athletes who are now aged, and they keep telling you that ‘for all I have done, there is nothing to show for it.’ It’s because they were used and dumped.
The present sports minister (Sunday Dare) looks like somebody that is a serious person, he sounds like a professional. So, I will separate him from the ministry that I know. The problem we had in Nigeria before now is the sports ministry, we don’t have a ministry that is equipped technically, all they are interested in is participating in competitions.They set up training camps for competitions just for the purpose of estacodes, whether Nigeria does well or not is not their business. The most important thing for them is for their money to come in. Nigeria is just a participatory country, there is no programme, the ministry has no programme.
Talking about how COJA Games in 2003 was won, when we were drafted in as consultants, myself, Rotimi Obajimi and Prof. Ajudua, who is late now, we said we would like to have a meeting with the secretaries of federations. In the meeting, we asked specific questions. For example, we had strength in special sports. We met with the secretary of the then special sports federation and told him we had a lot of strength in para-sports. Why don’t we concentrate on that rather than concentrate on sports we don’t have strength in? She replied that we won a lot of medals in special sports at the 1999 African Games in South Africa but the medald were not scored. What was the reason the medals were not scored?’ She didn’t know and I was shocked they traveled from Nigeria to Johannesburg and their medals were not scored and yet they didn’t know why their medals weren’t scored.
After that encounter, I went to COJA to find out the rules and regulations of special sports. Even at COJA level, they didn’t have it, it was only Gabriel Okon that had the rules and regulations of special sports and he gave me a copy and I made a photocopy of it. After I went through it, I discovered that you have to have a number of countries participating for a sport to be scored.
We now waited until when countries started submitting their entries in numbers, not names yet. Then I went back to the COJA office to find out how many countries had sent in entries for special sports. We discovered only four countries sent in entries, and you needed five countries to participate before it could be scored, so, I discovered that was why it was not scoring, because not up to five countries were participating.
Read More >>>https://fojusi.com/how-ex-sports-commissioner-of-edo-state-helped-nigeria-win-the-2003-africa-games/
I started athletics right from primary school to secondary school, I went to St. Gregory’s College, Obalende, with a Lagos State scholarship as a school champion. I also went to the university with a scholarship because of athletics. So, all my life, I’ve been a track and field man and a government scholar.
You know, I’m a very tall man and right from the beginning, I was bigger than my age mates. So, rom when I was small, I started running because of my size, I was also throwing, playing football, there was no sport I didn’t take part in. My parents had to come to school to see my teacher. By the time I got to secondary school and they (parents) discovered they couldn’t stop me, they had to allow me continue with sports, especially when a scholarship came from it.
I played football as far as UAC ground in Lagos at secondary school level as a defender And as a defender, we would always go down while tackling. And we would have a scar by the side of the hip and since you would still practice the next day and still had to fly, eventually, I just said, ‘what am I doing with football?’ When you are walking you had to start using your hand to separate your cloth from your skin because of the pains, so, that was how I quit football. Otherwise, I was a good footballer too.
The interesting thing is if you went to a good secondary school in Nigeria, the American system is very simplified, so, if you have a good background, you don’t have any problem doing very well in an American university. For those of us that went to good schools in Nigeria, going to the university in America and combining it with sports was not a big deal for us.
Up till now, if you are a good athlete and you want to go to school in America, coaches are looking for athletes to give scholarships to. They are more desperate to take people that are ready to school , that are good athletes.
It’s not every athlete that can go to school. Like I told you, if you don’t go to a good school in Nigeria, and you go to America through the back door, then you won’t excel. That is why you see a lot of Nigerian athletes who went to America and didn’t come back with a degree, because you cannot manipulate the American system.
I don’t think winning the All African Games is the most important thing I should be remembered for. When I was a director, I employed 845 youths as pensionable workers, which is the empowerment of youths; I think that is more important than winning any competition – youth empowerment. Right now, I am the coordinator of Team Edo, I have already engaged 322 athletes, pensionable, not on contract but on a permanent employment. There are some states who don’t engage their athletes, they keep deceiving them until the athletes get old. That’s why today, you see many former athletes who are now aged, and they keep telling you that ‘for all I have done, there is nothing to show for it.’ It’s because they were used and dumped.
The present sports minister (Sunday Dare) looks like somebody that is a serious person, he sounds like a professional. So, I will separate him from the ministry that I know. The problem we had in Nigeria before now is the sports ministry, we don’t have a ministry that is equipped technically, all they are interested in is participating in competitions.They set up training camps for competitions just for the purpose of estacodes, whether Nigeria does well or not is not their business. The most important thing for them is for their money to come in. Nigeria is just a participatory country, there is no programme, the ministry has no programme.
Talking about how COJA Games in 2003 was won, when we were drafted in as consultants, myself, Rotimi Obajimi and Prof. Ajudua, who is late now, we said we would like to have a meeting with the secretaries of federations. In the meeting, we asked specific questions. For example, we had strength in special sports. We met with the secretary of the then special sports federation and told him we had a lot of strength in para-sports. Why don’t we concentrate on that rather than concentrate on sports we don’t have strength in? She replied that we won a lot of medals in special sports at the 1999 African Games in South Africa but the medald were not scored. What was the reason the medals were not scored?’ She didn’t know and I was shocked they traveled from Nigeria to Johannesburg and their medals were not scored and yet they didn’t know why their medals weren’t scored.
After that encounter, I went to COJA to find out the rules and regulations of special sports. Even at COJA level, they didn’t have it, it was only Gabriel Okon that had the rules and regulations of special sports and he gave me a copy and I made a photocopy of it. After I went through it, I discovered that you have to have a number of countries participating for a sport to be scored.
We now waited until when countries started submitting their entries in numbers, not names yet. Then I went back to the COJA office to find out how many countries had sent in entries for special sports. We discovered only four countries sent in entries, and you needed five countries to participate before it could be scored, so, I discovered that was why it was not scoring, because not up to five countries were participating.
Read More >>>https://fojusi.com/how-ex-sports-commissioner-of-edo-state-helped-nigeria-win-the-2003-africa-games/
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