The Vice President, Badminton Federation of Nigeria (BFN), Dr. Mohammed Maina, has urged other governors to emulate Gov. Alex Otti’s achievements in sports development, particularly badminton.
He made the call in an interview with sports journalists on Friday, at the ongoing Africa Para Badminton Championship, being hosted at the International Conference Centre Umuahia, Abia.
Maina expressed profound gratitude to Otti “because this is a feat that we want other governors to follow.”
According to him, organising this tournament is not a small thing, but the governor has done a wonderful job that others should emulate.
He beckoned on the governors to support the game of badminton in Nigeria, while identifying lack of sponsorship as the country’s major challenge in sports development.
“So we want the governors to copy what is happening in Abia.
“Let them also take the sponsorship of some events either in Africa or the World, because Nigeria is the giant of Africa and we have the capacity to do it,” he said.
Maina, who is also the Chairman, Technical Committee of BFN, said that the federation in collaboration with the Badminton World Federation (BWF), was already engaged with the development of badminton at the grassroots.
“We have a BWF-trained tutor who travels to different zones to train the school games masters on how badminton is played so that they can pass the knowledge down to their players(students),” he said.
Meanwhile, the quarter-final matches commenced on Friday as over 150 para-athletes from 12 African countries compete for laurels in 19 events.
The participating countries in the championship holding between Oct. 7 and Oct. 12, include Benin Republic, Burkina Faso, Cameroun, Congo DR, Egypt, Mauritius and Mozambique.
Others are National Olympic Committee of Kenya, Rwanda, Tunisia, Zimbabwe and host, Nigeria.
The event comes after the successful hosting of the First Abia Para Badminton International Tournament which held between Sept. 30 and Oct. 5, at the same venue.
