President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is happy with Team Nigeria’s results and final position at the just concluded 13th African Games in Accra, Ghana, where the contingent placed second on the medals table.
Apart from finishing ahead of top sporting nations like South Africa, Algeria, Tunisia, and Ghana, the Nigerian team pulled off several records in pooling home 47 gold, 33 silver and 41 bronze medals.
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At Ghana 2024, Nigeria finally got a medal in swimming after 33 years of trying, handball got on the podium after 21 years, while the haul of 47 gold medals is one better than the 46 that was achieved in 2019, thereby leaving President Tinubu highly elated.
This was revealed by sports minister, Senator John Owan Enoh, who spoke excitedly on his return from watching the Games’ closing ceremony in Accra, and he further disclosed what accounted for the contingent’s feat.
The smooth-talking minister, however, acknowledged the need to consolidate these gains, even as he assured that preparations for this year’s Olympic Games in Paris, France have already begun.
Enoh declared: “I am a happy Nigerian. It’s a record-breaking performance. The president is happy, and Nigerians are happy. I am happy.
“Now, we have to tell ourselves that the reward for doing well is to do better. For the next Games, the preparations are going to be better; with improved training and all of that.
“We are going to interrogate what happened in this Games, where my target was for us to be top of the medals table.
“But, when you consider that we have been top of the table just once when we hosted in 2003, you’ll know how far away we are. But, with determination, hard work, serious planning and leadership, we’ll be up there.”
The minister then took a look into the future and revealed that preparations have already started for the 2024 Olympics in Paris, as he submitted that all the gains and lessons learnt from the outing im Accra will be used to enhance Nigeria’s medal-winning potential under his tenure.
Enoh posited: “Preparations for the Olympic Games have already started. One of the things that helped us at this Games is that, very early, I set up a Ministerial Pulling Performance Committee.
That committee was tireless. That committee went through all the training camps we had. That committee was everywhere in all the events and all the sports.
“Before I took an eight-hour road trip to see the Falconets in Cape Town, that committee had been there ahead of me.
They have now confessed to me that the sports which listened to them are the ones that did well at the just ended All African Games in Ghana.”
