By Ado Salisu, Kano
President of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), Chief Tonobok Okowa, has described Team Nigeria’s performance in athletics at the 4th Youth Olympic Games in Dakar, Senegal, as encouraging, saying the results reflect improvements in the country’s grassroots sports development.
Nigeria secured three gold medals to finish fourth in the overall athletics standings, behind Ethiopia, who topped the table with five gold and three silver medals. China finished second, while Kenya occupied third position.
Reacting to the team’s performance, Okowa, who is also a Senior Vice President of the Confederation of African Athletics (CAA), expressed satisfaction with the athletes’ efforts, particularly considering Nigeria’s relatively small contingent of about five athletes.
“For us, it was a good outing. Some of the events where we had an advantage did not go our way, and that was not peculiar to Nigeria alone. We went there with about five athletes, and they performed well,” Okowa said.
The AFN boss believes the results are evidence that the federation’s investment in identifying and nurturing young talents is beginning to yield positive results.
“We can categorically say that the performance shows that our work in grassroots sports development is getting better. We will continue to work hard, and I will not relent in grooming these athletes until they attain stardom,” he added.
Okowa also acknowledged the contributions of the National Sports Commission (NSC), coaches, technical officials and AFN members, stressing that their collective efforts have played an important role in the team’s progress.
He, however, called for stronger institutional support and improved funding to sustain the momentum, insisting that Nigeria must raise its ambitions beyond age-grade competitions.
“Our target is to win gold medals at the Olympic Games and World Championships. We can only achieve that by working harder and continuously improving Team Nigeria Athletics,” he stated.
Looking ahead, Okowa disclosed that the AFN plans to bring the athletes into camp early next year, with a three-phase camping programme already discussed with the NSC.
According to him, an early and structured preparation programme will be crucial to improving the athletes’ performances and ensuring they are adequately prepared for future international assignments.
He particularly highlighted next year’s African U-18 and U-20 Championships as a major priority, noting that the emerging talents must be properly prepared to represent the country successfully.
“We need to bring them into camp again in the early part of next year. As planned with the NSC, we should have three phases of camping. That will always help the athletes,” he said.
“Next year, we have the African U-18/U-20 Championships, so we need to prepare these young athletes to represent us well. We cannot do all this without adequate funding, and we need the NSC to support us so that we can achieve our plans.”
The AFN president maintained that the federation would not rest on its achievements in Dakar, pledging to intensify its development efforts as Nigeria works towards producing athletes capable of winning medals at the biggest stages of world athletics.
