From Judo, Osaghae’s Revolution Spreads To Other Sports, Targets Youth

IKPO IGBINOBA 

He has plied the judo art on three continents and at different levels. 

Sensei David Osaghae, the founder of the Judo Movement in New Jersey, in the United States of America, has traversed the continents of Africa, Europe and North America as a judoka, a coach and an administrator.

Outside the judo mat, the story of Osaghae is a thriller of how his doggedness and indomitable spirit conquered the vicissitudes of life. 

And today, he is a glittering example of what success is all about on the judo mat and off it.

Osaghae’s story is a bestseller waiting to be published and a box-office monster hit if it is scripted for the movies.

This piece is not in any way an attempt to tell the epic Osaghae story but about the quiet revolution the judoka is driving in his country, Nigeria.

The target of his revolution is the Nigerian youth.

Osaghae has enormous faith in the Nigerian youth who he describes as the hope and future of the country.

He believes that if given the necessary  support the Nigerian youth can hold his own against his counterparts in advanced climes. 

Under the auspices of the David Osaghae Judo and Sports Foundation, he has been assisting the youths(judokas) to achieve their goals in a variety of ways.

It is no surprise that Osaghae adopted sports as the vehicle to drive his revolution. 

He ascribes his success story to sport; judo in particular, a sport that propelled him to national prominence in the early ’90s as a University student.

But now he is expanding the frontier of his revolution to accommodate youngsters from other selected sporting disciplines. 

The sports are boxing, wrestling, kick-boxing and athletics.

And even those youngsters who are not yet into sports.

Welcome to the multipurpose indoor sports complex which Osaghae is constructing in his home town, Benin City.

The complex which will be commissioned later in the year will have the state of the art facilities and equipment for judo, boxing, wrestling, kick-boxing and athletics.

When fully operational, the complex will provide a platform for established sportsmen, women and upcoming ones to hone their skills under the tutelage of top notch coaches. 

Osaghae is convinced that with the quality of coaches who will be on offer in the complex, Nigerian athletes won’t play second fiddle on the global stage.

The complex will also be a place where idle youngsters hitherto on the streets would be engaged in any of the sports, groomed and transformed into champions.

In a society currently ravaged by crime, this aspect of the revolution targeting idle  youngsters who could have been involved in different anti social behaviour is highly commendable. 

The Complex will also address the issue of infrastructural deficit which is the bane of sports development in the country. 

In some cases where facilities are even available, they are not released for use by short-sighted politicians who derive pleasure in abusing power. 

One of Osaghae’s project was a victim of such power drunk politicians last year.  Osaghae and two of his compatriots, Kelvin Idehen and Mufu Yahaya all in the United States,  polled resources together and commissioned former national coach Edokpolor Ihaza to organise a seminar for coaches in Benin City.

The Gymnasium in the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium was to be the venue of the seminar. 

Ihaza and his assistant Dickson Egbowon were in Benin City for one week trying to secure the venue for the seminar. 

But a powerful politician who didn’t give a damn about the resources poured into the project and the benefits the coaches stood to gain refused to release the place for the seminar. 

And that was how a laudable project was aborted. 

With the Osaghae Sports Complex, such gut-wrenching incidents won’t happen again.

Though Osaghae is still an unsung hero in spite of his contributions, it will not be long before he will get his due recognition as a visionary and a patriot. 

That’s when the country and some youths will begin to enjoy the benefits of his  intervention and investment in a sector that gets very little attention from governments at different levels.