Secretary of Archery Federation, Gbenga Olatunji
In spite of the daunting challenge of paucity of funds, Nigeria will join the rest of the world in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire to jostle for laurels in the 4th Archery Grand Prix.
Teams from all over the world will participate in the top-notch tournament which will hold between March 28 and April 2.
The players who will represent Nigeria are Alapini Oladipo, Abdulrahman Adisa, Gbenga Olatunji and the only female in the team, Seun Faleye.
Secretary General of the Nigeria Archery Federation, Mr. Gbenga Olatunji told PM EXPRESS that he would feature as a player at the event because of funds.
He lamented: “We have the problem of funds in our federation and it has really affected us. For example, we could have gone to the Grand Prix in Abidjan with more archers but we are going with three. To complete our team, I will participate as an archer”.
The secretary said Nigeria could have missed out of the event if not for the benevolence of the federation’s president, Alhaji Abdullahi Muhammad.
According to him “We have to thank our federation president for making this trip possible. He is providing all the funds for the trip. He has been very supportive of our programmes”.
On the importance of the Grand Prix, Mr Olatunji explained: “The Grand Prix in Abidjan is an open event which will attract teams from all over the world because it is used to rate archers by the World Archery Federation.
“Our players will also have the opportunity of being rated in the world and again the venue, Abidjan is near by”.
Though the Abidjan field is expected to be loaded with world-class archers, Mr Olatunji expressed hope that Nigeria would do well.
“Our archers have been exposed to high grade coaching with state-of-art equipment which the world body gave to us last year”, he said.
He added “I am very confident our archers including me won’t disappoint the nation.
Coach of the team, Lucky Izekor shared the sentiment of the secretary “We are going to Abidjan to make an impact and I am happy with the players’ attitude. We won’t disappoint the nation”.