Paris 2024 Olympics: Oshodi Kicks Off Judo Preparation For Games

IKPO IGBINOBA 

Just a few hours after his sensational victory at the federation elections, President of the Nigeria Judo Federation, NJF, Dr. Musa Oshodi has flagged off the preparation for the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Nigeria has missed out on the judo event in the quadrennial Games since her last outing in the 2008 Olympics hosted by the Chinese city of Beijing.

In his inaugural interaction with coaches and athletes here in Abuja, Oshodi lamented it was a thing of shame that Nigeria, once among the top brass of world judo has missed out on three consecutive editions of the Olympics.

According to him “For our country which was once among the leading judo nations, it is a sad development that we have not qualified for the Olympics since our last outing in Beijing 2008”.

He continued “Today, judo in the hierarchy of sports as classified by the Sports Ministry has dropped from Category A to Category D. And this drop has occurred in just under fifteen years”

Oshodi asked rhetorically “Who will consider us to be serious if we allowed this drop? Certainly nobody”.

He stressed that the journey to reclaiming judo’s lost glory would start immediately. “Now that we have a board that we all desired, a board led and loaded with judokas, we have to hit the ground running. We must return Nigeria Judo to the Olympics. And we will not wait for tomorrow to start preparation. We are starting our preparation for the Paris 2024 Olympics from today. We must attend the next Olympics. We must take our rightful place in the comity of nations. We must work our way back to Category A from our present Category D.”.

The president promised that by year-end, details of the camping would be released adding that “the Olympics qualifiers would begin next year”.

Oshodi, who also touched on a range of issues revealed that there would be a Congress in December where the federation’s constitution would be ratified.

In his contribution, a judoka Taiwo Aremu appealed to the federation to enlist the support of the media to propagate the sport.

“We will need the media to massively publicise judo in Nigeria because right now, judo is the least popular martial art.

“A lot of people don’t know judo so publicity will really help in promoting the sport and encouraging more people to take to it”

Another judoka Eniafe Alabi suggested the introduction of kata(pre-arranged movement) into Nigeria judo.

Eniafe said kata competitions were now very popular around the world and prayed that Nigeria should entrench kata in her judo syllabus.

In her contributions, Mrs. Bola Tijani, canvassed the introduction of a Task Force to monitor the activities of referees and coaches in their various states.

Mrs. Tijani who is a board member explained that some coaches and referees were idle for years and only came alive during competitions.

She said “These idle referees and coaches only come to championship venues to constitute themselves into a nuisance. 

“The federation through the Task Force has to ensure that coaches and referees that are idle are kept away from championship venues”.

Mrs. Tijani also complained about the lack of discipline among judokas. She appealed to the new leadership to ensure that discipline which is one of the tenets of judo is restored.

Lagos State Judo Association chairman, Mr. Sheriff Hammed admonished the judokas and their coaches to be part of the digital age and embrace the vast opportunities on the Internet.

Another board member,  Amos Ilya appealed to all stakeholders to join hands and support the president in his drive to take judo to a new level.

In his closing remarks, the President called on the board members to change the judo from their zones.

“There’ll be no excuse for failure this time because all the zonal representatives except one are judokas”.

He added, “There must be regular activities at the zonal level because this is a new dawn for Nigeria judo”.