From Bunmi Ogunyale, Birmingham
President, Nigeria Judo Federation (NJF), Dr Musa Oshodi has described the participation of judokas at the ongoing Birmingham Commonwealth Games as an eye opener.
He further said there is room for improvement for the athletes at the international level.
According to the president; “Inasmuch as I am not trying to make excuses, I believe this will serve as eye opener for us in Judo having missed out past international events. We were not at the All Africa Games, World Judo Championships and the Olympics for sometimes now and we are just returning to the international stage, so it is expected that we face some hurdles and I can state categorically that with time, we will catch up,” he said.
The NJF boss added “on our part, at the Federation, we know what we can do to return the game to its rightful position and we are having various competitions at the national level. This I strongly believe will propel us to do more. And also, we should not forget that government alone couldn’t do this so we need the maximum support of all Nigerians and most importantly corporate bodies and well meaning Nigerians for sponsorship. And in this regard, we have marketing committee to look into this in order to make things work.”