Federation elections: Yusuf makes case for trado sport
Former President of Traditional Sports Federation of Nigeria (TSFN) and inventor of Abula ball game, Mallam Elias Foluso Yusuf has charged sports administrators and stakeholders of traditional sports in the country to brace up until an indigenous sport from the country becomes a medal scoring event at the Olympics.
Speaking exclusively to Extra Time in Lagos, the highly travelled and experienced sports technocrat said the continuous dumping of foreign sports in the continent is a big challenge to sports administrators in Africa.
“I want to use this opportunity to call upon all stakeholders and developers of African indigenous sports to brace towards actualizing the dream of seeing that at least an African indigenous sport debuts at the Olympics.
“It was because of this situation that we convened a meeting which led to the formation of Confederation of African Indigenous Sports (CONAIS) in 2003 during my first tenure, but effort towards sustaining the actualization of the vision was thwarted and abandoned to the regret of many true stakeholders of African trado sports.
“Our team in the continent worked so hard then which saw three Nigerian traditional sports debut at the All Africa Games in Abuja 2003.
“Frankly, since its inception in 1965, the All Africa Games had never featured any African indigenous sports at any of the earlier seven editions of the game. Thus, it’s a thing of pride that three sports ‘Ayo (seeds’ game), Dambe (traditional one-hand boxing) and Kokawa (traditional wrestling) debuted at the 2003 All African Games.’
“The sports were demonstrated with the approval of the then Supreme Council for Sports in Africa (SCSA), with the solid supports of COJA through Dr. Amos Adamu and the dogged determination of the Traditional Sports Federation of Nigeria (TFSN) under my leadership.
“However, it is true we lost time since my absence at the helm of affairs in TSFN and this is one of my cherished dreams I want to actualize if voted into power again at the upcoming federation elections,” Yusuf said.
He also affirmed that Abula, Ayo, Kokawa (traditional wrestling) and Dambe all have potentials to become medal scoring events at the global stage if efforts are sustained in this regard.
Yusuf therefore called on all lovers of trado sports in the country to come together at the sports federation elections and vote credible candidates into the board of TSFN to take trado sports to the next level.
