Connect with us

Other Sports

GOV. WIKE STEPS INTO ABIOLA’S SHOES IN AFRICA

Published

on

BY KUNLE SOLAJA.

 

Multiple award winner, Nyesom Wike, the Governor of Rivers State of Nigeria will soon be conferred with the award of AIPS-Africa Power of Sports.

The AIPS –Africa previously known as Association of Sports Journalists in Africa (ASJU) is the umbrella body for practicing journalists in Africa and is affiliated to the International Press Association (AIPS).

The former ASJU in 1980 installed Bashorun M.K.O Abiola as the First Pillar of Sports in Africa. No other personality has since be given such continental honour.

Advertisement

But the president of the continental body, Mitchel Obi of Nigeria has written to the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike whose government sponsored the just concluded African Wrestling Championship, that he would soon be installed as AIPS – Africa Power of Sports.

Www.sportsvillagesquare.com gathered that Governor Wike will be the first personality to be so honoured. According to Obi, the conferment of the award “is indeed a badge of honour, freely and independently considered and granted”.

According to the president, the award derives its inspiration from the great Nelson Mandela’s sports school of thought which holds that ‘sports has the power to change the world’.

“We think strongly that this would serve as an apt catalyst to His Excellency as he strives to put sports on the front burner of his developmental strides.

It was also written that at world level, only four personalities had been honoured by AIPS, the last being the immediate past president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Jacques Rogge of Belgium.

Advertisement

Governor Wike is therefore the fifth man in the world and the first African to be honoured. The award adds to the several ones he has been conferred by various news organisation to the governor who has been aptly nicknamed “Mr Projects”.

 

Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

Continue Reading
Advertisement