By Amaechi Agbo
The National Sports Commission NSC has expressed its resolve to support the Nigeria Weightlifting Federation NWF in ensuring that the athletes didn’t just qualify for the 2026 Commonwealth Games, but made improvement on their last edition’s performance.
Chairman of NSC, Alhaji Shehu Dikko who stated this when the NWF President, Dr Ibrahim Abdul led his board and to his office, also asked the federation to furnish him with their activities timeline so that the Commission would be kept abreast of the Federation’s programmes and support them.
Mallam Dikko is noted that given weightlifting’s past exploits, there should be a conscious effort to amass more medals in the sport in future Games.
His words, “Weightlifting has always saved Nigeria embarrassments at big tournaments because they will always win medals. 45 medals in a tournament is not a joke, so we have to keep our eyes on the ball and target those medals. We should target our best weightlifters, focus on them and train them to make the podium in these major Games.
“We will provide the enablers and support so that we can have a change in narrative. The Commonwealth Games should be our test Games to see what we can do.”
The NSC Chairman commended President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR for the unprecedented support for sports.
“With what we have in the Renewed Hope Agenda under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR, for the first time, we have a budget line for Commonwealth Games and Olympics preparations. This helps us with resources to support this kind of initiative. We have a budget line in 2025 to prepare for the 2026 Commonwealth Games and 2028 Olympics.
“This budget line is to support Federations that are most likely to give us medals at these Games. You have to be able to participate in all the necessary competitions that will be able to put our athletes in the right shape to compete at the highest level when you need them.”
Mallam Dikko however told the Federation to furnish him with details of their programmes.
“Bring a document detailing what you are doing and how we can come in. Let us know the competitions and training camps. Let us have a clear roadmap towards the preparations for the Commonwealth Games and Olympics”,
“We need to prepare for tomorrow. We can’t keep banking on the old athletes. Take a cue from the Nigeria American Football Association. They went to Cairo with the male and female teams, but still took the U13 team along. So they are preparing for the future”, he concluded.
Earlier, President of the NWF Dr. Abdul Ibrahim highlighted the Federation’s desire to make the podium at these Games.
“At the last Olympics, we came fourth and fourth doesn’t win medals, so we decided to prepare early this time and the basic thing is to ensure that our coaches are properly trained which is why we have organised this coaching and training programme. In the last Commonwealth Games we won three gold, two silver and two bronze with five weightlifters. This time we want to go with a full team and we must go through the qualifiers to be at the Games”, he said.
He solicited for the Commission’s support to enable the Federation to feature a full team at the qualifiers in India and Norway.
Dr Ibrahim was accompanied by Maged Salaam, International Weightlifting Federation expert and lecturer, the resource person at the coaching and training programme organized by the Federation for 10 coaches and 30 athletes in Abuja. Also on the entourage was Chimdi Ejiogu, Vice President Weightlifting Federation of Africa and other board members.
