By Victor Kanayo
When other Table Tennis athletes from various parts of the world will converge for this year’s World Youth Championships (WYC), Nigeria won’t be represented.
This is after the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development refused to release funds for the Nigerian athletes to participate, President of the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF) Ishaku Tikon has revealed.
Already, NTTF has officially written to the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) of its decision to withdraw the boys’ team from next month’s WYC taking place in Tunisia on December 4 to 11, 2022.
Tikon who was pained by the withdrawal said the federation had written to the ministry about the trip but several visits and pleas to secure the funds failed.
The situation according to stakeholders has become pathetic as sources with the ministry told Heritage Times HT that the incumbent Nigeria’s Minister of Youth and Sports Sunday Dare is no longer interested in programmes and projects which he won’t enjoy direct ans personal benefits from.
Heritage Times HT correspondent has made efforts to speak to the Minister, but different calls and text messages put across to him were not replied.
One of his media aides, Toyin Ibitoye, was also contacted, but declined comments while promising to revert, but he never did until the time of filling this report.
In Nigeria, monies for various sporting competitions are appropriated annually by the government.
In frustration, the NTTF President said, “I knew what these boys went through before qualifying for this tournament and for two months we had written to the ministry about the trip but we did not get any result from all the visits as the excuse was that there were no funds.
“I am not happy that our young players will not be competing with their counterparts at the biggest youth gathering in Tunis. But this is where we found ourselves as it is beyond the federation and this prompted us to withdraw the team in order to avoid possible sanction from the world table tennis ruling body.”
The quartet of Taiwo Mati, Muiz Adegoke, Mustapha Mustapha, and Samuel Boboye conquered the continent at the 2022 African Youth Championships to qualify as the African champion for the WYC.
But the decision to withdraw the team will hand over the continent slot to Egypt in Tunisia.
