Stakeholders in Taekwondo have warned those who have the intention to detract the efforts of a man who have made the nation proud in the game Chika Chukwumerije to look elsewhere, New National Star report.
Chika, a member of the Caretaker Committee of the Nigerian Taekwondo Federation (NTF) who is poise to guide Nigeria Taekwondo athlete Elizabeth Anyanacho, a 21-year-old, 300-level student of Federal University of Technology Owerri (Owerri) to replicate his 13-year ago’s feat in Tokyo by bringing home a medal from the Olympics is being attacked by enemies of the game who are held bent in distracting his moves.
Ahead of the Olympics qualification, Chika took Anyanacho through the rigour to qualify for this year Olympic Games in Tokyo just to keep the spirit of the game in the country and among the comity of nations.
However, while he is looking for a medal for Nigeria through Anynacho, the impeached former President of NTF George Ashiru is busying plotting how Chika and Anynacho would be detracted so that Nigeria can’t win a medal in the game, but stakeholders in the game have warned him and his cohort to stay away from Chika.
Ashiru has claimed that Chika physically manhandling some athletes during the 2015 African Games but that claims have met a bricks wall as stakeholders who were also part of the team debunked such claims
Former team captain of the entire 16 Taekwondo athletes during the 2015 African Games, Jamilu Mohammed in his reaction said nothing of such happened in the camp he was a captain.
He said if anything as such happened in the camp as a captain I am the first person to be informed but because nothing like that happened I was not informed, so any claims of that are mere political gimmicks;
Also, the current chairman of FCT Taekwondo Association, Grand Master Anthony Anafulu, said those championing such a cause should look for an alternative, stressing that if anybody deserves commendation in bringing the game to this height in Nigeria it should be Chika.
“The physical assault allegation is a political vendetta spearheaded by impeached former President of NTF George Ashiru who thought Chika was behind his impeachment when he was the President.
Ashiru’s impeachment was a result of his gross misconduct during one of the meetings we held in Lagos as a board then.
According to him, “I was the head of coaching both for the Federation and at the camp, no one notified me of any of such. It was only recently I heard a panel was set up outside the board and they found him guilty and that is very surprising, where was the board, so the truth is that there is no truth in this matter.
The former board member and Chairman of the NTF technical committee, Alhaji Sani Lawal, who is also Chika’s teammate when they were active athletes affirmed that NTF with Chika as the technical director designed and changed the face of Taekwondo practice in Nigeria within a short time.
He revealed that they were a lot of sharp practice in the federation but the coming of Chika and some of them into the board changed a lot of things, so those who were benefiting from such sharp practices are fighting back.
Alhaji Lawal noted that athletes were forced to pay money before they were called to camp before but those things are no longer in place now because of the calibre of people like Chika on the board of NTF.
“The Global Membership System (GMS) that has been in existence since 2011/12, the Ashiru regime-held it so close, nobody knew how they picked people they want to do the GMS for. The few they eventually picked, they charged them big money but with the coming of Chika everything is open and athletes are happy with that,” he said.
