For their heroic feat and unprecedented sporting outing, the female athletes, who represented Nigeria in the just concluded commonwealth games in Birmingham, United Kingdom have been commended for the extraordinary feat which placed the country in the 7th position on the overall medal table with 12 gold, 9 silver and 14 bronze medals.
Dr Samuel Ogbuku, a public affairs analyst who is also the Special Assistant to the Deputy Senate President, gave the commendation in a statement in Port Harcourt on Tuesday.
He said the contingent to the games, especially the female athletes have put smiles on the faces of Nigerians in spite of difficulties and different challenges.
Dr Ogbuku, while showering praises on the heroic feats of the athletes said, “if we have anything to put smiles on our faces for now, it’s the recent performance of our Nigerian athletes at the just concluded Common Wealth Games which gives us hope that things could be better in the future”
According to him, prior to the 2022 Common Wealth games in Birmingham, which stands to be Nigeria’s best performance in world sporting competition, the last time Nigeria did well was the 1994 Common Wealth Victoria games in Canada.
Ogbuku, while congratulating all the Nigerian women for making the country proud also said, “These women did not only win Gold medals, some of them also broke existing records and set new world records”.
He noted with satisfaction that the qualification of the Super Falcons, the female National football team for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup that would take place in Australia and New Zealand has made up for the failure of the Super Eagles to qualify for the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup.
“From the look of things, it seems the women are taking the centre stage and putting NIGERIA back on the world map despite the fact that they have been relegated and repressed here at home for a long time”, he said.
Dr Ogbuku opined that more leadership roles should be given to the women to compensate for all their positive contributions to the growth of the country.
