6th December, 2013
There was a breakthrough for Nigerian table tennis yesterday when its leadership signed an agreement with Africa Table Tennis Federation, ATTF, to host the next edition of African Table Tennis Top 16 Cup.
The agreement was signed by the President of NTTF, Wahid Enitan Oshodi and President of ATTF, Khaled El-Salhy at the ongoing International Table Tennis Federation, ITTF, World Junior Championship, Rabat, Morocco yesterday.
After the agreement was signed, El-Salhy said: “This is a normal agreement between ITTF Africa and the host association that is taking care of major event from our calendar. This is very important event for the first time to be in Africa, the Top 16. We will like to secure optimum facilities for the event through corporation with ITTF, TMS and our links and this is a big experience for the host to ensure one top professional event in Africa for our stars. This event will be promoted to ITTF channels, website, YouTube and I believe there will be an important streaming on YouTube of this event from the ITTF.”
An elated NTTF boss, Oshodi said: “The important of this agreement is the fact that it tells the world that Nigeria is back on the table tennis scene. For an organisation like the ITTF Africa to entrust such tournament to Nigeria tells you that we are on the right path. We are not there yet because there is still a lot of hard work to be done, so it is up to us now to go back home and start
working so we can put up a fantastic show comes June. It is a major tournament and this has not happen in Nigeria in a long time but we are happy that the classics held earlier on in the year went well, but we discovered some problems and we are going to be working very hard to correct them.
“I want to say that our visitors will enjoy the hospitality of good people of Lagos State. Lagos is appreciative of its sports men and this is going to be the best players from Africa and top players from the world coming to Lagos and I believe they will enjoy their stay in the city.
“Our first experience at the Lagos Open was that the popularity of the game is still very much high in Nigeria and we have to create viewing centers to enable a lot more people come to watch the event,”
And the ATTF Vice President, Olabanji Oladapo has this to say: “The planning starts from today and definitely as the president of the federation said we are all set. I m happy that at long last we’ve moved forward and this is the beginning of so many things to come.
There will be exposure for our players, opportunities for many people to know that table tennis in Nigeria is back on track and this will also improve the visibility of the sport and Lagos as one of the states that promote sports.”