Senator John Owan Enoh, Minister of Sports Development, has commended the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Adewale Adeniyi, and Daniel Igali, President of the Nigeria Wrestling Federation, for hosting the wrestling team.
The Minister of Sports Development said this at the reception in honour of athletes and officials of NWF on Saturday in Abuja.
The reception was in recognition of the patriotism of the athletes towards the development of the federation.
The minister said the federation was the only and the first to celebrate their athletes in spite of not winning any medal at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Enoh said: “I was surprised when I got the invitation from the CG Customs and Board members of this federation about this reception.
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“It is a very uplifting, motivating and assuring way with a positive perspective of encouraging the athletes.
“I thank the CG for this, and I think that Nigerians need to know about this and I am glad that the media are here.”
Enoh said he found people’s negative comments as toxic following the poor performance of the team Nigeria in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
The minister said he had apologised to Nigerians for the poor performance at the Olympics.
He said: “I found out that there are people that are innocently angry, and they have good reasons to be angry.
“I think that good things have started from this section and from this reception we are very proud of you guys.”
The minister said that the country once had good performance at international competitions.
Enoh said: “The 2021/2022 AFCON in Cameroon Nigeria did not proceed beyond the group stages.
“This year’s AFCON in Cote d’Ivoire, we played in the final, we went to African games and we performed beautifully.
“We are still between competitions, the para athletes have been in Germany training ahead of the Paralympics Games.
“I just want to appeal for some little patience.
“Let’s go back to Paris and compete for Para athletes.”
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that six wrestlers: one male and five females, represented Nigeria at the 2024 Olympics.
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