SO SOON, NIGERIA’S FIRST OLYMPIC GOLD IS 25 YEARS OLD: CHIOMA AJUNWA TO CELEBRATE BIG BY UNEARTHING MORE TALENTS AS SOLOMON AGUENE PROMISES SUPPORT
By Oki Samson, Trek Africa Newspaper
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It seems like yesterday when Chioma Ajunwa made the giant leap in Atlanta Georgia at the 1996 Summer Olympics which earned Nigeria her first-ever gold medal at the quadrennial sporting masterpiece. In the same year, the Dream Team at the football event increased the gold rush to two. The Atlanta Games is now 25 years ago.
However, the epic 7.12m first round leap in the long jump at the 1996 event continues to make the policewoman the sole individual winner of an Olympic gold for Nigeria. DCP Chioma Ajunwa, MON wants that to change for good. She wants that record to be broken. This is why in celebration of the silver jubilee of that feat; she is starting a sporting talent hunt that will raise budding sport stars that can do better than her. She disclosed her plans with Oki Samson of Trek Africa Newspaper on the sidelines of the reconciliation meeting of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Lagos recently in Lagos. ‘It is a good thing to every Igbo to hear that there is no more conflict within Ohanaeze Ndigbo. My coming to this place is orchestrated to be a reunion between bodies that had altercations in the past.’
DCP Chioma Ajunwa, MON (left) being handshake by the President, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Lagos, Chief Solomon Ogbonna Aguene (2nd right), while, Deputy President, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Lagos, Chief Victor Ozor, and Secretary, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Lagos, Chief Everest Ozonweke looks on …
‘It is also to tell my people that like an Igbo proverb says – as a child, if you are in the bush, the snail you got belongs to you. But when you get home, you hand it over to your parents – So I have come to tell my parents that 25 years ago in faraway Atlanta, Georgia, USA, something great happened and I am marking the silver jubilee this year.’
‘I am not just doing this to celebrate but also use it to select someone that could represent Ndigbo and Nigeria at large in sports. We will select and train people in our camp and those who like to go to school in America and Europe will be helped while those who can’t will get vocational training in Nigeria,’ declared the Olympian.
The determined police officer who is putting the Nigerian Police in the spotlight concluded: ‘Hard work is good but someone has to teach you. That is what I am doing with this initiative. I am starting in my state; Imo State but we will spread it to other parts of Nigeria as time goes on.’
The Ohanaeze Ndigbo Lagos under the able leadership of President Solomon Ogbonna Aguene was pleased to receive their own at the meeting and pledged support towards the lofty initiative.
