Tobi Amusan and Ese Brume have won gold and silver medals respectively at the 2022 World Athletics Championships held at Oregon, USA. Asisat Oshoala on the other hand won the 2022 Confederation of African Football (CAF) Women’s Player of the Year for the fifth time. ENIOLA OYEMOLADE discusses how the trio landed their wins.
Six years after tweeting what can be termed speaking into existence, track and field athlete, Oluwatobiloba Amusan has set a world record.
She had written: “Unknown now, but soon I will be unforgettable. I will persist until I succeed,” and on Sunday, July 24, her dream came to pass.
On Monday, July 25, Nigerians woke up to the great news of Amusan setting a new World record in the women’s 100m hurdles, smashing the record twice in her quest to win gold in women’s 100 meters hurdle at the 18th edition of the World Athletics Championship held at Oregon, United States of America (USA).
Many saw this feat as the positive news Nigerians needed at this moment and many also took to various social media platforms to celebrate the 25-year-old.
Amusan finished the race in 12.062s beating her own record in the semi finals and earning $100,000 as a reward.
Fielding questions after her win, Amusan noted that the goal was to execute and she did just that and the time took care of itself.
She added that she didn’t realise she was going that fast but only focused on her lane.
Celebrating her excellent feat, President Muhammadu Buhari said he joined other Nigerians in celebrating “this outstanding feat by a compatriot and two-time African Games champion, who in one night stunned the athletics world with her superlative and stellar performance.”
On June 18, 2022, Amusan won the 2022 Diamond League event in Paris, where she set an African record by 0.01s with a time of 12.41s.
Just before then, she had won gold in the 100m hurdles at the 2022 African Championships in Mauritius with a time of 12.57s.
Amusan is also a two-time African Games champion.
Ese Brume also gave her all to the competition by winning the long jump silver medal at the 2022 World Championships.
The 26-year-old had, in Doha in 2019, won a bronze medal.
With this win, Brume becomes the first Nigerian athlete to win medals at two World Athletics Championships.
Brume leaped 7.02m and finished behind Germany’s Olympic champion Malaika Mihambo, who leaped 7.12m, and Brazil’s Leticia Oro Melo jumped 6.89m to take bronze.
Presidential candidate, Peter Obi had congratulated her saying, “Following Tobi Amusan’s record-breaking gold, Ese Brume grabs silver in the long jump event at the WAC in Oregon, USA. We’re a great country blessed with talents ready to rule the world. Appropriate leadership is the key. Congratulations, dear Ese.”
Another presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, wrote: “Congratulations to our own Ese Brume for winning a silver medal in the Women Long Jump at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon. Here is wishing the entire Team Nigeria the very best at the championship.”
Still in the spirit of celebrating Nigerian athletes, Nigerian Super Falcon striker, Asisat Oshoala, on Thursday, July 21, in Rabat, Morocco won the 2022 Confederation of African Football (CAF) Women’s Player of the Year.
Oshoala won the award ahead of Ajara Nchout (Cameroon and Inter Milan) and Grace Chanda (Zambia and BIIK Kazygurt).
Her win might not be unconnected with the fact that she played a key role in Barcelona’s title-winning season in Spain and also emerging as league joint-top scorer after netting 20 goals in 19 league appearances.
This is Oshoala’s fifth time of winning the award as she had been adjudged the best African female footballer in 2014, 2016, 2017, and 2019.
The win also makes the 27-year-old the first player in the history of the award to win it five times.
Oshoala with the latest crown overtook Perpetua Nkwocha who starred for the Super Falcons from 1999 to 2015 and won the CAF best female footballer four times (2004, 2005, 2010, 2011).
Oshoala is the fourth Nigerian to win the women’s version of the award. Others are Mercy Akide (2001), Perpetua Nkwocha (2004, 2005, 2010 and 2011) and Cynthia Uwak (2006 and 2007).
Following this win, the president of the Nigeria Football Federation and Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Council Member, Mr Amaju Melvin Pinnick, noted that “The Nigeria Football Federation celebrates Asisat Oshoala for her feat, which is well-deserved, and we urge her to continue to be a role model for both the Nigeria girl-child and the African girl-child. She is a walking prove of what is possible, if you pursue your dream with diligence, commitment, resilience and belief in God.”
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The PDP spokesman recalled how the opposition party had on various occasions alerted that the APC government had ceded sovereignty over a large portion of our country to terrorists, “many of whom were imported into our country by the APC.”
He further stated: “From the video, in a brazen manner, terrorists as non-state actors boldly showed their faces, boasting, admitting and confirming their participation in the Kuje Prison break, some of whom were former prison inmates who were either jailed or awaiting trial for their previous terrorism act against our country.
“Nigerians can equally recall the confession by the Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai that the APC government knows the plans and whereabouts of the terrorists but failed to act.
According to Ologunagba, about 18,000 Nigerians have been killed by terrorists between 2020 and 2022 “as the criminals continue to be emboldened by the failures and obvious complicity of the APC and to which the PDP had always drawn attention.”
“This is not politics; this is about humanity and leadership, which leadership sadly and unfortunately is missing in our country at this time,” he said.
The PDP added that it is appalled by “the lame response by the apparently helpless, clueless and deflated Buhari Presidency, wherein it told an agonizing nation that President Buhari “has done all and even more than what was expected of him as Commander in Chief by way of morale, material and equipment support to the military…”
“This is a direct admission of incapacity and failure by the Buhari Presidency and the APC. At such a time, in other climes, the President directly leads the charge and takes drastic measures to rescue and protect his citizens.
“In time of adversity, the President transmutes into Consoler-in-Chief to give hope and succour to the citizens. Painfully, Nigeria does not have a President who cares and can stand as Consoler-in-Chief to the citizens.
“It has now become very imperative for Nigerians to take note and realize that the only solution to this unfortunate situation is to hold the APC government accountable. We must come together as a people, irrespective of our political, ethnic and religious affiliations to resist the fascist-leaning tendencies of the APC administration.
Ologunagba called for an urgent meeting of the National Council of State to advise on the way to go over the nation’s worsening insecurity.
“Our nation must not fall. The resilient Nigerian spirit and ‘can-do- attitude’ must be rekindled by all to prevail on the President to immediately and without further delay, accede to the demand by the PDP and other well-meaning Nigerians to convene a special session of the National Council of State to find a lasting solution since the President has, in his own admission, come to his wit’s end,” the PDP spokesman declared.
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