Wednesday, September 18, 2024 was a great day for Nigeria Powerlifting President, Chiemeka Charles Ezenwanne. It was a day one of his federation’s major sponsors, Peak Milk, chose to host his athletes and reward them for doing the country proud at the just-concluded Paris 2024 Paralympics. It was also a day his federation showed Nigerians that they are grateful for the encomiums and love the country bestowed on the athletes before and after the Games in France.
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Savouring the joy in his athletes, who got monetary rewards ranging from N1 million to N2 million from Peak Milk for their efforts in Paris, Ezenwanne could not help but look at the future with a promise that powerlifters would continue to win laurels for the country.

Specifically, he promised that the powerlifters will fight to reclaim their number one position in the world from China if they get the required support from corporate Nigeria.

He told The Guardian at the reception held in the Ikeja, Lagos office of FrieslandCampina, makers of Peak Milk, that Nigeria would have won more than the two gold medals it got in Paris if the team had gone with the full complement of its squad.

He said: “If we had our full team in Paris, we would have won more than 25 gold medals. China topped the medals table because they went with more than 26 athletes. The Chinese lacked nothing. They are the number one in the world because they attend all the competitions and get many medals. But it is not so with us.
“To take an athlete to a major competition, you need more than N8 million for his accommodation, registration, flight ticket, medicals and other logistics. So, we do not have that kind of resources to take every athlete capable of winning a gold medal to major events.”

Ezenwanne thanked Peak Milk for staying with the federation for more than eight years, saying that the brand “has been sponsoring my federation for all these years.”

He also thanked the Sport Minister, Senator John Owan Enoh, for ensuring that the federation got some of the things it needed despite the ministry’s lean resources.

“This minister of sports is the best that has ever happened to us. He supported us even within a short spell in office. But our performance at the Paralympics was so poor when you look at what we are capable of achieving. If the minister continues with his reforms, we will do better in future competitions.”

The Powerlifting Federation boss disclosed that the body has started planning for the 2028 Paralympics billed to hold in Los Angeles, adding, however, that it needs corporate support to accomplish some of its goals before the Games.

“We have disbanded the team to build a new squad under the Ministry of Sports’ supervision.

“We will conduct our trials in January next year and it entails a lot of money. We need money to camp athletes from the 36 states and Abuja for the exercise and if any state agrees to sponsor it, we will go there.

“Secondly, we will soon start going for competitions abroad, which requires a lot of money. The ministry has been helping us to accomplish some of our programmes, but they have other federations to cater for, so it is really difficult to get all that we need. That is why we want other corporate bodies to come in and help us. They can adopt any of the athletes and use that athlete as model for their products.
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“If any company sponsors any of the athletes, pay his bills for any competition, we will guarantee that that athlete will win gold medals for that company.”

Explaining his federation’s talent recruitment style, Ezenwanne said his coaches scout for talents from the streets and train them to become world beaters.

“Some of these people don’t know that they have the talents to compete in powerlifting. They are everywhere in the streets from where we get them to our camp.

“Training and getting these athletes to compete locally is a bit difficult because the only competition we have locally is the National Sports Festival.

“We are planning a continental competition, where we will host the rest of Africa because in Africa we are number one. We need competitions to regain our position as the world’s best.”
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