As the National Sports commission (NSC) chieftains are busy concluding plans for the Sport Federations elections, the World Association of Kickboxing Organisations (WAKO) as fully recognised by the International Olympic committee (IOC), Sport Accord and other relevant bodies, has re-affirmed it’s desire for the development of Kickboxing Sport in Nigeria hence, it’s interested in the electoral process of the coming Sport Federations election.
To this end, the World Kickboxing governing body has written a letter to the Nigeria Olympic Committee ( NOC) and the NSC , confirming Mr. Wilson Okon Godwin as their sole representative in Nigeria.
A release signed by WAKO President, Roy Baker and the Secretary, Espen Lund, reads:
“Despite a very confusing and fragmented situation in Nigeria the last years, WAKO consider Wilson Okon to be our representative in Nigeria.
“We do encourage strongly that the Kickboxing environment unite under WAKO in order to improve the situation for many athletes we know practice Kickboxing in Nigeria. We do encourage the sport authorities to facilitate to help to structure if need be.
“It is also imperative to mention the main condition to maintain membership in WAKO . These include, (A) Any National Federation need to comply with WAKO rules and regulations and financial obligations to maintain it’s membership.(B)WAKO does not allow any dissident representative or other groups representing Kickboxing nationally or internationally to be part of the legally National body (KBFN).
And (C) WAKO needs active Federation participating in our international tournaments as World championships.
For further clarity sake, Wilson Okon Godwin is
WAKO’s representative in Nigeria, Board member WAKO Africa and Head of technical, WAKO Africa.
It would be recalled that some sports federations have approved constitutions, they include the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) and the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF) have already done their elections while that of the Nigeria Judo Federation(NJF) and the Gymnastics Federation of Nigeria (GFN) were cancelled following series of protests.
