2020 Olympics: RCCG to ‘redeem’ Nigerian sports

THE Nigeria Olym-pic Committee has entered a
partnership with the Directorate of Sports of the
Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG on ways of
making Team Nigeria Olympic champions again at the
Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
The Memorandum of Understanding between the NOC and
the RCCG was signed on Monday afternoon in a brief
ceremony at the boardroom of the Olympic Committee in
Lagos. The Secretary General of the NOC, Honourable
Tunde Popoola and the NOC Administrator Mr. Emman
Nweri signed the MoU on behalf of the Olympic
Committee, while Pastor Paul Bankole Head of the
Directorate of Sports in the RCCG signed on behalf of the
church.
The partnership between the RCCG and the NOC,
according to Pastor Paul Bankole, was a prompt attempt
to actualize the word of knowledge given by the General
Overseer of the RCCG, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, on April 4,
2014 that “there are Olympic stars in the RCCG.” The
General Overseer went further to say that Nigeria would
again win Olympic gold medals at the 2020 Olympics.
“To actualize this awesome dream, we have gone into
partnership with the Nigeria Olympic Committee and
formulated a five-year development programme starting
with the forthcoming Sports Summit which has been
scheduled to hold at the Youth Centre of the RCCG at the
Redemption Camp on December 7, 2015.
The theme of the Summit is ‘Maximising the Potential of
Nigerian Youth, Teenagers and Children, Towards the
2020 Olympic Games: Roles of the Church, Corporate
Organisations, Media and Government.’
Pastor Bankole noted that, the RCCG has picked a
number of sports as areas where the Team Nigeria has
the biggest potential to excel at the Tokyo Games. The
specific sports are: Wrestling, Table Table, Tennis,
Athletics, Martial Arts, Swimming, Boxing, Basketball and
Cycling.
These sports have been earmarked for laurels during the
Tokyo 2020 Olympics. “Hence the need to embark on a
five-year search and groom programme to discover
potential Olympic stars amongst millions of our
youngsters in Nigeria.”
The NOC Secretary General said: “We in the Olympic
Committe are very happy to be associated with the
RCCG’s vision for Nigeria to win gold and other shades of
medals at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. The package the
RCCG is giving Nigeria is much and huge, others
organisations should t.ake a cue from this.