The President of the Nigeria Wheelchair Softball Association Sunday Odior has made a passionate appeal to Nigerians and corporate organisations to lend support to Para events.
He made this call during the international wheelchair softball friendly game between Nigeria and Ghana held at the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos over the weekend.
According to him, while Nigeria was the first country to get introduced to the sport, lack of support had affected the progress of the game in the country.
He lamented that this is unlike Ghana and other African countries that had government support and individual sponsors, adding over 20m people living with disability in Nigeria, para-sports had received little or no attention from government, corporate and individual sponsors.
He also expressed dismay that the absence of adequate equipment was a major hindrance to the Nigerian team as a wheelchair cost between $4,000 to $15,000.
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He revealed that the wheelchairs used by the Ghanaian team were the standard required, while Nigeria’s fell short of standard which affected their throws and batting in the friendly match.
Meanwhile, Ghana defeated Nigeria in the wheelchair softball friendly match by four runs to three runs.
The five innings friendly match which the Nigerian team started off strongly, saw the Ghanaian team coming from three runs down to emerge victorious on the home turf of the Nigerian team.
At the end of the match, Samuel Babin and Bah Frimpong of Ghana won the best batter and Most Valuable Players (MVP) respectively, while Lateef Jimoh and Razaq Bankole of Nigeria won the best pitcher and best fielder respectively.