The re-elected president of the Nigeria Badminton Federation, BFN, Barrister Francis Orbih has promised to fucus more on the development of the coaches the next four years.
Orbih gave this assurance Thursday shortly after the inauguration of the BFN board by the Ministry of a youth and sports at the Federal a secretariat in Abuja
He maintained that the board had done relatively well in other areas of the game like the grassroot, age grade and players development but would have to up their game in the area of coaches development.
Barrister Francis Orbih, South-West representative who returned as the president of the Federation in an overwhelming 10 to 0 votes expressed joy that the Federation is back on track after the legal crisis.
Alhaji Maina Mohammed from the North-West was also re-elected unopposed as Vice- President.
“I will say that it has been quite challenging looking at the other sports that had their boards inaugurated and have taken off, and running with activities of their various sports. We felt like been left behind and nothing was going on. So, I can tell you that it is a very huge relief for the badminton family in Nigeria now that we have been able to have our elections today and we have the new board inaugurated by the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports.
“Yes, we lost some grounds but it is not so much that we cannot makeup I must tell you because we already had our calendar mapped out for the year. So, we will look at what is possible to push forward and those we can’t we carry on from where we are present. So, I can tell you that the board is ready to hit the ground and running.
Speaking particularly on the priority of the board, he said, “I must tell you that after the last four years, looking at the achievements, we would look at areas where we felt we would definitely have done better, areas like the grassroots, age-grade tournaments, and then the technical development of the game. we did well in the umpire, we have an African umpire who is certainly going to become a world umpire. But for coaches, we did not have too much training and too many refresher courses. I mean the technical aspect of the game has to move with the growth generally. So, for us, we are going to focus on the technical aspect and the grassroots development. We are taking badminton to schools, we are already looking in that direction before now, it’s just a matter of activating and moving faster,” the BFN President stated.
The board other members are Shehu Warah, Lawal Bello, Obiageli Solaja and Felix Tangbe, representing North-Central, North-East, South-East and South-South respectively.
Others are Grace Gabriel (athletes’ representative), Esther Gidado (NAWIS representative), Tunde Kazeem (NAPHER-SD representative) and Malik Anas (sponsors/philanthropists/ex-officio’s representative).
The rests are TY Etuku (representative of institutions) and George Shitta (technical officials’ representative).
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