Kaffo Charges Nigeria To Embrace ITTF Coaching Course.

Former African Number One female table tennis, Bose Kaffo, has called on other state governments to emulate the gesture of Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola in improving the standard of table tennis in Nigeria through regular International Table Tennis Course.

Kaffo who made this statement on Thursday at the end of the Five day International Table Tennis Federation level One coaching Course at the Mobolaji Johnson Indoor sportshall, Rowe Park, Yaba, said she wants a situation where all the states of the Federation embarce the course which in turn would place Nigeria on a very good platform to become African champions in the sport.

"I want to be seen as a good gospel of table tennis not for anything else.We all have to make our ends meet somehow.If hard work is my own means of doing that, nobody can stop me and nobody can attempt, because it is for the glory of the sport and not other things.I am sacrificing my career, i am sacrificing my life to make the sport great, so i dont expect people to stop that good thing".

"I have all Nigerian states because you now sports deveopment is not just in one state, it could be in two states, it could be in three states."If we say we forget a particular state, that means you want to us to be breeding players from a state and be neglecting others"

Sports development programme will go across raod and that is what we want to do and since Lagos state government has started,it, i am sure that other states will embrace and i pray that they do the only way, even the Nigeria Table Tennis ederation will be happy that they are doing something"

Kaffo, said she was surprised that the course attracted over two hundred participants and over thirty coaches as she thanked Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola for approving and financing the course which was certified by the ITTF, stressing that the course who certainly afford the Lagos State Table Tennis Association the opportunty to win laurels if the association coaches were able to effectively impact what they had gained on their wards.

According to her, all the table tennis materials procured during the exercise are the property of the state Table Tennis Association as the feat would enable the state's ping pongers to prepare better ahead of the next National Sports Festival in Rivers State, in February, 2011.

She informed Sportseight.blogspot.com, that as a sports scientist, she has an intension to set a sports academy which would embrace five different sports, stressing that she wants to enlarge her horizon through the academy where athletes would be tutored on the basic of sports.

"I want to enlarge my horizon, i want the world to know tat not only till we have to travel to Australia or England before you can have a good certificate application to sports.If i ca start it, other people would also take it up because that is the academy where you can develop children like this.If i can have 50 chidren three times in a year at the end of three years, my academy can produce athletes.It is one of the great things i will like to achieve.


John Peter, an ITTF Referee, thanked Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola for deeming it fit to bankrolling the course which according to him is very rare because all the Nigerian table tennis coaches who featured in the event would have travelled outside the country to participate in the ITTF level One Coaching course.

To him , the Governor'sfeat has made it possile for them to acquint themselves with modern techniques of the sport,addin that the coaches would not have had the opprotunity to register to participate in the exercise because it was free to them unlike when they would be compelled to pay if the course is being staged outside the nation.

According to him, th coaches who excell would have the opportunity to register forthe level 2 ITTF coaching course, thus creating an enabling environment for the development of table tennis as well as the coaches following the calibre of ping pongers that attended the cusre which was designed to discover the players, stressing that in a couple of years Nigeria, Lagos State would reap the fruit oof the course.

He is optimisticthat other states of the Federation would rush to the state to buy table tennis players based on the quality of training they would have acquired which would be an advantage over other table tennis players in the country, adding that State's ping pngers would be marketable nd also become a good source of income for the players.

One of the registered table tennis coach, Okunlola Lawal and a technical director of Nigeria Para Table Tennis Federation,who had participated in a coaching course which Bose Kaffo did in the past, said the course would help him to supervise the coaches that would train the Federation's players ahead of major events.

To Secretay of the Lagos State Table Tennis Association,Uthman Ola- Okunnu, the course was a welcoming development towards the growwth of the sport in the State.