By Victor Enyinnaya on February 19, 2018

All round performing and multiple awards winning Governor Nyesom Wike, of Rivers State of Nigeria will soon be bestowed with the award of AIPS- Africa Power of Sports.

The AIPS –Africa formerly known as Africa Sports Journalists Union (ASJU) is the umbrella body for practicing journalists in Africa and is affiliated to the International Press Association (AIPS).

It will be recalled that the former ASJU in 1980 installed Bashorun M.K.O Abiola as the first Pillar of Sports in Africa. Since then, no other personality has been given such continental honour.

But the President of the continental body, Mitchel Obi of Nigeria has written to the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike whose government sponsored the just concluded African Wrestling Championship, that he would soon be installed as AIPS – Africa Power of Sports.

Daily Sports gathered that Governor Wike will be the first personality to be so honoured. According to Obi, the conferment of the award “is indeed a badge of honour, freely and independently considered and granted”.

He noted that the award derived its inspiration from the great Nelson Mandela’s sports school of thought which holds that ‘sports have the power to change the world’.

“We think strongly that this would serve as an apt catalyst to His Excellency as he strives to put sports on the front burner of his developmental strides,” Obi said.

At world level, only four personalities had been honoured by AIPS, the last being the immediate past president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Jacques Rogge of Belgium.

Governor Wike is therefore the fifth man in the world and the first African to be so honoured. The award adds to the several other ones conferred on him by various news organisations.

Source Daily Sports

Posted February 19, 2018

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