NSF exclusion: Deaf athletes plan fresh protest on October 26

Nigeria’s deaf athletes have concluded plans for another protest on Monday, October 26, over their exclusion from the National Sports Festival, Saturday PUNCH reports.

Their captain, Badmus Nurudeen, announced the plan at the National Stadium in Surulere, Lagos, on Friday after the athletes waited for hours for Adeyinka Adeboye, the Senior Special Assistant to President Bola Tinubu on Grassroots Sports Development.

Nurudeen said Adeboye had failed to keep a promise made to them and expressed great anger over the disappointment. He said the athletes will not back down until deaf sports are included in the festival.

“This means they want us to be stealing to feed our families. Many of us are married with children, and our only means of livelihood is sports,” he said.

He also said deaf athletes must not be treated as second-class citizens or discriminated against on national matters, and that they go from January to December without a single tournament.

“I have told our members not to take laws into their hands nor resort to violence. That’s why we are embarking on peaceful protests,” he added.

The athletes first protested on Monday, October 19, blocking the gate of the National Stadium at 7am. Adeboye met them after the police invited him. He promised to speak to the Director-General of the National Sports Commission, Bukola Olopade, and the President of the Paralympic Committee of Nigeria, Sunday Odebode. He also said a meeting with deaf sports representatives would hold on Thursday, October 22.

The Assistant Technical Director of the Nigeria Deaf Sports Federation, Emmanuel Audu, said it was the fourth time deaf sports had been removed from the festival since the federation was formed in 1996. He said deaf sports were made compulsory under a previous sports minister but changed to optional by the new administration without explanation.

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“If para and deaf are both removed, fine. But para are there and only deaf are removed. That is discrimination against deaf people. Para events are very many, and no single deaf event is there,” Audu said.

Audu added that deaf table tennis was dropped while the hearing and para categories kept it, despite a promise from Olopade to include deaf sports. Lagos State deaf athletics coach Lanre Agboola said the athletes had trained daily since January.

“They should stop removing deaf sports from the festival. They should make it compulsory and no more optional,” he said.

Deaf sports stakeholders also staged a protest in Benin City, Edo State, on Monday.

The festival, tagged the Coal City Games, will hold in Enugu from November 27 to December 11, 2026