Deaf Athletes block National Stadium Entrance Gate, Protest over exclusion from National Sports Festival
Workers at the National Institute for Sports, and Sportsmen and women training at the National Stadium Surulere, Lagos were locked out on Monday morning by Deaf Athletes who were protesting the non inclusion of Deaf Sports among the scoring sports at the forthcoming National Sports Festival in Enugu, tagged “Enugu 2026.
Carrying placards, the protesters said they don’t know why deaf sports was removed form the National Sports Festival in the first place.
Speaking at the scene of the one day protest ,Captain of Nigeria Deaf Sport Mr. Badmus Nurudeen, said deaf sports athletes train from January to December every year without having any competition. And now they have also been removed them from the National Sports Festival .
He said ‘many of us have families whom we feed from the little we get from sport. Now, you are denying us the right. What do you want us to do.
How can we feed our families. Do they want us to die of hunger?.
I am happy that the Special Assistant to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Sports , Hon Anthony Adeyinka Adeboye is here. He has assured us that the issue will be seriously addressed and somethiing positive will be done.
Assistant Technical Director and National Deaf football team coach, Mr. Audu Emmanuel, said deaf athletes are as equal as other Nigerians hence should not be discriminated against.
He argued against the description of deaf sports as disable sports, stating that such is wrong, noting that deaf
sports have their own Olympic Games known as Deaflympics which Nigeria has participated twice in the past through qualifications.
Meanwhile, deaf interpreter, Prince Adesoji appealed to authorities concerned to dialogue with the deaf athletes for a way forward to avoid further protests.
The pretest which started at 7am continued until 9am before the intervention of the Area Commander of the Area C zonal Command of the Nigeria Police Force and Hon Anthony Adeyinka Adeboye, Senior Special Assistance to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Grassroot Sports
