Women From Nigeria

"In my first marriage, my husband wasn’t really supportive of me being a coach. But I am stubborn; coaching is what I do and what I love, and so I went for it. One of the major reasons that marriage failed was because of my career. We were together for 12 years, but there was a lot of quarrelling going on, especially when I had to travel for competitions or when I had to go to the stadium to train my athletes. I wasn’t ready to give up my career as a coach, so I formally ended the marriage in October, 2021. When you hear that a lot of women had to quit coaching because of the lack of support of their spouses, that’s actually the truth."

"I will also like to use this medium to appeal to all my fellow athletes, both young and old, that no matter what you think you are facing now, I want you to just believe in yourself and continually tell yourself that the seeming punishments and disappointments of today if endured will lead to untold glories in the nearest future."

"Agnes Osazuwa has won the last women's 100m semifinal, clocking 11.35s to beat Gloria Asumnu who finished 2nd #NigeriaOlympicTrials"

"The number one reason many female coaches are not encouraged to stick with this career is the lack of support, and what I mean by support is about the Federation having your back. There are not many female coaches. There are about 10 of us in the country that I know of right now, but we are not being encouraged and supported. We need exposure. We can only get better when we are exposed, but we are not getting that from the Federation. A lot of the time you see a team consisting of four male coaches and one female coach, or none at all; where is the gender equity? These are some of the reasons women give up on coaching, because we are not getting the right support."

"For me and the rest of the quartet, it was as if that moment should just draw on and on. Having put in so much work and now seeing it been rewarded with a bronze medal at such an epoch making event was more than words could describe. Little did we know that fate had a whole different surprise package for us all a couple of years down the line."

"It was with mixed feelings that we got the news of the disqualification of the Russia’s women relay quartet due to a doping infraction by one of her team members. On the one hand we had this joy of becoming Olympic silver medallists, but on the other, a feeling of slight disappointment knowing that the winning quartet had an undue advantage due to one of its members spiking her system with banned substances. This type of revelation comes with a bit of a sad feeling considering the amount of work you honestly put in and believing (erroneously as it turns out) that everyone was competing on a level playing field. And when you now find out that some persons had undue advantage due to the use of banned substances and it deprives you of what should have been rightly yours at the time, it gives you a feeling of sadness and slight depression and disappointment in and towards the system."

"At the 2008 Beijing Olympics where I and my fellow team mates (Oludamola Osayomi, Gloria Kemasuode, Franca Idoko and Halimat Ismaila) qualified through to the finals and ended up winning a bronze medal in the women’s 4x100m relay, it was nothing short of an electrifying moment. It was as if the world stood still because all the hard work, discipline and sacrifice just paid off."

"We have prospects for the Rio Games. We are in camp right now and we are working hard. The athletes want to go to Rio and win medals and do the nation (Nigeria) proud. We are all working together to ensure that we go to Rio to win medals and do the nation proud. The athletes want to win because they know that there is something good awaiting them and they stand the chance of making good contacts thereafter. These are the future stars of Nigeria. This kind championship was used to discover the likes of Endurance Ojokolo, Blessing Okagbare, Obinna Metuh and many other stars. It is a step in the right direction and should be sustained."

"It really gladdens my heart to have my bronze medal upgraded to a silver medal because it just simply gives me the drive to work even harder and have a rededication to a clean sports for us all."

"If we don’t want this democracy, it is better we forget about it."

"I don't cherry pick my life"

"What Gets Me by is Courage"

"Complexities in the society in which we live keep increasing, there is need to shift the status quo and review the legal framework."

"The responsibilty of government at all levels ,is ensuring the protection and welfare of its people."

"Nothing is more important than your Mental Health and well being."

"Bring out the women. They have the ability and the strength. They are able to excel."

"No one is above the law and that government decisions must be made only by applying known legal and moral principles."

"It is for yourself to act now. Bring out yourself and let people know your worth."

"Please feel free to choose your side or better still disassociate."

"If I had to put it down to one thing that would make a woman successful, it would be to keep learning and keep applying what you have learnt. And once we keep learning and keep applying what we have learnt, we keep stepping up one more step."

"The doctrine of the Rule of Law limits the powers of government and helps to prevent dictatorship as well as to protect the rights of the people."

"Midwives are absolutely crucial to achieving substantial improvements in maternal health. Midwives empower mothers to make life-saving choices for their children before, during, and after childbirth. A skilled midwife can provide expert care that ensures the survival of newborns during the first fragile 24 hours of life, and enables them to not only survive, but also thrive well into childhood. Midwives empower women at a time when their health is at its most vulnerable. Midwives empower women in a way that can help shape the future health of both mother and baby. After all, we know that an empowered woman is a health-seeking woman for herself, her family and her community."

"A lot of us have grown up with cultures where strong women have worked very hard but they have not necessarily tried to rise because they have felt that leadership is the province of men… So I believe that our biggest challenge as women is to be able to step forward and to actually lead."

"Having represented Nigeria twice at the Olympic games, I can confidently say it is unarguably the pinnacle of any athlete’s dream and getting a medal in such an epic event can be deemed to be one of the highest achievements and a dream come true that any athlete can hope for."

"When Shoplifters (2018) came out, my husband and my auntie kept telling me, "You've got to watch this film," and I kept putting it off. I'm quite bad in the cinema, honestly. Generally, if you put me in a dark room, I'll want to go to sleep. I'm dyslexic as well, so reading the subtitles in foreign films can be really hard for me. But watching Shoplifters was, for me, like the first time I actually read a novel. I usually just read plays or short stories, but when I read a novel for the first time, I felt like I finally got to experience the full breadth of a story. Shoplifters was the first time a foreign film really opened me up like that. Reading the subtitles wasn't a chore, and my heart really broke open. I wasn't expecting that. I thought the subtitles would create a separation between the film and I, but they didn't. It’s a perfect film. The acting in it is really human and really honest, too. There's no frills in those performances. It's just, this is who we are, how we feel, what we’re doing, and how we're living."

"I have left Kristianstad because my contract with the club was over. I had a wonderful time at the club but I have resolved leave the team, at least move to a new environment for a fresh challenge in Sweden. Well, I am grateful to Kristianstad and wish them good luck next season, For me, I have decided to sign for Djurgarden for a season."

"I have really liked the idea of moving to the capital [Stockholm] and it's a dream come true. I cannot wait to meet my new teammates and also looking forward to the new challenge."

"My mum was a strong woman but she didn’t really understand what the sport is all about. She was there for me whenever she can and whatever she could do for me, she tried her best."

"They (Government of Nigeria) must catch the athletes when they are young. We started very young. They must encourage the athletes with good incentives to be able to compete."

"We were already at the 1976 Montreal, Olympics in Canada and waiting for the opening ceremony before we pulled out of the competition a day before it. Everybody was disappointed because of the hard work we had put in preparing for the Olympics for four years but it wasn’t the end of the world."

"My love for track and field made it fun and interesting for me to go to extra length to achieve the results I got. I would have won three gold medals at the 1978 African Games but I picked up a groin injury that forced me to pull out of the 100m hurdles. At the 1973 African Games, I competed in the high jump, 100m hurdle, and long jump and I clinched the gold medals in the three events. I was thrilled to win the gold medals as it was just fun for me then."

"The Commonwealth Games gold medal in 1974 in New Zealand in the long jump event was special. I was close to winning the gold in the hurdles too but I tripped towards it and ended up with a bronze medal."

"I will tell the athletes to work hard and not to let sports get into their heads. They must complement their endowed talents with education. It gives them something good to hold on to after their retirement. Also as an athlete, you need to be disciplined and make up your mind on what you want. You must determine what you want to do with your life."

"We (Super Falconets) played them (New Zealand) during the qualifiers for the World Cup and I came on in the second half in that game too. By the end of it, I’d scored five goals."

"Running and jumping came to me naturally. It was while I took to athletics which was known as track and field then. I took part in basketball, badminton, table tennis, and a few other sports when I was growing up but it was athletics that I stuck to."

"I have not been lucky in marriage, but right from my childhood, I have never been stubborn. You see, in the whole of this Sokoto, anybody that cheats me, because of this unfortunate issue that I found myself in, I am asking Allah to avenge me on those who cheated me."

"I’ve forgiven everyone."

"I didn’t get much encouragement from home at all because they didn’t know too much about sports. My mum wasn’t that educated enough to know what sports is all about."

"I scored with my very first touch. That’s football, though, isn’t it? Sometimes you play well and things don’t work out. But today I went out there and found the back of the net straightaway."

"I remember that game (final between the Super Falconets and Germany at the 2010 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup). I was on the bench feeling really nervous and apprehensive, hoping that my team would score. It’s going to be a different story this time. In 2010 they were playing at home, with all their fans behind them, but that won’t be the case here. This final against Germany is also coming at a good time for me, because I’ve got a lot more experience now."

"The only thing that’s in my mind is that I can’t lose two finals, and both of them to Germany. We’ve got to win this Sunday. I don’t care how. And we’re going to do it too."

"I’m dreaming about that semi-final. I don’t know if I’ll start the game – that’s up to the coach – but I do know that no matter who plays, they will have to give their all because we want to be in the final."

"Whatever judgment Brussels Tribunal (Tribunal correctionnel) hands down on 12 December to five law enforcement officers tried in connection with the death of Semira Adamu, during an attempt to deport her forcibly by air in September 1998, it has always been clear that governments and state officers have a responsibility to ensure respect for the physical safety and inherent dignity of all people in their custody, including deportees."

"Semira was vulnerable to various racialised intersections of exclusion: She was Black, female, young and ambitious She was attractive, eloquent and well educated She was an asylum-seeker whose application had been rejected She was an undocumented person with an 'illegal' status She was a deportable detainee who was deemed expendable She was a whistleblower and defender of detainee rights."

"The death of Semira is part of a series of complaints and is the result of several new laws to get asylum in Belgium."

"I suppose you could say I’m a goal specialist. I just try to get in the area so I can round moves off by putting the ball in the back of the net. That’s what I’m there for."

"I was woken at 6.30 a.m. and given twenty minutes to prepare for departure... When we arrived at the airport my hands and feet were bound and I was thrown into an isolation cell for over three hours. At 11.15 they forced me onto the plane. I began to scream and cry as I was surrounded by six gendarmes and two men from Sabena. The airline men pushed me around and one held a cushion to my face. He almost suffocated me. These men were supposed to accompany me all the way to Lome. Passengers intervened at this point, saying that they would get off the plane if the men did not let me go."

"As commander of the security detachment at the national airport I believe that I am officially responsible for the death of Semira Adamu."

"Education was very important to me as an athlete back then. I took it seriously right from when I was in Nigeria and even when I got to the United States and ran for the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the coaches were trying to make athletics the major priority. I made them know that I came to the US for my education while athletics is secondary. I made sure I got my degrees first. I know that with the education I have something to fall back on in the case of injury or retirement from the sport."

"It’s impossible not to be nervous when you’re on the bench! It’s far worse than starting because you want to get out there and help your teammates. And when they make a mistake you think: ‘Ahhhh. I would have done it this way or that way’. Sometimes, though, you just have to sit there and watch and cheer them on."