Paralympics gold medalist and president Nigeria Paralympics Committee (NPC), Monday Emoghawve (MON) has advocated for the scraping of Paralympics Games and merged with the Olympics. He said this will fully help integrate physically challenged athletes into the society. Mr Emoghawve said this while leading the paralympians that made Nigeria proud last year in London to receive their awards as the LEADERSHIP Sports Persons of the Year held at the International Conference Centre Abuja.
According to him, things are fast developing and there is urgent need to do whatever is right for athletes within the Paralympic movement. “The coming together of Olympics and Paralympic at the same time will not only be the nice thing to do, but will make the game more competitive and interesting for both the athletes and the spectators. Para-sports are very interesting games and coming together of the physically challenged and abled athletes in one Olympic Games like is done in Commonwealth Games will make the games more attractive. The physically challenged athletes themselves will feel honoured and see themselves part of the society rather than feel isolated under Paralympics Games. The name para is discriminatory and the earlier the IOC and the world in general start to look into this just the way the president International Paralympics Committee (IPC), Sir Philip Craven has advocated for a long time ago, the better it will be,” he said.
NPC boss during the annual LEADERSHIP Newspaper award where four Nigerian paralympians that did Nigeria proud at the last Paralympics Games held in London were honoured described the award as a morale boost urging other corporate organisations to emulate LEADERSHIP Newspapers Group in recognising and identifying with people living with disability. “I commend LEADERSHIP Newspapers for identify with people living with disability. I see the award as morale boost and it will spur the athletes to do more because they have been recognised and hope other private organisations will emulate what LEADERSHIP has done today.”