Olympian Emmanuel Oghenejobo Peters, said that planned martial arts festival tagged ‘Agoma Opens’ billed for Benin City May 13-18 will expose young and emerging martial artists that can represent Nigeria at international meets in the near future.

Oghenejobo-Peters who won a demonstration silver in taekwando at the Barcelona 1992 Olympics stated that over 800 martial artists will participate in the tournament. These include taekwando, karate, kickboxing and judo players from all over the country.

“It is going to be a festival of martial arts. We are expecting to see the very best of Nigerian martial arts practitioners and not only that there are a crop of youngsters who are hoping to upstage the older athletes. “There are lots of youths out there who are just looking for an avenue to express themselves and so in our little way we came with the idea of running the tournament to give a platform for martial artists to express themselves.

“The organising committee has been meeting and things are taking shape gradually,” Oghenejobo-Peters said.

He added that overall best players in the male and female categories of each of the disciplines will go home with N50, 000. Oghenejobo- Peters is the first Nigerian to be certified by the taekwondo world ruling body as an international judge. He narrowly missed officiating at the last London Olympics, as he was one level short in the selection criteria.  “I have been upgraded by the world ruling body. And so hopefully I will be at the Brazil 2016 Olympics as an official. I can only wish that I will be able to make an impact just like I did when I was a player.”