By Eddie Akalonu
Ngozi Mammah, ex-national and African swimming queen, has, in Lagos, welcomed government’s announcement of scholarships up to university level to members of Nigeria’s  silver wining team, Super Falconets, at the just ended FIFA Women’s  U-20 World Cup, saying education is good foundation for life. “Well, award of scholarships to study is very good because education is foundation.

•TOUGH ENCOUNTER: Falconets player battles for ball possession with a German player in the final of the FIFA U-20 Women World Cup in Germany.

It gives one good take-off point for those who want to further their education, especially  girls, many of whom may not have the opportunity to go beyond primary and secondary schools. So if they are to go beyond what they have at present, it makes a lot of sense,” she said while praising the players for putting up an outstanding performance in the competition.

“I could not watch the full final match because of tension and when I couldn’t bear to sit through it I left. All the same, I was glad they made the outing successful,” Mammah  stated.

“A wonderful performance  deserves good reward because those girls have done the country proud out there in the world and it has been a long time we had our team that played so well in an international competition such that everyone was proud despite the fact we did not win the cup, and such performance deserves equivalent reward.

And I like to suggest also that they be given land or houses or even money in the sense that not all of them may have the opportunity to utilise such scholarship by going to school and, because in our country, some athletes who bagged scholarships in the past had very terrible experiences in that immediately the government that announced the scholarships left power, those succeeding them completely forgot all about catering for their education. Some who had their school fees paid for the very  first year and after that were left to fend for themselves”.

The sports star, who competed in swimming between 1977 and 1988 winning several won several laurels in the process for the country , which may not have attracted real compensation as are given successful athletes of today, won three gold medals  at the All West Africa Games in Lagos in 1977, in the 100m, 200m breast stroke and the 4x 100m medley relay,

These days, that skeptics and  mercenaries in sports  posit that blacks cannot do well in swimming, they forget the fact that Mammah, a former assistant coach of the swimming federation and later organising secretary for karate federation,  had to her credit two gold medals from the  3rd All Africa Games in Algiers in 1978 from the 100m breaststroke the 200m breaststroke or that she won the 100m event with an African record of 1.21secs , in addition to grabbing a bronze medal from the 4th  All edition held in 1987  in Nairobi, Kenya among several other competitions she represented the country and flew high.

“Yes, I’m in favour of scholarships for the girls. However, when I look back to my days to what some of us passed through, I prefer they be rewarded with land, houses or even instant cash so that you hold onto what you get now should the authorities fail to honour the sholarships later on ,” she  stated.

She explained why: “I think they should give the footballers cash, house or land because for academic  scholarships, there was a case of an athlete that  was given university scholarship in those days, they just sent the school fees once to the school and forgot about it completely.

So when the athlete graduated, because the school fees were not paid over the years, the school held on to the certificate and refused to release it unless the outstanding fees were paid.

I think the late Chief M.K.O Abiola came to rescue the person when he heard about it, he sent the full fees to the school abroad upon which the certificate of the athlete was released. I hope such tales may not happen again.”