August, 29 2021
There’s no better way to introduce this man in question, who has succeeded to have spent 28 good years in Tokyo, Japan. A Nigerian who has caved a name for himself as far as the world is concerned. It’s a pleasure once again to meet with chief Kennedy, How are you doing?
“I pray good. Thank you very much for this wonderful introduction, I appreciate it so much”.
Good to know that you’ve been part of sport, you have supported sport in Lagos state, as a patron you supported sport in Imo state. What is that driving force?
“You can see if you watch it on television, you’ll find out that people doing sport are very energetic, very healthy. For a country to be very healthy, there is need for the promotion of sports and nothing more than that. So we need to promote sport from all and believing from the old people, from the aged people to do sport because that will still keep the country healthy. Health, the budget for health problems will be higher, yes, so that’s why we have interest in supporting anything about sport and sport related activities”
What is the symbol or identification they know Nigeria with in Japan, that as soon as they see you they want to identify with something?
“When I became the president of the Nigerian Union in Japan, now in my second tenure, I made this statement that whenever a Japanese sees a Nigerian, they will say soccer, that means they recognize you as a soccer giant, that’s all. Then I asked this question when I launched my mobile application NAHFCONNECTS to Africa, I keep on asking, Is it only soccer we can do? We can do many things. We have a lot of things. Therefore, a diplomatic turn has that we should push further to let the Japanese people know and the world know that Nigeria has a lot of talents intact in diverse fields, so they should utilize that. They know Nigeria with only soccer, when you mention Nigeria they say ha soccerwhich means you are from a very soccer playing country. They start mentioning Kanu Nwankwo, JJ Okocha, those prominent footballers”.
What can you make up of team Nigeria?
“To be very very honest, I followed the Olympics and I’m following the Paralympics games. First and foremost, let me inform you that Paralympics is energizing us seriously. In the sense that when you see physically challenged people trying their best, it tells who are not physically challenged that if this people can perform this way then what am I doing. We need to be very very strong and solid and do our best as humans to support what we are doing. So I am definitely very very happy about the Paralympian’s Contingents from Nigeria. To be very honest they’ve done great and on behalf of all the Nigerians in Japan, I’m the president of the Nigerian Union in Japan, the Vice president and regional presidents under us, we are really been supportive of what they are doing. The only problem that we had was the coronavirus. Which never allowed us to come out in mass to support our contingents, the way we are supposed to. This is a very big problem, I think this Olympics is going to be the highest Olympics that will go down in history, as the first in history that Olympics has been done without spectators. They won’t even allow us to go and meet our athletes. They won’t allow us to welcome them officially in a hotel like this. We stay away from them”.
The president also greeted Nigerians in Japanese and assured them of their safety.