Chisom Egbuchulam wins Footballer of the year award

Rangers International of Enugu forward Chishom Egbuchulam has emerged the 2016 Nigerian Sports Award Footballer of the Year. Egbuchulam, who helped Flying Antelopes to win 2015/2016 Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) after 32 years, beat Manchester City forward, Kelechi Iheanacho and Wikki Tourists hit-man Godwin Obaje to the ward.

The plaque was handed to him on Friday at the award ceremony held at the Banquet Hall Eko Hotel and suites, Lagos.

Similarly, The Team of The Year award was given to Rangers International of Enugu for winning NPFL title after 32 years ahead of Dream Team VI.

Also, Special Recognition Award was given out to some deserving sport personalities. The first was given out to the League Management Company (LMC) chairman Shehu Dikko in recognition of his great job of turning around the Nigerian League.

The next Special Recognition Award went to Nigeria first sporting heroes among who are the Nduka Ugbade-led 1985 Under-16 FIFA World Cup winning team and they were represented by two members of the team, Imama Amapakabo and Jonathan Akpoborie.

The third Special Recognition Award went to Atlanta ’96 Olympic Gold Medal-winning football team, captained by Kano Nwankwo, represented at the event by the trio of Emmanuel Babayaro, Dosu Joseph and Victor Ikpeba.

Also the 4X400 Nigerian Quartet Team that won silver but was later upgraded to Gold with the ban of the US team at Sydney 2000 were also given the Special Recognition Award.

The duo of Maureen Madu and Joseph Yobo won the Special Recognition Awards for being the first ever Nigerian Woman footballer to achieve 100 caps and first Nigerian Man footballer to achieve 100 caps respectively.

However, Men and Women of the Nigerian Paralympics team dominated the 5th edition of the award as Kehinde Paul and Lucy Ejike emerged Sport-man and Sport-woman of the year respectively.

The duo also won the Special Sport Person of the Year (Men) and Special Sport Person of the Year (Women) Categories. Kehinde Paul won gold medal in the Powerlifting Men’s – 65Kg category while Ejike Lucy not only won gold in the 79kg, 86kg and 61kg powerlifting event respectively at the 2016 Paralympics games, but also broke the Paralympic Record (PR) and World Record (WR) by lifting 136kg, followed by a lift of 138kg, and then a massive lift of 142kg.