Canaan Table Tennis Club of Calabar, representing Nigeria’s female set of table tennis players to the Africa Table Tennis Clubs’ Championships in Agadir, Morocco, are in the semi-finals of the tourney after they beat the home team and ACB Table Tennis club of Algeria, to advance.
The team made up of Offiong Edem, Cecilia Otu Akpan, Funke Oshonaike, Janet Friday Effiom and Coach Richard Edem, www.calitown.com gathered, had to travel to the tournament with tickets bought on credit as the strike action currently embarked upon by Labour in the state made it impossible for the Cross River State Government to fund the trip. We also gathered that the team is playing and representing Nigeria with no support from the Sports Ministry in Abuja and is having a tough time contending with accommodation and feeding costs. Painfully, this team appears to be going through the same experience it went through on June 28, 2013, when it won a bronze medal in Congo Brazaville, under similar circumstances.
Nigeria’s male representatives at the tourney, Civil Defence and Union Bank Table Tennis Clubs could however not make it in the male category as they were walked over owing to their non-appearance
