PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 2012
PAGE 12
EDIT ORIAL EDITORIAL
General Henry Adefope (1926-2012) M ajor-General Henry Edmund Olufemi Adefope (rtd) has joined the league of high profile sports personalities that have passed on in the last 12 months. Before him, former Super Eagles players Uche Okafor, Olubayo Adefemi and renowned quarter miler Sunday Bada had taken their talents and wealth of experience to the great beyond. General Adefope, who served as an International Olympics Committee (IOC) member from 1985 to 2006 and then an honorary member, passed on March 11. He read medicine at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, United Kingdom, graduating in 1953. After 10 years of practice, he opted to enlist in the then fledgling Nigerian Army in 1963, that at a time when a career in the military hardly appealed to young professionals of his era. Deployed to the army's medical corps as a pioneer officer, he rose to the position of the army Director of Medical Services. In between, he was Federal Commissioner for Labour (1975-1978) and Federal Commissioner for External Affairs (1978-1979). He retired from the army along with General Olusegun Obasanjo who, as Head of Sate, handed power over to elected President Shehu Shagari in 1979. As the man responsible for the implementation of Nigeria's activist foreign policy, Adefope was in the thick of the struggle to dismantle the apartheid regime in South Africa.
Nigeria's role in the liberation struggle in Southern Africa generally was so critical that it was appropriately described as a “frontline state.” Adefope had an even more glorious sojourn in sports where he served as the President of the Nigeria Olympic Committee from 1967 to 1976. In that position, he chaired the organizing
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Unlike his latter day successors, Adefope's unalloyed patriotism demonstrated by consistent selfless service saw him draw a fine line between self aggrandizement and public service. He was an officer gentleman, shaped by the culture of discipline, dedication and loyalty only known in the military committee for the second All Africa Games in Lagos in 1973, the first of the two rare occasions Nigeria hosted the continental fiesta. Later, he was elected as the vice-president of the Commonwealth Games Federation, a position he held from 1974 to 1982. In an apparent appreciation of his tremendous contribution to the development of the Commonwealth Games, Adefope was elected into the
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executive committee of the IOC in 1985, becoming only the second Nigerian to hold that position after late Sir Adetokunbo Ademola. As IOC member, Adefope was on the commission that picked host cities for the 2000 and 2004 summer Olympic Games as well as the 2002 winter games. The 2002 games ran into some hiccups bordering on allegation of compromise, for which the General and his colleagues were investigated and but eventually cleared of any wrongdoing. Besides, Adefope who played football, tennis, cricket, several sports, served in different capacities on the IOC commissions: Tripartite, Apartheid and Olympism, Medical, and Study for preparations for the 1996 Olympic Games, and Sport and Environment. Adefope belongs to that era of transparency in sports administration as he presided over a frictionless NOC executive and even extended that competence to the international bodies where he ably represented Nigeria, nay the African continent. Unlike his latter day successors, Adefope's unalloyed patriotism demonstrated by consistent selfless service saw him draw a fine line between self aggrandizement and public service. He was an officer gentleman, shaped by the culture of discipline, dedication and loyalty only known in the military, one whose word was his bond, a sports administrator par excellence. Adieu, Henry Edmund Olufemi Adefope.
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