COCK CROWS AT AFROTRADOSPORTS

The African culture which is deeply rooted in nature and especially in farming, may be crop farming, fish or animal farming, believes in the MORNING. We believe that ‘live’ begins in the morning and the time keeper of the Morning is the cock. The cock crows to sign on the DAWN, the earliest part of the morning and it is the morning that shows the day.

 

 

The sign of the early morning in cultural Africa is in the natural tune of the morning which in other words could also be called the natural “National” anthem of the MORNINGS.

In Africa, MORNING means the beginning of the business of the day. You have to wake up in the morning and the natural mechanism of waking up in the morning, is the cock that crows at dawn.

 

The act of being woken up in the morning by cock in the natural African setting, was aptly and enthusiastically demonstrated in the mascot of the 8^th All Africa Games (Abuja 2003) with the slogan “WAKIE-WAKIE”, urging Africa to wake up! Wake up to do what?

To wake up to do a lot of things. Yes! to wake up to join the rest of the world in the modern age; the modern civilization I guess. To wake up to promote her culture. To wake up to promote her own sports.

To wake up to take her rightful position among the continents of the world. To wake up to be at shoulder to shoulder with the other continents of the world in development.

 

To promote inter and intra ethnic peace and religions. To promote peace and progress in all spheres of life. To promote education and good health. To promote fight against HIV/AIDS, diabetes, cancer, malaria, polio and other diseases.

 

To promote modernity through industrialization, science and technology. To promote happiness of the people and everybody living inside the continent of Africa without any discrimination and to banish hunger by feeding the inhabitants of the continent of Africa.

 

Really there are many things that 8^th All African Games, through the spririt of African Renaissance achieved for the continent. Nigeria took the bull by the horn by going the extra mile, in  presenting for the first time, at 8^th All Africa Games,  three African Traditional Sports as demonstration events. Since its inception in 1965, the All Africa Games had never featured any African indigenous sports at any of the earlier seven editions of the game. The three sports” Ayo (seeds’ game), Dambe (traditional one hand boxing) and Kokawa (traditional wrestling) and the spirit of African renaissance in the demonstration of the games was this slogan: ALL AFRICA GAMES IS NOT COMPLETE WITHOUT AFRICAN INDIGENOUS SPORTS.

 

The sports were demonstrated with the approval of the then Supreme Council for Sports in Africa (SCSA), the solid supports of COJA through Dr. Amos Adamu and the dogged determination of the Traditional Sports Federation of Nigeria (TFSN) under the leadership of Mallam Elias Yusuf.

 

It was a very good wake up on the part of the three afore mentioned organizations. May God bless all the people involved, amen. Certainly, it was a good cock crow for African Indigenous sports. Lest I forget, Para-soccer was also demonstrated under Para soccer Federation of Nigeria. To confirm that it was really a good cock crow for African indigenous sports, the first Conference of African Indigenous Sports was held on 14^th and 18^th of October, 2003 in Abuja.

There and then, the Confederation of African Indigenous Sports was formed with election of some executives and a decision calling on Nigeria to organize a Congress for African Nations on Traditional Indigenous Sports at a later date.

 

In my mind, that should have been the water shed of promoting African Indigenous Sports at the Continental level. We shall talk more on that later. Now for more on Afrotradosports information, check it out at www.afrotradosports.com, “no dulling” African Indigenous Sports. This is from Africa to Africans and the world. The two main slogans of Afrotradosports.com are: SHOWCASING AFRICAN INDIGENOUS SPORTS TO THE WORLD AND TAKING AFRICAN INDIGENOUS SPORTS TO THE NEXT LEVEL.

Coming back to the title of this article: COCK CROWS AT AFROTRADOSPORTS, last in; first out; for cock to crow at Afrotradosports, it is action. The full meaning of Afrotradosports is; African Traditional Sports. For cock to crow at Afrotradosports, it simply to signal, that action begins in all its ramifications at afrotradosports.com. The question is, what is the essence of afrotradosports? To me it’s an opportunity to create an avenue for discussion, discovery, documentation, x-ray, exposure etc. for African Indigenous Sports.

Afrotradosports is out to inform, educate, document, entertain, motivate, mobilize and uplift African Traditional Indigenous Sports through inspiring actions.

It is essential to draw the attention of my readers to the fact that the level of present popularity of African Traditional / Indigenous Sports is at the lowest ebb of global dominance when compared with the level of the Indigenous/Traditional Sports of the other four major continents of the world (such as North America, South America, Asia and Europe).

 

Europe has gone ahead to transform her Traditional / Indigenous Sports to global sports. For example, all or most of the track and field athletic events of today started in Ancient Greece as traditional sports being celebrated, at Mt. Olympus in 77BC, (in written memory) in honour of  Zeus, Greek’s spiritual god, as the Ancient Olympic Games. Traditional sports from Asia, such as Taekwondo, Karate, Judo etc have gone global.

 

America (North and South) Indigenous Sports like Basketball, Volleyball, Baseball, Beach Volleyball etc have gone round the whole world as global/Olympics sports. Africa has over a hundred Indigenous/Traditional Sports. Some of these sports have probably gone into extinction (against UNESCO ideals) or would soon go into extinction if nothing is done now!

 

Hence the value of establishing this forum in providing an avenue of opportunity for our African traditional sports to be on the soap-box, to wash our dirty linen outside, so that we may get more than ordinary attention, because African traditional sports need more than mundane attention, not just to catch up with the other continents on global sports but to make our own African continent’s contribution to world’s sports development, practically and immediately too.

 

This maiden Article on Afrotradosports.com is here to announce the beginning of a new era in African Traditional / Indigenous Sports. Afrotradosports says:

 

This is the beginning

Of a new beginning

You better begin

With us at this beginning

    Or you will later begin

   To search for the beginning

   Of this new beginning.

 

Mallam Elias Foluso Yusuf