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Despite Anxiety, I dream to Achieve and to Inspire – Anyanacho

Published

5 years ago

December 31, 2019

African Bronze medalist, Elizabeth Anyanacho, has been one of the best female talents to emerge in recent years on the Nigeria Taekwondo circuit. The number one seed has picked up an impressive SEVEN GOLD Medals, One Silver and One Bronze in the past Nine National Tournaments dating back to 2017 and has been undefeated since December 2017.

In 2019, the 20-year-old has a stellar year after she won three national gold medals and two international medals – a gold at the World Taekwondo [WT] G-1 ranked Nigeria Taekwondo International Open and a Bronze at the WT G-4 ranked 12th All African Games, efforts which saw the talented competitors break into the world’s top 100 competitors with a current world ranking of 86.

The gangly 6 ft 2” tall youth, who is a student of the Federal University of Technology Owerri has surprised many with her natural physical abilities and development.

In this interview, the soft-spoken African Bronze Medalist speaks of her Taekwondo journey, the impact of the last All African Games on her FUTO experience and her projections for the future.

Winning a major international medal at the last all African games made you an overnight celebrity in FUTO. How are you coping with this development?

By nature, I always keep a low profile, so I do not really think it was that publicized in school. I keep my head down and ensure I do not attract too much attention so I can cope with my studies and training, which is very hectic. I do not think I am famous. I am just happy I won an international medal for my country and it reflected positively on my university, who have been very supportive.

Quite a few countries indicated interest for you to come & train with their teams. But you passed up on some of these opportunities because of your school schedule. What informed your decision?

My school schedule is very tight, and it is so hectic being a student-athlete. I do not want to lose so much school time that I would have an extra year, and this is why I could not accept some of these invitations as it clashed with important academic periods. But I would really love to have more international training experiences so I could learn more from other teams and people. Hopefully, when I am done in two years, I can have more international training camping experiences.

How important is education to you?

Completing my education is important because an athlete will retire someday and it is this kind of investment in education today that will make it easier in the future as it will increase the opportunities available to one.

How are you combining the rigors of university education with elite sports training?

It is all about time-management and discipline. It is very difficult especially as there are limited resources. I hope to secure sponsors as a deal will me strive to achieve in both areas while being a good ambassador. Sometimes, when it gets too difficult, I just commit everything to God Almighty, and the truth is that it is always so difficult, so I am always putting everything into the hands of God. I will keep training hard and I will leave it to my coaches and managers to find and work out a sponsorship deal for me.

After the 12th All African Games, you missed out on the Korean Ambassador’s Cup, then went on to snatch Gold medals at the Kebbi Open and Best of the Best? Can you reflect on this?

I apologize that I missed the Korean Ambassador Cup. I really want to come and compete, but it was happening at the same time as my examinations, so I had to stay back and write about my exams. Balancing school and a sports career require a compromise on so many occasions. This was one of those kinds of decisions. But for the Korean Ambassador Cup, I was happy when I saw that my Team CCSF teammate, Bukola Ogunnusi, went there and won a gold in my category. It was as if she won for me and for all of us. I am also happy I went to Kebbi Open. There were not a lot of competitors in my category, but I enjoyed my podium experiences.

At the Best of the Best, I trained hard for it because I wanted to end the year strongly. Training at our training camp was so difficult, both physically and mentally. I am glad the training paid off. My opponents were tough and even though I won the gold, I took home learning points to work on, once my training begins in 2020.

How did you start Taekwondo?

I was 15 when I started athletics and a few weeks after I started athletics, I met Mr. Uche and Chika Chukwumerije at the stadium. My coach, Sam, did not come to training so he asked my mentor, Chika Chukwumerije to allow me to join his training session. He had a project with training students at Government Secondary Schools, and my school in Lugbe was among them. So he agreed. I did the sessions. It was plyometrics and a lot of drills I have never seen, and I really enjoyed it. From there, I started coming for training and I was combining athletics and Taekwondo. I started competing in grassroots taekwondo events in FCT, I did three in 2016 and two in 2017, and I won all five and I was delighted because I was just a white – yellow belter. In 2017, Mr. Chika to my first internationals. I was worried because I had not even done any national before, but he believed a lot in my talent. I ended up winning gold medals in Ghana and Senegal and the MVP trophies. Then came the Nationals – I won the National Sports Festival, National Trials, Best of the Best and other high profile events. So my journey has been really intense training sessions and competitions and outside of competitions, we do a lot of computer training and event management. I am grateful for my journey so far and dream of achieving a lot more.

Many athletes dream of going to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. What would it mean to you?

Of course, it would mean a lot if I can get the opportunity to get the Olympic ticket. I am in good form and have developed so much over the past three years. It would be my first time, but this is the dream of every athlete – to be on the highest ever stage and to win a medal. I know it will be difficult and this is why I keep working so hard so as to make this dream a reality.

What do you expect from the World Taekwondo Coach Certification Course as your last taekwondo activity in 2020?

“The course has helped me to familiarize myself with the WT rules and it has also helped me understand my rights as an athlete. From a coaching perspective, it will help me see what an athlete usually misses and this will help me very much as an athlete to understand better a coach’s instruction during a training session or a competition.

How have you been spending your Holidays?

With my family in Abuja. I did not travel because I did not want to spend all my energy during the festivities. I have been enjoying my rest time from training, enjoy spending quality time with my parents and siblings, and I have started re-booting for the new year. Also, it has been a period for me to pray and reflect on the new year and commit myself and plans to God.

What is your focus in 2020?

I want to keep improving my performance in my studies and in the competition arena. I am so anxious about this because I want to do well and succeed, and I know hard work is key to achieving this. This will help to also encourage women and young people around me. So despite my anxiety, I dream to inspire and to achieve. In 2020, I will stay focused on studying hard while simultaneously training hard for all major and minor competitive events

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Business

Tax Reform Bills: The Verdict of Nigerians

Published

1 week ago

March 6, 2025

The Gleamer

Ismaila Ahmad Abdullahi Ph.D

The public hearings conducted recently by the two Chambers of the National Assembly have elicited positive responses from a broad spectrum of Nigerians, cutting across regional interest groups, government agencies, civil society groups, concerned individuals, the academia, and Labour Unions, among diverse others. Contrary to a few dissensions hitherto expressed in the media, almost all the stakeholders who spoke during the week-long sessions were unanimous in their declaration that the hallowed Chambers should pass the tax reform bills after a clean-up of the grey areas.

The public hearings were auspicious for all Nigerians desirous of economic growth and fiscal responsibility. They were also a watershed moment for the Federal Inland Revenue Service, which had been upbeat about the tax reforms. Indeed, the public hearings had rekindled hope in the tenets of democracy that guarantee freedom of expression and equitable space for cross-fertilisation of ideas. Without gainsaying the fact, the tax reform bills have been unarguably about the most thought-provoking issues in Nigeria today, drawing variegated perspectives and commentaries from even unlikely quarters such as the faith-based leaders, student bodies, and trade unions, which speaks much about the importance of the bills.

In the build-up to the public hearings, not many people believed that the bills would make it to the second reading, much less the public hearings. Even the Northern stakeholders who seemed unlikely to support the passage of the bills have softened their stance and have given valuable suggestions that would enrich the substance of the bills. The Arewa Consultative Forum came to the public hearings well-prepared with a printed booklet that addressed their concerns. It concluded with an advisory that the bills should be “Well planned, properly communicated, strategically implemented and ample dialogue and political consensus allowed for the reforms to be accepted.”

The concerns of ACF ranged from the composition of the proposed Nigeria Revenue Service Board as contained in Part 111, Section 7 of the bill, the unlimited Presidential power to exempt/wave tax payment as proposed in Section 75(1) of the bill, the family income or inheritance tax as contained in Part 1, Section 4(3) of the bill, to the issues around development levy and VAT. On the development levy, the ACF stated that unless the Federal Government is considering budgetary funding for TETFUND, NASENI and NITDA, it does not see the “wisdom behind the plan to replace (them) with NELFUND”.

The position of the North was equally reinforced by the Supreme Council for Shariah in Nigeria, Northern Elders Forum, Kano State Government, Professor Auwalu Yadudu, and the FCT Imams. Like the ACF, these stakeholders lent their respective voices to the Section on the Inheritance Tax in Part 1 of the bill and the use of the term ‘ecclesiastical’, which, in their views, undermines certain religious rights and beliefs. The Kano State Government, represented by Mahmud Sagagi, affirmed that “we support tax modernisation” but cautioned that “we must ensure that this process does not come at the expense of states’ constitutional rights and economic stability”. Professor Auwalu Yadudu, a constitutional law professor, drew attention to the use of the ‘supremacy clause’ and cautioned that the repeated use of “notwithstanding” in the bills would undermine the supremacy of the Nigerian constitution if passed as such.

Other stakeholders that made contributions at the sessions included the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas, Fiscal Responsibility Commission, Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria, Nigeria Customs Service, and a host of others. While most of their concerns bordered on technical issues requiring fine-tuning, they were unanimous in their support for the bills. They aligned with the position of the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Zacch Adedeji, Ph.D. and the Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Mr Taiwo Oyedele, which is that the extant tax laws and fiscal regulations are obsolete necessitating reforms aimed at creating a fair and equitable tax and fiscal space to grow Nigeria’s economy.

In one of the sessions, Dr Zaach Adedeji expounded on the criss-cross of trade activities in the Free Trade Zone whereby companies misuse tax waivers as exporters to sell their goods or services in the Customs Area at an amount usually less than the price the operators in the Customs Area who pay VAT and other taxes sell theirs thereby disrupting business transactions. This way, the operators in the Free Trade Zone shortchange the government in paying their due taxes by circumventing extant regulations, which are inimical to the economy’s growth.

Overall, the presentations were forthright, foresighted, and helpful in elucidating the issues contained in the bills. According to the statistics read out at the end of the hearings at the Senate, 75 stakeholders were invited, 65 made submissions, and 61 made presentations. At the House of Representatives 53 stakeholders made presentations. By all means, this is a fair representation. Given the presentations, it is evident that the National Assembly has gathered enough materials to guide its deliberations on the bills. As we look forward to the passage of the bills, we commend the leadership of the National Assembly for their unwavering commitment to making the bills see the light of the day.

Abdullahi is the Director of the Communications and Liaison Department, FIRS.

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