Athlete/Sports Administrator, Brown Ebewele is Dead

A former Nigerian athlete and administrator, Brown Ebewele is dead.
Ebewele fondly called ‘Juju Man’ died yesterday afternoon at a private hospital in Warri, Delta State after a surgery.

The no-nonsense former athlete rose to become the Director of Sport and later Commissioner of Sports in Edo State during the administration of former Governor Lucky Igbinedion.
The success of Team Nigeria at the 2003 African Games hosted by Nigeria in Abuja was partly due to the efforts of Ebewele.

He introduced decathlon into Nigerian sports and dominated it until he retired as an athlete.
He was always in the forefront in the battle for athletes to get their due rights from administrators who are fond of shortchanging them.

The most prominent of them was his spat with Jim Nwobodo as Minister of Sports.
At various times, he led such states as Delta, Kano, Borno and Edo to decent outings at the National Sports Festival.

Ebewele’s first competition for the then Bendel State was at Kaduna ‘77 edition of the National Sports Festival. Competing as a mature athlete, Ebewele won a gold medal for Bendel State and also set a national record in the hammer event in Kaduna.

Ebewele went on to represent Nigeria at the 1978 All African Games in Algiers, and grabbed a silver medal in decathlon. He also represented the country at many international competitions.

His last outing was helping Team Edo to finish as runners up at the much-postponed NSF which held last April in Benin City.