By Amaechi Agbo

Wahid Enitan Oshodi of Nigeria on Wednesday made history as he defeated 13 other candidates to emerge winner of the International Table Tennis ITTF Executive Vice President.

Mr Oshodi was elected as the Executive Vice President of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) held on Wednesday November 24 in Houston, Texas, in the United States.

From the 136 votes cast, Oshodi polled 116 which is the 85.29% of the total vote to emerge top among the 14 candidates that vied for the office of the Executive Vice Presidents.

Also, Egypt’s Alaa Meshref was reelected into the Executive Committee (EC) of ITTF.

Oshodi is the second Nigerian to be elected to the world body after Segun George and he will serve along seven other Executive Vice Presidents elected at the AGM.

Sweden’s Petra Sorling became the first woman to be elected as President of ITTF. She clinched the office of the 95-year-old international federation unopposed having been nominated by the Swedish Table Tennis Association and accepted by all the 226 member associations across the world.

Egypt’s Alaa Meshref was reelected into the Executive Committee (EC) of ITTF. It is the first time Africa will have two representatives in the EC.

Other elected Vice Presidents are Graham SYMONS (AUS), Alaor AZEVEDO (BRA), LIU Guoliang (CHN), Roland NATRAN (HUN), Masahiro MAEHARA (JPN) and Khalil AL-MOHANNADI (QAT)

The new president of the ITTF and the eight elected Vice Presidents will join the ITTF Athletes Commission Chair Zoran Primorac of Croatia and IOC Member Ryu Seungmin of Korea Republic to form the complete ITTF Executive Committee (EC).

From his humble start as Chairman, Lagos State Table Tennis Association (LSSTA) and following his exceptional performance in that post, Oshodi was appointed Commissioner for Sports in Lagos State under Governor Babatunde Fashola (2011-2015). He also served as the President of the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF) from 2013-2017 and was later appointed as the Chairman of the Nomination Committee of ITTF.

Earlier this year, Oshodi was elected as the Deputy President of African Table Tennis Federation (ATTF). He is an engineer and a lawyer.