Politics, Disability Governance and Inclusiveness of Parasport Athletes in a Coronavirus Pandemic Aftermath in Africa: Observations from Nigeria

The paper evaluates politics and governance underlining disability inclusion development using reflections in parasport. Its thesis-of-thesis derives from the presentation of surveyed explanations from Nigerian stakeholders in the Paralympics sector to generalize for Africa. Before the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, politics in Africa shows an abysmal scorecard in terms of combating discrimination against disabled persons. Accordingly, the continent's disability inclusiveness governance shows it is effectual. Thus, there is perhaps ample indication to adduce that sports politics will continually fail to achieve the inclusiveness of parasports athletes in a coronavirus epidemic aftermath. Using the Nigerian context, the paper gathers evidence from interviews with stakeholders and evaluative-secondary data in parasports concerning not only to responding to disability inclusion in sports but also to the wider politics of sustaining inclusiveness of Paralympic athletes in a post-COVID-19 era. The paper argues that the character of politics in Africa generally has not resulted in optimal investments, considerations, and willpower from political leaders to advance outcomes in the aspect of inclusivity of athletes with disabilities. It considers contextual factors that militate against achieving all-inclusiveness of disabled sports persons and how politics can be channelled to achieve their optimum well-being in the sports arena.

National Lottery—You Can Win As Well: A Metaphor Study on Disabled Athletes

The aim of this study is to determine the metaphoric perceptions of physically disabled and hearing impaired athletes concerning their branches and concepts about these branches. In this context, the sample of the study was comprised of 20 physically disabled and hearing impaired athletes playing in the basketball and football teams in Muş province. In the form that was prepared for data collection, the participants were asked to answer certain statements such as “Basketball/football is like … Because, …”, “Field/court is like … Because, …”, “Basketball/football (the ball) is like … Because, …”, “Playing basketball/football is like … Because, …”, etc. The obtained data were transferred to the SPSS program, and frequency and percentage analyses were conducted. As the conclusion, it was determined that the sports branches of physically disabled and hearing impaired athletes were the focal points of their lives, and they perceived them as the requirements for their lives. In this respect, it is considered that the results of this study are significant since it suggests encouraging disabled individuals to sports, helping them participate in sports, providing support, and promoting the disabled sports.