Ego Adoh

Member of the Board

Co-founder member of Growing Seeds Trust Foundation established 27 July 2021, which was reconstituted from Addax RFC for underprivileged children and youths which commenced in 2007.

Chairman of Delta State Rugby Association

Emeka’s passion for sports started way back when he was in primary school. Emeka was active in sports, athletics, sprints, soccer, javelin and shot put.

When introduced to Rugby in 1996, Emeka was hooked and the love for the game grew from there.

Emeka represented Nigeria in various tournaments becoming the West African champions.

Emeka noticed that there was little attention put into promoting the sport. The game at the time was more elitist so Emeka decided to go into public and private schools to promote the game of rugby at the grassroots with little or no support from anyone.  However, with the support and acknowledgment from Martin Crawford, Emeka was able to kick-start rugby training at Ansar-ud Deen Grammar School, Surulere and St. Saviours School Ikoyi, Lagos in 1999.

This initiative grew overtime with other schools keying into the program like the British International School, Dowen College, Lekki British International School, Loral International School, Corona Schools to mention a few. This led to the creation of the “Mike Ukome Cup” in 2001 which was the first schools’ event and was held at the hockey pitch of the National Stadium in Lagos with under 11s and under 16s participating, both boys and girls.

The success of this event drew the attention of the then pioneer Principal of the British International School who was Ken Baines.

Emeka helped set up a schools Rugby Association with the endorsement of the Nigeria Rugby Union and this was also supported by the President of the Federation at the time Architect Femi Williams.

The tournament became an annual event and was hosted by the British School five times consecutively with sponsors like Coca cola, Smithkline Beecham, Sports World, New Nigeria Bank now Unity Bank.

Emeka’s love and passion for Rugby and Children made him the man who he is today. The success of this programme gave birth to the setup of the Addax Rugby Club in 2007 driven by the passion of Peter Ferguson with recommendation from Ken Baines who was transferred to the middle East.

The Addax program was set up to give a voice to the voiceless children in the Niger Delta region. We started with Lagos as a pilot. We went into slums in Obalende, Ikeja and Surulere with the support of Addax petroleum who supplied us with 3 buses to convey the boys and girls to the British International School where they trained each Sunday afternoon. The Club was a success and we won several sevens championships and came second in the local league. This led to the boys receiving call ups to represent their various states at the Sports Festival. Their performance attracted the attention of the Nigerian Police Force sports unit who established a rugby club and a large number of our players were employed by the Nigerian Police force.

Today we are in Delta State to replicate and improve on what we learnt over the years and put that to work. We want to empower the boys and girls in this region, from disadvantaged backgrounds, both on and off the field through fostering better community relations by establishing a community league, life skills programs, women empowerment, discovering young organic farmers of the future and empowerment through Sports and Agriculture in general.

Emeka always loves to watch kids grow and develop into responsible boys and girls inspired by the success and worthiness of our mission. Emeka feels good when he knows that he has contributed to something meaningful in the life of a Child.