African Athletics icon, Pa KAB Olowu goes home at 95

Alhaji Karim Ayinla Babalola (KAB) Olowu (OON), who died last Wednesday, August 14, 2019 and was buried on Thursday August 15 according to Muslim rites will be remembered by many especially athletics followers.

The death of Pa Olowu who was part of Nigeria’s first delegation to the 1950 British Empire Games (now the Commonwealth Games) and the 1952 Olympics Games has left a big vacuum in the  in athletics circle.

His death was announced through a statement by one of her daughters, Mrs Mosunmola Oridota who confirmed that Pa Olowu passed on to eternal glory on the evening of Wednesday August 14.

”With total submission to the will of the Almighty God, I wish to announce the transition to glory of my father, Alhaji Karim Ayinla Babalola Olowu,OON,’  the statement read

Pa Olowu, a sprinter and long jumper won two silver medals in long jump and the 4×110 yards relay at the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games held in Canada, becoming in the process the first Nigerian athlete to win two medals at the Commonwealth Games.

At the 1966 Commonwealth Games in Kingston,Jamaica he became the first Nigerian to officiate at the Games and at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics he became the first Nigerian Olympic torch bearer.

He was a prominent member of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) several years. He set up the sports complex at the Nigerian Prison in Kirikiri, Lagos where he worked for some years and set up the then Prisons Athletics Club (PAC) which produced so many athletes for Nigeria.