In "Things Fall Apart," Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe's 1958 classic, the title speaks volumes about the effects of colonization on Nigeria's society in the late 19th century. Now, another visionary is authoring a new story for Nigeria. Ishaku Tikon (pictured) did not go to school to develop his nation's table tennis infrastructure. Like India's national champion Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, Tikon is an engineer by trade. In his tenure as President of the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF), Tikon has engineered spectacular success, both domestically and internationally. In March of this year, Tikon concluded his first term in office. His tenure, starting in 2017, was marked by the spectatular rise of Quadri Aruna, now the first African player to reach the top 15 of the men's world rankings. He also saw Aruna join countrywoman Funke Oshonaike in the Tokyo Olympics, her record-equaling seventh appearance in the Games. Later in Tokyo, the Nigerian Paralympic team secured a bronze medal in Men's Class 9-10 event. Subtly but persistently pointing to such laurels, Tikon now humbly asks for your vote. (You ARE a member in good standing of the NTTF, yes?) "One of my plans if re-elected is to come up with strategies that will key into us moving table tennis in the world," says Tikon. "Table tennis being done differently today, even in the African region you have wonderful players that are coming up on daily basis. So, we are going to develop strategies and modules on how we will continue to dominate in Africa." As an engineer, Ishaku Tikon knows that closed systems inevitably succumb to entropy (i.e. fall apart), as per the second law of thermodynamics. Wisely, he has not run the NTTF as a closed system, but rather as a vibrant perpetual motion machine drawing energy from international interactions. "It’s going to be a continuous process," explains Tikon, "increasing on what we have done so far, developing also some things different from what we have been doing to get to where we are." Thus, while things do inarguably fall apart, they can with equal verifiability be seen to come together.

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