Neku Atawodi-Edun

Neku Atawodi-Edun (born 1987), formerly Uneku Saliu-Atawodi, is a Nigerian polo player, equine sports scientist, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and investor.

Quotes

• While I was in Kaduna, the polo club there was military owned, and my father was in the military so we used to go to the Polo club a lot and I just fell in love with the game. It is amazing to see people working with the horses and working with their teammates, and what pushed me to play was everybody telling me I couldn’t play because I was a girl, which only made me want to play more, and when I got to the UK, I studied horses in the University, so when I graduated I started working for polo clubs around the world.
• The challenges with polo is not really gender based. It has to do with getting to a new place and finding good horses. For instance, Antor came in from the UK last week to play here and we struggled with some of the horses. Some of them weren’t fit, some had gone lame and we just really struggled to get organised and I found out that in Lagos, traffic is a massive hindrance. Some weeks ago, I played for a different team and we had to play two against four people, because two of our players were stuck in traffic due to the work on the Falomo bridge. So here, I find that the biggest challenge is the roadblocks. Also, to organise Polo is really tough and I think for Nigerian Polo, we need to focus on developing our local horses. If we do,Polo would grow a bit quicker because people can get into the sport without having to ship a horse or clear a horse or fly to Argentina to buy a horse. As a lady, and a Nigerian, I wish there were more women especially now that women polo is the fastest growing segment of Polo in the world. We now have women only polo tournament, which I’ve played a lot of but here, there’s no opportunity for women and I’m hoping to work with the polo association to start to change that. It’s going to take a while but I would love to see so many more women play. Bringing in more female players from other parts of the world to come and play here and we’ll need more female patrons to do that. Also, for new girls coming into the sport as well, it can be a bit discouraging because there will be so many guys around you. So, we need more female players, even with the guys, obviously it’s the horse power but they’re stronger, so you feel more involved when you play with the girls than when you play with the guys.
• I only just got back from playing in Argentina and now I want to focus on being back home. I’ve been working one-on-one with lady players, teaching them to ride, but what I really want to do is to work with the association to get the lessons for women subsidised by reducing the entry fees for women as well as to encourage other guys to have a lady on their team. For instance, when putting together a team, you will get a 50% discount if a woman is playing with you. This would make them want to go and look for a woman to put on their team. With that, women can start playing and get to higher level very quickly. That is one way to do that. I’m speaking with the Lagos president, Mr Ayo, about giving subsidised lessons.