BY OLATUTU OLADUNNI
Going by the amazing victory of the esteemed national team of Nigeria, the Super Eagles at the ongoing AFCON 2023 in Abidjan, the capital city of Ivory Coast, the celebration has not only attracted sports stakeholders across the country, but has extended to Heads of corporate organisations, security agencies, political office holders and who is who in the country
This has clearly depicted the strong effect sports has and the unquantifiable power of influence it has in the society; breaking beyond social status, trubes, colour, races, ages etc.
The question is, does this celebration brings developmental growth and capacity development and character building amongst our youths and children?
Many of the players are playing outside the continent of Africa, while a few of them are home-based players.
The habit of neglecting and not paying attention to “nature of nurture “and” catch them young ” as to refuel our central processing unit when the fuel filled inside the power house is exhausted becomes a big problem.
To refill after exhausting the machines is important. This can save us from untimely problematic menace that may be tough to eradicate.
At this point, the government is supposed to engage critically the agency assigned to youths, sports development and school sports to come up with a full partnership working plan for the next 50 years.
No one does it better than youths in sports in any society.
Sports, as we can see, has alot of diversity and we are supposed to tap into this power of diversity to serve as an additional strength to the power of economy we have as a nation.
Sports boosts tourism, trade, commercialisation and it also promises peace and unity. It’s a one religion that supercedes all other religions.
School sports needs so much investment in all ranges.
The government full participation in school sports will enable us discover many talents that the nation can nurture , groom and raise and progress to NUGA championship at the higher institution. At this point, we have a main team and we also have feeders team to support the main team at all categories of sports and they can be representing the country in global events.
I feel more prioritised attention should now be on school sports for us to discover the hidden potentials in them and groom them for future competitions at various levels.
Celebrating the Super Eagles and gifting them luxuries do not bring solution to sports development in Nigeria because after celebration everyone keeps quiet and media shows will also be for a temporary period.
Giving special priority to school sports and grassroot sports isn’t too late now as we can still produce the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Pele, Lionel Messi, David Beckham, Michael Jordan, Tiger Wood, Serena William and a host of others in this country call Nigeria.
And not to forget own legends in football and sports who I believe it is not too late to begin to produce the ‘Mathematical’ Segun Odegbami, the late Rashidi Yekini, Daniel ‘The Bull’ Amokachi, Austin Jay Jay Okocha, Nwankwo Kanu, and of course, the same on other sports, we have legends like Segun Toriola, Daniel Igali, Aruna. Quadri and others.
*Olatutu Oladunni is the incumbent Chairman of Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN), Lagos chapter. She is a member of Aviation Round Table, Publisher of Corporate magazine NEWS POST MAGAZINE, Public Relations Officer of Certified Diplomatic Protocol Professionals in Nigeria, International Center for Protocol and Diplomacy London, UK and Executive Director Carolkings Media Ltd.
