The national U-15 football team Head Coach Haruna Ilerika has called for the inclusion of sports men and women in the national youth policy.
Ilerika made this call in an exclusive interview with Blueprint in Abuja.
According to him, “For a very long time, youths have been neglected in Nigeria, and recently, we saw the problems that emanated from the #EndSARS protest. It was a bad situation, nobody is wishing that type of situation should happen again.
“Youth are problem solvers,they want to change the situation of things in the society. They understand the chemistry of doing new things and these youths are not only into sports but are into various skills. The national youth policy on sports should be so broadened to cover sports adequately.
“Some people are of the belief that sports have taken the larger part of the resources that are supposed to be earmarked youth development in Nigeria. We have a lot of youths in sports and I’m an advocate of putting more money in sport to eradicate youth restiveness.
“When you look at youth, they serve as an active player, and immediately they retire in the sporting sector between the age of 30-35, they would need to live a life after retirement.
“The average age of youth in the national youth policy is between 18 and 29, now some people are advocating for 18 to 35 to accommodate more categories of people called youth. When you look at the index, 45% of people in the workforce are youth.
“So definitely, our youth should be our productive assets in Nigeria. Our manpower development should be our benefit, it should be the greatest advantage of our gross domestic profit.
“Recently, the Minister of Youth and Sports, Sunday Dare had a memorandum of understanding with the Industrial Trust Fund (ITF) to engage the youth. Also, in the sporting arena, we have lots of youth and we want a situation where things would be made available to serve sports men after retirement.
“There should be very good legislation from the National Assembly where their future and the life after the game can be taken care of because they fall in the category of youth. The national youth policy should be meant to protect them.”
