Periscoping Nigeria’s sports development

Today, sport has become a big deal. This is because it not only serves the entertaining, recreational and wellness purposes, it is now a money-spinning venture that people and nations cannot afford to gloss over it due to what it can do for societal transformation. Hence, paying adequate attention to sports development is a worthwhile effort that should not be overlooked. We should pause and ask; how have we fared in the country in this regard? Reviewing the situation, sport analysts have stressed the need for administrators to be transparent and objective by allowing the best hands to run sporting affairs in the country, stressing that the ministry should go back to the basics to get things right.

According to the Secretary, Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN), Ogun State Chapter, Mr. Michael Ogunsiji, the Sport Ministry should stop playing politics with sports, saying all the federations should work with their various constitutions while the ministry should hold its position firmly. “Nigerians need to support their coaches and empower them to succeed by extending to them hands of fellowship, rally round them, and send them for international coaching courses, to improve themselves in a bid to better the lot of the ministry”, he added. Ogunsiji informed that the association’s main mandate was to promote sports development in the country, stressing that sports can take youths off the streets and be gainfully engaged, adding that SWAN was trying to solidify its relationship with security agencies, by organising the Ogun SWAN Security and Safety Cup, to enhance their mental alertness and physical readiness.

Speaking on Super Eagles’ performance at the Africa Cup of Nations, a sports analyst, Mr. Hassan Afolabi, said the team performed wonderfully under the former interim manager, Austin Eguavoen, stressing that if Eguavoen was given a chance to take over the team permanently, there would be lots of improvement. He added that Nigerians needed to trust the manager and his decisions and give him necessary support to succeed, saying “Football is more than emotions, you have to train very hard for you to be victorious; No player should feel comfortable that he has a spot in the team for they all have to work to convince the manager that they deserve to be in the team”, he stated further.

Over the years, Nigeria has witnessed rapid growth in sports. Ordinarily, sport was simply seen as as a recreational activity such that the government had very little to do with organised sporting events while individual sports clubs were formed by non-governmental groups while membership was on the basis of personal interest in a way that those engaging in sports did so on personal grounds. To enhance effective regulation and prevent relegation, the government needs to do more by creating necessary environment for sports to thrive in line with the popular saying that a healthy people make a healthy nation and equally a healthy workforce for the nation.

The reality now is that sports have become a multi-billion-dollar money-spinning industry to tap from. To energise this desire, the call for the restoration of the National Sports Commission (NSC) is becoming louder by the day to regulate and coordinate sports in the country in view of present reality. NSC, which was established in 1962, has witnessed name changes, making the scrapping of the NSC an extra burden on the supervisory ministry of sports and youth development. As a way forward, the government should limit its interest in sports to providing the enabling environment for sports to thrive by building sports facilities by creating a workable administrative structure that would serve as a tonic to the elevation of sports to desired level in the country.

In the same vein, training wing, which is the National Institute for Sports, should be revitalised to perform its role of teaching and retraining coaches and administrators for optimal performance. A major factor that should be looked into is the issue of politics, tribal sentiment and other parochial considerations that seem to have stifled our sports in the past. This problem is not limited to sport matters, but other areas of our lives where merit is often thrown away for mediocracy. This should be addressed without further delay. To address this recurring decimal, those to be allowed to partake in sporting events should be those that are fit, proper and competent, irrespective of any parochial considerations.

To rejuvenate our sports architecture, what do we need to do, going by the various submissions above suggestions, include the following: Local coaches should be empowered, mental alertness and physical readiness of sports men and women should be upscaled, trusting sports managers to do the jobs allocated to them, need for the government to create necessary environment for sports to thrive, restoration of the National Sports Commission, and boosting of the National Institute for Sports in handling teaching and retraining coaches, among others. In the final analysis, adequate funding should be put in place to enable sports truly play the desired role in the scheme of things.