NSC’s strident call and NDDC’s swift response

On the day the new Chairman of the National Sports Commission (NSC), Mallam Shehu Dikko, assumed office in October 2024, he hammered it home to all and sundry that the days of consumption – whereby Nigerians only looked forward to seeing the country’s athletes mount podiums to receive medals – were over. The new dawn, according to Dikko, must see to the conscious and deliberate efforts by all sports stakeholders in Nigeria to produce and nurture the athletes that would mount the podiums.

Dikko must have weighed in heavily on the consistent poor outcomes that Nigerian athletes recorded at the London, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo and Paris Olympic games in 2012, 2016, 2000, and 2024 respectively in comparison to the preceding games where Nigeria held promise and concluded that there must be a paradigm shift if Nigeria must also maximise its potential in sports.

“We have to first change our mindset from the fixation of just attending competitions and winning medals and come back and fix our sports. We have to go back to production, which is sports development, where we set the structure right, set the framework and put together good parameters to have a sustainable future,” Dikko said.

For effect, he added: “We have to invest in purposeful, world-class infrastructure that will provide an enabling environment for growth while maintenance culture must also be entrenched to sustain the infrastructure.”

Some four months after Dikko’s declaration, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has taken up the twin challenge of embarking on grassroots sports development and building infrastructure. The management of the commission has announced that it is staging a maiden Niger Delta Sports Festival that would see school kids from Akwa Ibom, Delta, Edo, Rivers, Cross River, Bayelsa, Ondo, Abia and Imo exposing their talent in a ten-day event to be hosted by Akwa Ibom State from April 1 to 9 during which the participants would compete in 16 sports that comprise football, basketball, table tennis, tennis, canoeing, boxing, athletics, para-powerlifting, para-athletics, swimming, chess, scrabble, volleyball, weightlifting, wrestling and handball.

It is trite that sports infrastructure in most of the foregoing nine states has for the most part been in a parlous state over the years – the main reason why the production of talents has ebbed considerably in the region in recent years, unlike in the last century when the production was taken for granted. Specifically, the Afuze sports centre in the old Bendel State, built in the 1960s by the then military governor, Brigadier Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia, which helped to nurture many athletes to stardom but is now virtually a museum, says so much about the state of infrastructure in the region. At best, only make-shift sports centers have been provided over the years during events, after which they would cease to flourish until new events were hosted.

It is all this that has attracted the NDDC to make a difference in aligning with the vision of President Bola Tinubu for sports development as well as the president’s mandate to the NSC to foster talent development and innovation in sports, while also targeting a lasting solution to youth’s restiveness that has characterised the region in recent years. Overall, the building of new infrastructure for the sports festival would serve as the bounce needed for sports growth.

No foundation for the future can be better laid than the one being planned for the coming festival, which already has the blessing of the governors of all the nine states participating, in addition to the inauguration of the festival’s Main Organising Committee (MOC) on February 21 at the NDDC’s headquarters in Port Harcourt, even as liaison committees have been formed for the participating states.

It is in demonstration of the NDDC’s resolve that the management has appointed the commission’s Executive Director, Finance/Administration, Alabo Boma Iyaye, who is also a three-time sports commissioner in Rivers State as Chairman of the festival’s MOC with a view to tapping from his vast experience.

It has to be said that the Niger Delta has for more than four decades been a hub of sports talent production, notable among those who include football, athletic, boxing and wrestling stars that have represented Nigeria at many regional, continental and global events and hauled laurels for the country.

It is just as well that the downturn in Nigeria sports, especially in the last two decades, has necessitated a guided approach to guaranteeing the future of the country’s sports which, perhaps, only the funding by the Niger Delta Commission can assure at the moment.

According to festival consultant, Itiako Ikpokpo, about 3,000 school kids are listed to compete for laurels in what he believes would kickstart the reproduction of the Adokiye Amiesimakas, Jay Jay Okochas, Mary Onyalis and Blessing Okagbares of the Niger Delta in a few years from now. Ikpokpo also says the success of this maiden outing would encourage other Niger Delta states to host subsequent editions.

But Head of Communications Team for the festival, Mr. Harry Iwuala, says the publicity that would be accorded the event would resonate even after it has ended. “Awareness is key and we are infusing this so well in the minds of sports fans and stakeholders across the country and beyond. We reckon the festival as the fresh start that Nigeria sports need at this time and have tailored our awareness resolve towards making this count,” Iwuala said.

About 3,000 young athletes are a wholesome number for a region that desires to factor buy into the federal government’s renewed drive for sporting excellence. Not a few talents would be discovered onward being nurtured for the future.