When athletics took revolutionary turn in Gombe

For Dora Timothy, a class 5 pupil of Buhari Estate Nursery/Primary School, Gombe, being at the Gombe Stadium Pantami to witness the maiden Gara Gombe Athletics Grand Prix on February 21 2023 served two main purposes. “This is the first time I am entering this stadium and I am seeing the athletics competition I used to see on television physically,” she said.

Over 300 pupils from across the eleven local government areas of Gombe state who thronged the stadium felt exactly the same as Dora. They had not seen anything like it in real encounters, until February 21.

Interestingly, the amazement of the pupils at what they saw on the day was the target of the competition’s sponsor, Alhaji Ahmed Shuaibu-Gara Gombe, who incidentally is the current Chairman of the Gombe State Athletics Association (GSAA). “The plan is to make the pupils come here and see the runners and jumpers and then get inspired to also take to athletics in the near future for the benefit of the state,” he said.

Gombe had mounted the state’s athletics saddle only two weeks before the recent National Sports Festival hosted in Asaba, Delta State. “It wasn’t an auspicious time for me to take the job, so I said that I would not take responsibility for the performance of athletes that I didn’t recruit. I prepared for a proper take-off of my plan after the sports festival. So, here we are,” he also said.

The new GSAA chairman says a five-year plan is being planned, whereby the athletes discovered would be nurtured and given the best of encouragement to excel. “By the time the next sports festival holds in Ogun state, we would have good athletes on parade but only in the short term. Our target, really, is five years from now by which time we would have athletes to compete at the highest level,” the chairman said.

Gombe State was created on October 1 1996 by the military government of the late Gen Sani Abacha. But not since the state’s creation more than 26 years ago has athletics gotten this huge boost. Of course, it is not that the state has really excelled in national sporting meets nonetheless. At best, only football and basketball have been mentioned as far as sports go in Gombe state over the past three decades. With the latest grand prix, however, athletics seems about to rewrite the story.

The Executive Chairman of Gombe State Sports Commission, Mr. Olary Daniel, who was a guest at the Pantami Stadium where the grand prix was held, conceded to the need to expand the scope for sports in the state. “What I have seen here has further convinced me of the ability of Ahmed Shuaibu-Gara Gombe to give athletics in the state a quantum lift and I pledge the Commission’s best effort to support him,” Daniel said.

According to the GSAA chairman, the association’s immediate plan is to organise an inter-primary athletics competition in April, from which talents at the grassroots would be discovered, and after which inter-secondary and inter-tertiary cadres would follow.

“I met the issue of mercenaries competing for the state when I resumed duties as chairman and I immediately made a move to change the backward situation. I have always believed that the disadvantages of using mercenaries for competitions far outweigh its advantages. As far I am chairman, I want to build athletes that would compete for us well into the future and who would get the best incentives to stay here and compete for us. For me, that is the real legacy of administration because the new era I am birthing now would yield positive results for athletics in the state,” Gombe said.

Already, close to 20 athletes of Gombe state origin as well as those from neighbouring states who have signed an undertaking of commitment to Gombe state and who have applied for university admissions, would be given scholarships by the Gombe athletics body with a view to earning their commitment. This itself is a revolution in Gombe State.

The cost of sponsorship for the grand prix, in which athletes within Gombe as well as from Plateau, Bauchi, Kaduna and Kano states competed in 100m (men and women), 400m (men and women), 400×100 (men and women), 1500m (men and woman) and Long Jump (men and women), was borne wholly by the state’s athletics association chairman. But not a few now believe that the modest success would reverberate as to attract sponsorship from the corporate world in no distant future, considering some of the sports personalities that the one-day meet attracted to the Gombe state capital, who include former national long-distance runners Muhammed Kolo and Abbas Mohammed, former FIFA referee Dr. Alex Mana, Secretary General of National Association of Athletics Technical Officials (NAATO), Mr. Yakubu Gama, Chief Coach of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Dr. Solomon Achi, representative of state governor, heads of the state’s Universal Basic Education Board and heads of the Gombe State sports authorities.

To complete the athletics revolution in the state, which began with the grand prix and training of officials, a coaches’ training is due in April while a national athletics meet is being worked out between GSAA and the Athletic Federation of Nigeria (AFN) to be hosted by Gombe state later in the year.