2011: Sports did well but football failed Nigeria – Alhaji Halilu
By Ime Bassey
Sports, they say ‘is the opium of the people’ but Alhaji Mohammed Halilu, 1st Vice President, Nigerian Weightlifting Federation, NWF believes that it has not given Nigerians the desired joy this year.
Speaking with Saturday Vanguard Sports from his base in Abuja, the former Council of Sports member said, it was football that failed the country but other sports did the country well.
“We say we are the giant of Africa and we center all our attention in only one sport – football which is not supposed to be. We did not do well in 2011 in terms of our most loved sport – football.
“What pains me most is our fire brigade approach to the game itself. We are competition driven instead of developmental focused, this puts us at the edge of always wanting to win all the time after spending huge amount of money to bring our ‘so-called’ stars from Europe who have less time to acclimatize to the African weather which they have left for a while,”
IT'S FINISHED
Alhaji Halilu started
He continued: “Now, because of the high attention given to football, everybody wants to be a football administrator, making it a do or die affair. The polity is heated so much that the structures suffer and nothing is achieved.
“Look at us, giant of Africa, the Nations Cup will be on in a few days from now and we will not be there, yet we say, ‘we are giant of Africa’, what a shame! This should be an eye opener to the National Sports Commission, NSC that it is time they start giving other sports the needed attention they deserve, else sports will go down the drain,” Alhaji Halilu said.
The former Nasarawa State Commissioner of Sports appealed to the NSC to give attention to other sports and also that sports should be made mandatory at all levels of schools curriculum in other for development to start early and success feasible.
“I want to appeal to the National Sports Commission that, in a situation where other sports whose activities spread across the nation, can give us international recognition, they should give high attention to them so there will be some relief on our faces as touching sports performance instead football alone.
I have suggested that sports should be made mandatory in all strata of schools’ calendar in the country because it is not only competition that matters but the exercise and fun in sports.
Engaging children from the young age of six year and above will put them in a right frame of mind ahead of the future most especially, their brains will be sharpened. This will eventually enable youths to take sports professionally,” Alhaji Halilu added.
