THE  recent re-appointment of Mr Patrick Ugbe as Commissioner and his deployment to Ministry of Youth and Sports Development has further confirmed the sincerity of the administration of Senator Liyel Imoke, Governor of Cross River State in building up reforms in the sector.

To the Governor, Ugbe is the right man to drive the transformation process following the dynamism the former Commissioner for Information and Orientation demonstrated ahead of Imoke’s re-election of February 25, 2012 and subsequent victory of the Governor and his Deputy, Efiok Cobham.

In Ugbe’s reigns, the astute media practitioner varied techniques of disseminating government’s information through the strengthening of the State broadcast and print media, and the Ministry’s publications.

He is characteristic of Dame Wedgwood’s maxim: An educated man should know something about everything, and everything about something. Ugbe has revealed this, and will have no complicatedness in driving reforms in the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development.

Upon assumption of office at the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development, Ugbe informed staff of the administration’s vision for the Ministry, but assured them of his readiness to partner with them in actualising the vision.

Typical of him, he told the workers that he would not be daunted by the avalanche of challenges in the Ministry, such as inadequate office space, furniture, vehicles and computers, but would seek ways of complementing government’s revenue drive to attain set targets.

These targets are already being arrived at with the strides the State has been making in the last few years. For instance, at the National School Sports Festival, NSSF, held in 2009, the State was placed on 10th position, having bagged eight gold, eight silver and seven bronze medals. That year, the state won only one bronze medal in athletics.

In 2010, the Comprehensive Sports Development Programme resulted in a modest reversal of fortune at the National School Sports Festival, NSSF, held in Kano, when Cross River State moved up to 6th place overall with 16 gold, 18 silver and 12 bronze medals.

In 2010, athletics alone (a key sport in the sports programme) won seven gold, eight silver and five bronze medals while chess and wrestling produced the bulk of the remaining medals.Work continued intensively in 2011 with the addition of swimming and weightlifting to the programme at the insistence of the Deputy Governor,  Cobham.

By the NSSF held in Calabar from November 14 to 24, last year, it became obvious that indeed Governor Imoke’s sports programme is a revolution and the right model for state and national sports development.

At the end of the Festival, Cross River State emerged overall winner and national youth sports champions for the first time in the history of the state, with 114 gold, 104 silver and 100 bronze medals.

No athletes were bought from any other state and all the State athletes were bonafide students within the age limits of the National School Sports Federation.Another interesting feature of the Festival was that the State track and field team dominated the rest of the participating states in all age categories by winning 42 gold, 28 silver and 15 bronze medals, while the rest of the 35 states shared 24 gold, 38 silver and 51 bronze.

The state also dominated swimming by winning 26 gold, 17 silver and 13 bronze medals. Chess and wrestling contributed most of the remaining medals.  In two years, Imoke’s Comprehensive Sports Development Programme took the State from near bottom to the top in national youth sports development.

And within the two years, several talented boys and girls were discovered at the various age categories and they are being groomed to represent and bring honour to Nigeria in the coming years.

The sports programme is also being implemented in all the 18 local government areas of the State and it is being actively supported by their chairmen.

Major advantage of this initiative is that besides propping up sports talents among young ones and helping to develop human capital, sports takes the minds of restive youths off criminal tendencies and channels them into activities that build self-esteem and develop them into great citizens of tomorrow.

Since Imoke came into office as governor, Calabar has become the favorite destination for major sports competitions in Nigeria. The city was one of the host cities for the 2009 U-17 World Cup.

It hosted the Mobil All Nigeria Athletics Championship in 2010 and subsequently won the five-year hosting right from 2011 to 2015, at the sum of  N250 million. Calabar hosted the 2011 National School Sports Festival, and has won the hosting rights for the 2014 National Sports Festival. The Governor has designated six schools (two in each senatorial district) as centres for sports excellence in the State.

State- of- the art sports equipment have been procured by the Governor for grooming talent in various sports and will be delivered to these schools before the end of this year.

The Commissioner for Youth and Sports is aiming at achieving this. In a recent interview, he said there was still much to be accomplished despite government’s achievements in sports in the past five years, assuring, however, that the Ministry under his leadership would continue building on the successes.

Mr. OTEI OHAM, a public affairs analyst, wrote from Calabar, Cross River State.