BY JUDE OPARA, ABUJA
Many sports analysts have been making comments on what they believe the just inaugurated government of President Mohamadu Buhari should do to further develop sports in the country.

There is also another group that has expressed displeasure that the President allegedly failed to make any comments regarding the place of sports under his administration.

The place of sports in the development of a nation cannot be emphasized and Nigeria being a country that is faced with worrisome youth unemployment can use the sports sector to effectively engage most of the young ones.

Interestingly, while sports participation serves as entertainment, it has also become a huge business hence any government that truly wants to achieve in the area of human capital development must not ignore the sports sector.

President-elect Muhammadu Buhari (L) waves in Abuja on April 1, 2015. Nigeria’s new president-elect Muhammadu Buhari hailed polls that will lead to the first democratic change of power in Africa’s most populous nation as “historic” hours after he secured a decisive victory. AFP PHOTO

The present administration has at different times expressed its readiness to invest in the affairs of the Nigerian youth. That is a good thought but it must be matched by a concerted action and the mere rhetoric of governments.

Having said that, it is also important to ex-ray the performance of sports under the previous administrations at least beginning from 1999 when the country returned to civil rule.

From the time of former President Obasanjo to the immediate past government of President Jonathan, sports was used mainly as a place to send party loyalists who may have contributed in the electoral victory of the government. We saw all manners of people brought to sports and at the end of the day most of them ended up causing more problems than they could solve.

SPORTS MINISTERS

A critical look at the performance of the over 12 sports ministers in the last 16 years will reveal only one or two of them who contentiously worked to develop the sector. The rest of them were only interested in how much they will make from the system. They descended to the level of travelling for every international meet just to pocket estacodes.

In fact the era of the immediate past Minister, Dr. Tammy Danagogo could pass as one of the worst moments of Nigerian sports may be, not because he did not want to develop the sector but it was glaring that he was even more interested in the politics of his home state, Rivers than the affairs of the NSC. Unfortunately, the sector got it hotter with the appointment of Hon. Gbenga Elegbeleye another career politician who like his boss was always on the road to Ondo State his own home state as the Director General.

In the past, when the DG who used to be a professional from the Commission used to cushion the effects of the failings of the Minister either by omission or commission but in the past one year, the story was different as both Danagogo and Elegbeleye seemed to have competed in who will ‘deliver’ their political party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) better in their respective states.

Now that the present administration is contemplating cutting the cost of running the government by reducing the number of ministers, I am of the view that one area where there should be no minister is the NSC.

Today we have a seasoned sports professional as the DG and I believe it will be better for the sector if he is given the task of running the NSC with his colleagues who have been the ones that are the technocrats that pilot the affairs of the place. All that the ministers do is to give approvals for the release of funds and their numerous travels.

To further buttress the argument that the NSC may not be in need of a minister whether the person was a sports personality or not is the record of the former president of the Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC), Engr. Sani Ndanusa who was also a minister during the period under review. When Ndanusa was appointed, many people hailed it because having been the president of the Nigeria Tennis Federation (NTF) they said it was the best appointment but unfortunately, Ndanusa was not remarkably different from is other colleagues.

FACILITIES

Nigeria from Calabar to Maiduguri is blessed with energetic young men and women who are potential world beaters in different sporting activities only if the right atmosphere and infrastructures were provided for them to train and be well equipped.

Interestingly all the different parts of the country have one sporting area they have comparative advantage over others. In the South East and Edo/Delta is where you find the best of footballers. The South South region with its aquatic nature can provide the best swimmers while the long distance runners can be groomed from the North given the hilly nature of the area. It is on record that the best table tennis players have always come from the South West.

The country can do better by concentrating these training facilities in the areas where they will be most effective. Already the NSC has over the years created Zonal Centres for the purpose of taking sports development to the grassroots so it will be easier for the new administration to effectively equip these centres so as to bring out the best of athletes from them.

If not for the unfortunate culture of corruption and lack of proper maintenance culture, the country would have benefited more from building these training facilities in the country instead of spending huge sums of money for oversees trainings because more Nigerians will then have the opportunity of training with them with the resultant positive cost benefit analysis.

But with the expected renewed vigor in the fight against corruption and dereliction of duty, reestablishing these training facilities may be the right way to go because we are now sure all things being equal, that officials of the NSC will now think more of the overall interest of the nation instead of how much they will pocket by taking a few athletes abroad for training.

CATCH THEM YOUNG

All over the world, sporting activities belong to the young ones because what a young man of 20 can do may not be easy for a man of 40 to do. Therefore if the country must reclaim her glory in the international sporting sector, efforts must be made to fish out the young and talented youths that abound across the country.

To effectively achieve this, the federal government under President Buhari must work assiduously to ensure that schools sports returned in our secondary schools. The NSC and the Ministry of Education should be encouraged to revive the usual inter-house sports which in the past helped the country to discover most of the best legs that won her laurels in the past.

The likes of Mary Onyeali, Falilat Ogunkoya, Henry Nwosu to mention but a few were all products of schools sports and there is nothing that says that the country cannot discover even better athletes from our different secondary schools across the country.

Truly, the benefit of developing sports in Nigeria cannot be overemphasized. Sports is one sector that plays a lot of roles in the lives of the people because while it serves as a means of entertainment it equally helps one to keep fit as well serving as a huge business that attracts a lot of money to everybody involved in it.

The issue of youth restiveness that is ravaging parts of the country today can be curtailed drastically using sports because it is only giving that much more would be achieved if the same energy that is invested in negativity was channeled towards sporting activities.