Nigeria’s sports sector took a decisive step toward reform on Monday as top administrators and stakeholders convened for the first edition of the Big Sports Dialogue, addressing long-standing issues in governance, development, media responsibility and gender inclusion.
National Sports Commission (NSC) Chairman Shehu Dikko said the gathering was designed to be solution-driven.
“This is all about charting the way forward, knowing the solutions, not let’s talk about the problems, solutions and of course, giving all the advices to the Sports Commission,” he said, adding the forum is in line with government-mandated stakeholders’ engagement.
He continued: “Every agency of government is supposed to have at least one stakeholder, to have what you call stakeholders’ consultation.
“ So what we see here is part of the stakeholder consultation because we are here now, we are interacting with the stakeholders. So we can feel their pulse. We can see what they are feeling. We can also take the suggestions and the ideas and the contrary views and the analysis of what we are doing. So that when we go back, we will know how to build.”
He confirmed that the outcomes from the forum would be properly documented as a prerequisite for future engagements and way forward for Nigerian sports.
Meanwhile, Dikko condemned lack of data management in Nigeria, stressing that getting the right statistics remains the country’s biggest gap.
“I can tell you my final take on all this is that there is a lack of data in this country but we have set up a clear data sheet for sports where in every quarter, we will analyze the impact of sports in Nigeria,” he revealed.“ For the last quarter, we found out we have done almost more than 1% of GDP, nobody had that data(in the past) , but now we have.”
In a related development, the Director-General of the NSC, Bukola Olapade, has highlighted the Commission’s intervention in women’s representation.
“The NSC created and supported AFAN( Association of Female Athletes of Nigeria) to join hands with NAWIS(National Association of Women In Sports) to give constitutionally two seats to women in every Federation,” he said.“ What we found when we got there was appalling, a Federation would have 14 men and just one woman and we thought, at this time of inclusivity there was need for us to increase constitutionally their numbers.”
On the panel on media, women and governance, Aishat Falode made an appeal for greater inclusion of women in sports administration.
She said: “My panel session was on media, women and governance and that’s trying to draw the attention of our administrators to the role and the power that the media has to shape the narrative, the media essentially has the power to change the narrative about sports to protect and preserve the integrity of the sport.”
She underscored women’s outsized contributions compared to their level of recognition: “Women have had to punch themselves over their weight, 63 out of the 85 delegates to the Olympics were women, the women gave us the medals that we celebrate, Indeed the first medal, that Nigeria ever recorded in the Olympics was by a woman.”
Falode stressed that representation must match performance.
“Why would we not give the women the space to continue to thrive, administrators now must speak truth to themselves that for all that we have given, the women have given to Nigerian sports, they deserve better. They deserve better welfare, better incentive, better preparation, better appreciation.”
She insisted that women need critical mass to influence policy.
“When you have only one woman in the midst of 14, 15 men, it becomes a labour to even push your argument through, we keep talking about diversity, inclusion and equity, and you need numbers in order for you to push forward the dialogue.”
Falode closed with a call to action: “We have spoken long enough. I hope that after this, perhaps we will have some kind of implementation and calling people to question where they have failed in terms of what we give back in return for the women’s achievements.”
