Over the years we have been witnesses of National Sport Festival which allows all States in the Federation to present athletes that have qualified by competing and scaling through the various zonal qualifying series into the National Sport Festival. However, as I reflect on the gains of the Sport Festival and its expected outcome as it affects the identification and possible promotion of new athletes to be recruited for national assignments I am disturbed that we may be far from realizing this noble objective of the festival.
This assertion is based on the fact that for the exception of few States participating in the National Sports Festival others have missed the intent and otherwise set objective of the Sports Festival. I guess these states have failed to realize that the National Sports Festival is a parameter used to measure the extent of their sport development policy.
We now have what I refer to as the culture of sport criminality been exhibited with impunity by some State Government who are only interested in buying sport machineries to represent their state and this to me has caused a discoloration of the entire sports festival which ought to serve as an avenue through which the following are achieved i.e to promote unity, to identify young and upcoming athletes as well as serve as a national pool for the various sport federations to recruit new athletes. We now see a situation whereby the richest state that can buy the best skilled athlete carries the day however, this dastardly act must be discouraged in its entirety.
Most state governments have jettisoned the idea of developing sport in their states and this has translated into the detriment and drop in standards been witnessed at the National Sports Festival as we now have instances, whereby some state governments instead of embarking on massive construction of sport facility across their state, employment of qualified sport coaches, entering into strategic partnership with the various departments of physical and health education in their state owned tertiary institutions as well as recruitment of qualified sport managers simply go to sleep only to wake up six (6) months to the next national sport festival to buy machineries.
In some cases we have some Governors that are not interested in sports while some are notable in their contribution towards sport development in their states such like the Governor’ s of Lagos State, Cross River State, Ogun State, Edo State, Delta State, Ondo State, and Kano State. Others are classified into two categories (i) Those that are out rightly not interested and (ii) Those that are cosmetically interested in sharing from the fame and glory rather than actual investment in sport development.
It is a shame for us in this time and age to still find states in Nigeria that cannot boast of a functional and befitting stadium while their counterparts can boast of having more than two (2) stadiums in their respective state. They are quick to appoint sport commissioners only to make them redundant and inactive. It beats my imagination for a state government to be comfortable not having a state of the art stadium in their state capital after spending four years in office.
The Honourable Minister/Chairman of the National Sports Commission through the instrumentality of the Presidency, National Assembly and the Governor’s Forum need to impress it on those states that lack befitting sport centre’s and stadium on the need to develop such because any state that fails to develop sport facilities is promoting a very dangerous trend and should be blacklisted as anti progressive agent towards the actualization of Nigeria Sport Development Vision 2020.
Considering the population of each state and the derivable benefit from sport participation by citizens and residents in the states as well as the contribution of sport to the general good of the people I am tempted to remind all that sport participation is a right as contained in the International Charter of Physical Education and Sport which was adopted at the Twentieth Session of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) that was held in Paris on 21st November, 1978 which state inter alia:
• Convinced that one of the essential conditions for the effective exercise of human rights is that everyone should be free to develop and preserve his or her physical, intellectual and moral powers, and that access to physical education and sport should consequently be assured and guaranteed for all human beings,
• Convinced that to preserve and develop the physical. intellectual and moral powers of the human being improves the quality of life at the national and the international levels,
• Believing that physical education and sport should make a more effective contribution to the inculcation of fundamental human values underlying the full development of peoples,
• Stressing accordingly that physical education and sport should seek to promote closer communion between peoples and between individuals. together with disinterested emulation, solidarity and fraternity, mutual respect and understanding, and full respect for the integrity and dignity of human beings,
• Considering that responsibilities and obligations are incumbent upon the industrialized countries and the developing countries alike for reducing the disparity which continues to exist between them in respect of free and universal access to physical education and sport.
Away from the invocation I dare ask how a state without stadium/training facility can present athletes to compete in the National Sport Festival or can we rather infer that such states are only interested in paying for the services of professional athletes known as “Machineries” to represent their states during National Sport Festival so as to satisfy the political ego of their various Governor’s.
My sincere and honest suggestion to the affected State Governments is for them to quickly embark on the development of modern sport stadiums and complex within their respective states while also upgrading and constructing new sport facilities in respective tertiary institutions, Secondary and Primary Schools within their states because such facilities when developed will be readily available for use as training centre’s for their state athletes when preparing genuinely for subsequent national sport festival. For those State Governments that may claim not to be financially buoyant they can engage the private sector in this regard or better still contribute a fraction of their Security Vote in this area after all researches have shown that sport has the capacity to reduce crime.
