Revamping our sport from its current state to a standard of appreciable status requires serious commitment on the part of government at all levels because the basic requirements, which in most cases have been proven to be viable in other climes, are practically missing in our own case. We have for a very long time neglected these basics and today as I venture into this long abandoned aspect of our national sport development agenda, it is my expectation that for once, we will be proud to identify ourselves as a people whose country is awake in the area of sport facility construction and maintenance.
One of the very important components that has the capacity to drive the sport development policy of any country is a corresponding commitment on the part of government in ensuring that sport facilities are constructed, upgraded where necessary and regularly maintained. A situation whereby, prospective athletes of great potential will have no facility to train except when they travel to their state capital from their respective locality which will present the burden of finance to struggling athletes who in most cases are not financially buoyant is highly unwarranted.
Today is not a day that I will want to talk about the terrible state of some of our stadiums especially those whose maintenance are by the Federal Government nor will I want to mention the state governments who cannot boast of a standard stadium lest to talk about having mini stadium around all the local government within their respective states.
I will rather as always appreciate the immense challenge before government emanating from other critical sectors of the economy not to talk about ecological and natural challenges at this time. However, I wish to lend my voice by also saying that it is high time that the Federal Government consider sport as a critical sector that needs to be developed holistically for the benefit of the people and the Nation at large.
Sport facility is considered as the structure wherein sporting activities are performed and it should be noted that it is not all sport that can be accommodated within a given facility therefore, it is expected that for there to be sport performance, there should also be built a sport facility which could be a stadium, gymnasium, mini- stadium etc.
It is worthy to recall at this point my personal experience when I visited China recently I noticed that the Chinese have developed an holistic sport development programme that will enable them identify talents that will be taken into their centralized academy for further training. I observed with keen interest that their primary schools, Middle Schools, High Schools and Universities all have state of the art sport facilities the one’s I visited had in them an indoor gymnasium, football pitch, athletics tracks, swimming pool, basket ball court, and volley ball court just to mention a few.
Their universities were something else not to mention their recreation park where exercises are done every morning by the old and the young. This experience of mine was also not different from what I witnessed in Europe as it is common to find indoor sport arena’s for community use and this is understandable because of the nature of their weather. Their institution of learning is nothing different from what I witnessed in China.
My concern therefore, is without conceding to other external variables that might not be controllable within the context of Governance, one wonders if it is possible that Government adopt the process of collaborative construction mechanism by this I mean that the Federal Government will decide to have a multi facet design with an integrated approach towards the construction of sport facilities and purchase of sport equipment which must be tired to other infrastructural development like construction of new roads leading to the new stadiums and linking such facilities with rail lanes, electricity as was done in South Africa during their preparation for hosting the FIFA World Cup 2010.
Government can decide to direct that as a matter of National Emergency within the next five (5) years all primary, secondary and tertiary institutions, states, local government areas, wards, and communities to aggressively embark on the construction of modern sport facilities and equip same while, approving a no tax regime for all imported materials for this specific purpose into the country thus encouraging states and local governments to key into the project.
Also, there should be a sport collaborative memorandum of understanding between the Presidency, National Sports Commission, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the Ministry of Finance which will clearly define a workable terms of agreement that will among other things ensure the followings:
I. The Construction of Sport Facilities for all in respective of physical challenge and purchase of appropriate equipments in all schools, tertiary institutions, states, local government areas, wards and communities within the next five (5) years.
II. The mandatory enforcement for all schools to comply in ensuring that adequate sport facility/ equipment are constructed in their schools with appropriate personnel to man them.
III. The commencement of immediate upgrade and repair of all existing stadiums and sport facilities across the country
IV. The development of a concession agreement to be presented to cooperate Nigeria and their derivable benefit through their investment in sport facility construction
V. The encouragement of sport academy development through the instrumentality of government in ensuring that zero interest rate is given to prospective investors in this sector by the bank of industry.
In view of the above, there is therefore the need for a concerted effort on the part of the Federal Government to drive this process and on this note I wish to commend Mr. President for calling for the convocation of a Presidential Sport Summit. We need to revamp our sport culture through the development of modern sport facility in all the areas mentioned above. I need to mention here that there is the need for government to maintain those existing facilities because they are part of our collective history as a nation.
