On the issue of facilities, the minister should make deliberate plans for the completion of the Lagos stadium. While kudos must be given to former Minister, Mr. Sunday Dare for starting work on the pitch, Senator Enoh must do everything humanly possible to ensure its completion even if that is the only thing he will achieve which I think it would not because of his antecedents. He would do more than that if what he did for his constituencies as House of Representatives and Senate member are anything to go by.
Welfare of players/athletes
During the last Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, Nigeria Athletes protested on the streets because of their ban and delay in the payment of their allowances but after that, such incidents never came up again during Dare’s tenure. The minister, Sen. John Owan Enoh can prevent such embarrassment by not only picking interest in the athletes/players’ welfare but by also ensuring that issues like allowances and bonuses are taken care of before embarking on any tournament/championship. “Let’s wash our clean linen inside instead of outside. (Paraphrased).
By doing that, there won’t be distraction in the camp of the athletes or players. Another distraction the minister must look into is that of scouts/agents at the junior cadet levels. The agents storm the camps of the athletes/players during championship/tournament and promise them offers and because of that, the players will begin to play individual game against the team or coach’s pattern/style or instructions.
Quarterly stakeholders meetings
Kudos must goes to Senator Enoh for engaging the media in Lagos. It is the right step in the right direction. They are the ones that will make the job easy for him. However, the same gesture should be extended to other journalists across the country, every journalist has his or her reader, listener or follower, no matter how good or bad the person is. A good relationship will go a long way to help attract investors but bad publicity will chase them away.
Secondly, other Stakeholders like referees, coaches, administrators, etc should be carried along and if possible, a joint meeting be arranged for them to be given opportunity to talk or make suggestions on how to develop sports. Nobody has monopoly of wisdom. Not all of them have opportunity to write or express themselves like the media.
Regular doping of athletes
The World Athletics Championship just ended, thank God, there was no incident of doping. All African Games and Olympics are fast approaching. If it is possible, let the Ministry conduct regular doping test in order to avoid embarrassment and distraction Tobi Amusan faced recently that affected her performance. Also, regular seminars on drug abuse be conducted for athletes and players. The Holy Book says, good name is better than gold and frankiscence. In our case, good name (Nigeria) is better than Gold, Silver or Bronze.
Participation of Nigerians in Diaspora
The Federations should encourage or allow anybody that wants to play for his or her country especially those Nigerians in Diaspora. Some of them found themselves outside the country but the love for fatherland is still in them. Super Falcons player, Alozie is a typical example. Nigeria is doing well in football and basketball today because most of the players are based abroad but that doesn’t mean we won’t develop our league back home. For now, the foreign based players are better off.
Development of the league/Grassroot Development
No country sport can grow without its grassroot development or league. The Nigeria Football Federation, NFF has started something and are about developing a programme to be followed by all football academies across the country. The Minister should sing this same song to other federations and if possible, let them begin to catch them young especially from the secondary school level.
The Minister should also collaborate with the Education Minister to ensure that schools have sporting facilities especially those newly-built. The likes of Serena Williams, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Ronaldinho were discovered during their school days.
Provision of more facilities
Apart from the school having their facilities, Government should have a deliberate policy to build more infrastructure like it is done in other countries. We can use the template of South Africa. It is because of their deliberate development of facilities that, they were given opportunity to host the football and rugby world cup. We mustn’t wait until we want to bid for hosting rights. Also, the few facilities we have presently are not well maintained and utilised. In Turkey, their stadia are functional day and night hence they are generating revenue for maintenance and that is what is expected in Nigeria.
The shops and offices in the stadium in Abuja should be given out for rent, the payment can be used to take care of other needs in the stadium. Once the offices or shops are occupied, the stadium will be busy, and money will be generated and it will be easy to maintain the edifice.
Private sector drive
The former Minister, Mr. Dare introduced adopt-an-athlete and adopt-a-facility. It was a good initiative even though it was the idea of late Jide Fashikun. Sen. Enoh should continue with the project because government cannot do it alone, we need the private sector to help. If it is possible, let there be tax rebate for any company interested in supporting sports development in the country.
The Minister should try and convince President Tinubu to make the companies generating money in Nigeria channel some percentages of their profits into sports. By so doing, many youths will be interested in sports and automatically, crime rate will drop and everybody will be able to sleep or operate their businesses peacefully.
It has also been discovered that most companies in Nigeria make money here and take it to their countries to develop their sports. They only do ambush marketing in Nigeria. You will only see them come around to support or romance the team and probably give peanuts when teams excel or win laurels/medals at international tournaments. They will never show their faces when the team is preparing or struggling to make ends meet, they are more interested in eye-service and taking undeserved glory.
Events at stadium
The Minister should pick interest in the activities that take place in the stadium especially at the Velodrome. Information has it that they generate a lot of money from such but yet cannot afford to fuel their machine for cutting of grasses or maintain facilities. Also, the Minister should not allow any event to take place on the pitches of the stadia across the country anymore because they are one of the reasons why FIFA is not approving our stadia for matches.
NIS – hostels
Lastly, the National Institute for Sports, NIS is not functional in Abuja. The Abuja centre was set up to take care of the people from Abuja and the northern part while the one in Lagos is meant to take care of the people from Lagos and the southern parts of the country.
The NIS cannot function well because there are no hostels for their students coming from outside Abuja. The Minister should intervene, either to allow the Goodluck Jonathan hostel (by NFF Secretariat) to be used or the NIS hostel/guest house to be completed (opposite the school). NIS is supposed to be producing the next generation of coaches and administrators but it is not doing that effectively because of this restriction.
And it has been discovered that many of the coaches churned out on an annually basis are jobless. Now that the Minister is interested in grassroot development, these sets of coaches can be engaged to help in the programme. They can be used as scouts to help discover another Okochas, Kanus, Onyalis, Ezenwas, Olumides, Adesanyas, Toriolas, etc. Honourable Minister, Senator John Owan Enoh, you can make things happen. You can rewrite history in this sector if only you consider some of the suggestions above.
