FG Will Adopt Camping System to Nurture the Skills of Starlets into Olympians
Chinedu Ojobo
The Federal Government has reaffirmed its commitment, to achieve the goals and objectives of the National Youth Games, which among others , is to discover and develop young athletes for future competitive sporting events, both locally and internationally.
The Honourable Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Mr Sunday Dare gave this policy direction during a media interactive session at the University of Ilorin, Venue of the ongoing 5th Edition of National Youth Games.
While pouring encomiums on the Philosophy and vision behind the National Youth Games, Mr Dare opined that the Games is a rennaisance of real grassroots sports development in the country, adding that, it is the deliberate plan of the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development to turn over the discovered talents of the Games to the Federations for subsequent and proper management through the Camping System.
Recalling the earlier meeting he had with the States Director of Sports last week Monday, the Honourable Minister praised their collaborative efforts, stressing that without them the games would not have been possible.
Mr Dare in line with the Federal Government’s avowed policy of taking Youth and Sports Development to a transformative level, proclaimed that he would have another productive interactive meeting with the State Directors of Sports, to know their challenges, “Together, we can learn, to take it as raw material to all the Governors”. He promised to present their recommendations on how to improve grassroot sport development to the body of the National Economic Council on their behalf as the Federal Minister of Youth and Sports Development.
Furthermore, Mr Dare said that the Ministry will in collaboration with the States strive to improve the capacity of Athletic Coaches through enhanced capacity building programme to achieve our vision and objective for high performance in athletics generally.He reaffirmed the administration of Presidential Muhammadu Buhari commitment to increase the ante for effective management and upgrade of facilities in our Stadiums.
Present at the interactive session were the Director of Grassroot Sports Department of the Ministry, Dr Ademola Are; Director of Sports, Kwara State; Deputy Directors of the Ministry, Presidents of Federations and their Secretaries, Coaches from the States, Games Officials, and Sports Icons, Ambassadors Mary Onyali and Falilat Ogunkoya; including some Under – 15 Athletes from different States.
