National Sports Commission Chairman Mallam Shehu Dikko
played host at the NSC Headquarters to Minister of Arts, Culture, Tourism and
Creative Economy Bar. Hannatu Musawa to fine-tune a collaboration aimed at
meeting the sports economy,
entertainment and creative economy mandates of President Bola Ahmed
Tinubu GCFR.
Speaking at the event, Bar. Musawa highlighted
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR's boldness in taking decisions while pointing
out the need to synergize and do things differently.
Her words, "Mr. President has a vision for young
people and the majority of Nigerians are young people who are looking for a
sense of direction. One thing that stands out is the President's ability to
interrupt the normal way of doing things and reset the system for sustainable
development and growth. As a nation we couldn't continue the way we were going.
We had to do things differently.
She eulogized the resourcefulness, intellect and
industry of Mallam Dikko and believes he is the ideal person to steer the
sporting sector out of the doldrums.
"I have spent about thirty minutes discussing
with the Chairman (Mallam Dikko) and now I understand why the sports industry
needed that independence it required. There is no way sports will flourish if
it was bogged down by the bureaucracy of the past. Then there is a leader, a
Chairman that is ready not just to think out of the box, but to push, pull and tear down that envelope. It is
important to have a leader that looks at things from the grassroots and bottom
up approach. He is looking at addressing the root causes why sports continues
to be in a cataclyctic manner where it is not growing. Where we were unable to
win a medal at the last Olympics etc .
"The Chairman is addressing the issue from the
roots, to the point that he is even addressing education within the sports
structure so that sports becomes part of the mindset of the young people. The
young Nigerian can own the issue of sports because it becomes part of his
knowledge and history growing up."
"Listening to the things he wants to do is
comforting to me as a Nigerian. He is looking at some of the baseline countries
that have done sports in a very revolutionary way and he is trying to replicate
that in Nigeria. Sports is not just going in the right direction, it is
completely in the right hands", she enthused.
Bar. Musawa harped on the need for the collaboration
between sports and the creatives.
"When sports and creative speak, Nigerians
listen, Nigerians unite. We should join hands and carry out the mandate of Mr.
President", she opined.
She continued, "We spoke about the building of an
equestrian city project, a creatives hubs etc. We noted the lack of sporting
infrastructure. We can create an ecosystem within the sports and creative
community where we can merge. My ministry has gone far in the talks about a
creative hub that will have an animation. Already that is something that the
Sports Commission is working on. So rather than operate in silos, we can join forces so that together
we can leverage more on the capacity and complimentary advantages that we have
to build something unique."
While pointing out that her ministry intends building
a cultural museum, creative hubs with even private financing locked down, she
noted that it would be perfect to situate this game-changing and economically
viable projects within the Moshood Abiola National Stadium. She thus stated
that a collaboration between both institutions "will be the key to
unlocking the potentials of Abuja as the greatest city."
She concluded, "We will be signing an MOU. After
that, we will divulge what is in that MOU and get down to work. And there is no
better person that I can work on this project with than you, Chairman."
In his speech, Mallam Dikko hailed the Honourable
Minister for "doing an amazing work with the creatives and trying to break
the ceiling by doing things differently."
He added, "Creatives and sports are part of our
national assets because they break all
our fast lines and brings all together as one. For example Every time you see a
Burna Boy performing on the global stage or a video somewhere breaking barriers
across the world, nobody remembers who he is, we are all proud to say we are
Nigerians. Same thing with sports. We are all celebrating Osimhen today as our
global icon but before 2015, he was just a normal boy doing his thing to
survive on the streets. With his exploits, he has taken his family and
generation to the next level. Only sports and the creatives can give someone
that kind of pathway to greatness.
"It's a no brainer that we have to work together.
The type of positives that creatives and sports people are giving Nigeria, if
we spend $1b on PR a year, we can't buy it."
He believes the collaboration will help them achieve
the President's mandate.
"What you have listed here aligns with our Sports
City vision. Mr. President has given you the mandate to harness the potentials
of creative economy and given us the mandate to harness the potentials of
sports economy. We have to collaborate to achieve these. We are ready to give
the facilities, enablers and available
land to develop all those great ideas that you have mentioned here.
"Our objective is that in a couple of years, we
should be counting 3m sports jobs both direct, indirect and induced as well as
be atleast 3% of GDP. We can't achieve that without this kind of collaborations
to fast-track development", he concluded
Comments:
Leave a Reply