“The energy of the youths needs to be channeled
towards doing more positive things and sports will do exactly that.” This was
the view of NSC Chairman Mallam Shehu Dikko when he played host to Crown Prince
of Benin Kingdom Prince Ezelekhae Ewuare on Thursday.
While espousing this point, Dikko observed that sports
is not all about participation and medals.
His words, “Sports is a veritable tool to solve
youths’ restiveness. All these issues of cultism and violence will be tackled
when the youths are provided avenues to burn their energy through sports. The
security agencies had statistics to support the fact that when we played night
games in the NPFL those days, crime rate reduced in the society.”
To boost grassroots sports development, Dikko
reiterated that school sports will be revived at all levels.
“We plan to have centers of excellence from the
primary school up to the university levels, so when we discover a six-year-old
who is good, we take him to a specific primary school and later follow him up
to specific secondary schools and universities. These schools will be supported
with the necessary facilities and well-trained coaches”, he added.
Earlier, Prince Ewuare had pointed out that he had
established eight gyms across Edo in a bid to boost fitness and grassroots
development of sports. While pointing out the importance of sports in curbing
cultism in the state and beyond, he appealed for the Commission’s support in
actualizing his lofty goals for sports at the grassroots.
Dikko assured him of the Commission’s support. In
Dikko’s opinion, the involvement of royalty in sports will help to take the
vision and mission of the Commission down to the grassroots.
“We will set up a small team here (NSC) to upscale
what you are doing. We have experts here who will give appropriate advice and
guidance in the short, medium and long-term”, he concluded.
Highpoint of the visit was the presentation of Benin
bronze head to the NSC helmsman.
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