The Senate Committee on Sports Development has said that the multiple awards won by Nigerians at the CAF awards held in Morocco have made the need to invest heavily in sports more urgent.
“It is a wake-up call for the government to invest more in sports and to pull the private sector more into it,” the Chairman of the Committee, Sen. Suleiman Kawu-Sumaila, said in Abuja on Wednesday.
He described the awards as “bold and big statements made on behalf of Nigeria by the winners.”
Super Eagles forward, Victor Osimhen, won the award for African Footballer of the Year (men) at the event; Super Falcons striker, Asisat Oshoala, won the CAF Female Footballer of Year; while the Super Falcons’ goaltender, Chiamaka Nnadozie, won the Best Goalkeeper award.
The Super Falcons also carted away the award for Best Female National Team.
The Senate committee congratulated President Bola Tinubu; the Minister of Sports, Sen. John Owan-Enoh; and the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) on the awards.
A statement the chairman issued, reads partly, The statement reads, “By this clean sweep of awards by our son, Victor Osimhen, our daughters Asisat Oshoala, Chiamaka Nnadozie and the entire Super Falcons Team, we in the Senate Committee, will leverage the success for nation building.
“We stand to be corrected, no sector has done Nigeria this proud. No sector has brought Nigeria honour and glory more than sports. This is the reason for the development of the sector in making it one of the strongest pillars for diversification of the nation’s economy.
“We will not encourage the handshake policy of the past to be used for those who have done us the new honours but ensure that those who deserve to be rewarded are handsomely rewarded to serve as an encouragement for others to strive to be the best.”
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