Former Green Eagle player and Nigerian legendary footballer, Dr Segun Odegbami has called on West African sub-region to bid for the hosting of world cup to enable the region harness the abundant potentials and prosperities in the tournament.
He made the call while presenting the 15th distinguished public lecture series of the Federal University Lokoja, Kogi State with the theme ‘Sport has the power to change the world. How true?’
According to him, all countries that have hosted the world cup and other international sport tournament have made huge impact that improve on the economy and development of such countries, noting that time has come for West African countries to host the first world cup to be held in the African continent.
“I proposed using sports to catalyse, facilitate, accelerate and enforce the biggest and fastest infrastructural development program for the West African sub-region, by West Africa bidding to host the First World Cup to be held in the African continent.
“The idea was simple. More countries in the project would mean more collaboration, reduction in the burden of cost for a single country, and wider spread of the benefits to more countries.
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“The eight years of preparing to receive and host a visiting global community of at least one million sports fans over a one month period would change that region completely, forever.
“It was too good to be true. Yet, sport has the power to achieve that and more. The evidence is all over other parts of the world, for instance in China, in the UAE, in Europe and America. In these places, sport continues to expand its deployment for infrastructural, social and economic development,” the football legend said.
Odegbami who was among the team that won the African nation’s cup laurel for Nigeria in 1980 charged the Federal University Lokoja and other tertiary institutions in the country to prioritise sports in order to discover talents that would advance the cause of the institution in sport activities.
“Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire, the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to the youths in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where there was once despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers,” he stated.
Earlier in his speech, the Vice Chancellor of the institution, Professor Olayemi Akinwumi said as academics, they recognize the transformative power of sports beyond the field of play, noting that sports inspire, build discipline, and cultivate leadership values that are crucial for individual and national development.
“We have seen how global sporting events like the FIFA world cup and the olympics bring nations together in the spirit of competition and friendship. Locally, football, athletics, and basketball have played vital roles in fostering national pride and identity.
“As a university and as a nation, we must harness the power of sports to promote unity, development, and social change. We believe that sport has the potential to foster the much-needed unity within our university, across Kogi State, and throughout Nigeria,” the VC stated.
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