Work with commitment, passion to fast-track sports development, Minister tasks federations

Minister of Sports Development, Senator John Owan Enoh, has charged sports federations’ presidents to undertake their jobs with commitment, passion and focus for sports to grow and contribute to the nation’s development.

In a meeting with all federation presidents and secretaries, Enoh said that the government has huge expectations from the sports sector and that sports federations must satisfactorily operate at a good level for those expectations to be met.

“Government has expectations from the ministry and those expectations can only be satisfied by what you do as federations. We will institute periodic meetings of review in terms of our activities. Our periodic meetings and the federations’ feedback will help us determine what is needed to reposition this sector, so the ministry can continually play the role that is expected of it.

“We must set targets for ourselves. We must get to a point in which those who want to be presidents must sufficiently challenge the norm about what they think they want to offer and what makes them run for that position.

The minister explained that in several countries around the world, sports is a driving force for national development, and thus Nigeria, with its rich human resources and abundance of talents must be part of those countries.

“If we have local league leagues running in football and a few other sports, why can’t we have local leagues for every other sports. It is in doing so, that we can build the required talents to compete with others internationally. By the time our current elite competitors exit the stage, we must have a system for continuity. The system that will feed us with talents will come from our organisation at the grassroots level.”

He assured that the ministry will continually collaborate with federations, to give them the necessary support needed to excel, as well as offer incentives for growth.

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