Maj-Gen Faruk Yahaya, the General Officer Commanding (GOV) 1 Division Nigerian Army, Kaduna, said on Sunday that the Division would introduce a sports competition solely for girls within the barrack and surrounding communities.
Yahaya made the disclosure at the closing of the one-week GOC Under 18 Youths Football competition held in Kaduna.
12 football teams from the Army, Police, Customs, Civil Defence, Correctional Service, FRSC, DSS, and communities around the Division participated in the competition.
Yahaya said,” In this regard, I have directed that such capacity development activities should not only be restricted to the male-gender but efforts must be made to come up with activities aimed at girl-child development.
“Very soon, we would again be inviting you to prepare your teams and to be our guests during sporting activities involving the female youth in our barracks.
”As I said during the opening ceremony, although the competition is my baby and it is captioned ‘GOC Youth Football Competition’, nevertheless the competition was packaged in the spirit of the vision of the Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen TY Buratai.”
He explained that the vision was on capacity building not only of personnel but also their families.
The GOC noted that the quality of the final match “attest to the need to further expose our youth to more opportunities to enable them to showcase themselves.”
“I hope you have been able to select some of our youths that could make Kaduna State and the Nation proud,” he told the organisers.
Yahaya said in the competition of this nature there must be winners and losers.
“For those who won, I say congratulations and do not rest on your oars.
“For those who may not have won many laurels today, I urge you to take solace in the words of Michael Jordan, a renowned basketball player who said, ‘I have lost almost 300 games, but, I have been trusted to take the game-winning shots and missed.
“I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. So, I tell you most sincerely that you have a reason to succeed next time, but you must work harder.”
Earlier, the Commander, 1Division Garrison, Brig.-Gen Jimmy Akpor said the competition is aimed at fostering civil-military cooperation as well as channelling the energies of the youths toward productive and legitimate engagements.
Divine FC beat NAF Bombers 4-0 to emerge winners in the finals, while 44 FC was third best.
NAN
