Sunday Dare, Minister of Youth and Sports Development has revealed that the various activities of the reformation in which his administration have kick-started is providing bountiful results during his sight-seeing visitation to the House Committee on Sports to the National Stadium and the National Institute of Sports (NISport), Lagos State as the outcomes lies in the area of various private investments and initiatives in sports development and growth.
The minister who was represented during the visit by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Youths and Sports Development, Gabriel Aduda was led by the House Committee delegation and its Chairman, Olumide Osoba, and had three other members —- Rasheed Afolabi, Tunji Olawuyi, and Mohammed Bello —- during the visit.
In recent times, the ministry has emphasized on sports sector as critical to the country, especially in the face of recent agitations, “the sports sector is indeed very critical for Nigeria, especially in the face of current agitation by the youths for reforms.”
“With the unalloyed support of the House and our determination to succeed, I am sure that we will consolidate on our current modest feats and achieve sustainable tranquility for the prosperous socio-economic activities.
“We will focus on the pursuit of the ministry’s mandate as it relates to sports development,” he added.
Dare said the re-classification of sports as a business instead of recreation had helped in moving the sector forward.
“The reclassification of sports as a business, instead of recreation, and approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) has yielded positive results.
“The ministry has completed a draft of the revised National Sports Industry Policy to pave way for the execution of sports and related activities as a business.
“The programmes and initiative are Adopt-an-Athlete, and from this, we have been able to source funding for our athletes for Tokyo Olympics, in which a local-based athlete will have 10,000 US dollars and their foreign-based colleagues have 20,000 US dollars.
“We have been able to secure funding for some of our athletes and one of the foreign-based was surprised when she got her funding unexpectedly. The funds are being transmitted to the athletes’ account,” he said.
