The newly appointed Chairman of the National Sports Commission (NSC), Mallam Shehu Dikko, announced that the country’s journey towards building a sustainable sports economy has officially begun.
Dikko made this statement yesterday during a brief ceremony in Abuja, where the former Minister of Sports, Senator John Enoh, formally handed over the responsibilities of national sports affairs to him.
“History has a way of coming full circle because in 2008 I was a consultant to the House of Representatives and was responsible for the drafting of the National Sports Commission bill and about 16 years down the line I have here with the assignment to implement the work i put together”.
“The objective of Mr President is to earnest the full potential of the sports economy in Nigeria. And we have to first change our mindset from the fixation of just competitions and winning medals and come back and fix our sports. When we set the foundation right the results and the winning of medals will naturally come and that should be the new mindset”.
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“We cannot continue to run in a cycle so we need to have a different approach from day one because, in my view and the view of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, competition is what we call consumption”
“But we have to go back to production, which is Sports Development, where we set the structure right, set the framework and put together good parameters to have a sustainable sports development which will naturally give us a solid economy.
“This is the reason why our administration will focus on three pillars, including running Sports as a National Asset, that is entitled to special privileges, regulations and concessions”.
“We have to also work on foundations and regulations, so that the Industry can grow effectively, like what happened in the communications industry some years back”.
“The other Pillar is investing in purposeful, world-class infrastructure that will provide an enabling environment for growth. These infrastructures must be deliberate with maintenance culture.”.
“The thinking of Mr President is that after having some all these in place, we should be able to measure the Country’s Sports by its contribution to the nation’s GDP by at least three per cent in the next four to five years,” he said.
