Dare, Yakmut, Mouktar, Others Honour Olajide Fashikun

The need for all stakeholders to exert tireless effort in taking Nigeria’s sports to eldorado through steady grassroots sports development took centre stage during the one-day Lecture Series organised in honour of late media guru Olajide Fashikun by Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN), FCT chapter.

They also agreed that the best way to immortalise fiery Fashikun was to replicate laudable sporting initiatives he stood for.

Minister of Youth and Sports development, Sunday Dare, and other top sports personalities in the country, including the erstwhile Director General of the defunct National Sports Commission (NSC), Mallam Al-Hassan Yakmut, Chairman of FCT Football Association Alhaji Adam Mouktar Mohammed, harped on the need for relevant stakeholders to join hands in development of sports at the grassroots.

The d-day actually started with a well-researched and delivered paper title; “Exhausting the Cycle of Grassroots Sports

Programming for Consistent Podium Success” by Mallam Yakmut inside the MKO Abiola National stadium in Abuja as part of 2019 SWAN week.

Mallam Yakmut, former Nigerian Volleyball international and Secretary to the Civil Defence, Fire, Immigration and Prisons Services Board, said Nigeria’s greatest challenge in the quest for podium success in sports was lack of sustainability of grassroots programming system.

He said the enablers that make grassroots programming system like school sports stick and succeed are not readily available, and called for collaboration among the relevant agencies for the development sports at the grassroots.

“The challenge in the country is youth engage and not youth empowerment. The youth are not engage to discover their talents in proper way. Talents are identified in a very unorganized manners and after win world youth championship we will not hear of the talents gain. Where is the school sports programme?