Minister pledges to reposition sports federations

Minister of Youth and Sports Development Sunday Dare has pledged to reposition Sports federations in the country in line with international best practices.

The minister made the pledge on Monday in Abuja at the presentation of the report on Nigeria’s poor performance at the 2019 IAAF World Athletics championship in Doha by the Ken Angwueje-led committee.

.He said that the ministry would continue to maintain its supervisory role on all sports federations in a bid to ensure efficient service delivery.

“There is no federation that is bigger than the sports ministry; we have the supervisory rights and the oversight on behalf of Nigerians.

“We appreciate the work of the federations but we will not exchange our oversight power to any federation where we think that the federation is going wrong,

“We will move to resolve all the crises rocking all the sports federations and down the road, we will work together to achieve the goal,” he said.

Dare said that Nigeria’s poor performance at Doha needed to be reviewed to forestall a repeat at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and subsequent competitions.

“Doha gave us the opportunity to do a surgery in view of 2020 Olympic Games, because we are determined to turn the page on sports development in the country and it starts now,” he said.

The minister promised to look into the recommendations of the committee with a view to setting up an action plan.

Earlier, the Chairman of the Committee, Prof. Ken Anugweje, said that the committee had worked round the clock with relevant stakeholders to unravel and proffer solutions for the development of athletics in the country.

He thanked the minister for the opportunity to serve and expressed optimism that the recommendations would be implemented.

Members of the committee are: Ken Angwueje (Chairman), Umar Bindir, Rotimi Obajimi, Ibrahim Galadima, Dare Esan, Mary Onyali, Falilat Ogunkoya as members while Maria Wophill served as secretary.

It was reported that the minister had, a week ago, inaugurated an eight-member committee to review Nigeria’s poor outing at Doha.