Chairman Kogi State Cricket Association and board member of the Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF), Mr Oludare Aimola has taken over as the chairman, Cricket Club of Abuja (CCA).
The chairman of CCA, Raji George, on Sunday at the final of CCA Olam Agri T20 Blast 2022 held at the Cricket Oval of Moshood Abiola National Stadium handed over the power of CCA Aimola.
George described his tenure as the president of CCA as eventful and urged the new leadership of the club to build on his achievements and break new ground for the overall development of the game of cricket in Nigeria’s capital city Abuja and the country generally.
“It was a good four years term which was completed just now. The high points of my tenure as the president of CCA was making the club very active, having games every Sunday and we kept the club very much alive, having tournaments frequently as you can see here today.
My advice to the incoming president is to carry on with the friendship we have with the government and public, we need to make significant improvements on that.
“One of the things we could not do completely was that we wanted to take the game of cricket to the schools to groom the younger generation. You know that you don’t have that kind of importance from the general public yet because Nigeria doesn’t have that kind of money put into the development of the game of cricket,” George said.
The CCA president Aimola vowed to continue with the good programmes of his predecessor.
“We’re doing a lot of development which I’m going to continue with. Basically, our focus is to get the youth into the game of cricket and we are going to be having a lot of competitions because that is the only way we can drive our development.
“Most of our coaches are currently in schools in Abuja and neighbouring environments. Our focus is development.’
Aimola however urged the governments both at the federal, states and local government levels to pump more money into sports, saying sports drive the economy of every nation.
“Sports drive the economy of every nation. So, the government needs to pump more money into sports, especially for youth development and empowerment.’