Football has been identified as a veritable tool that can bring communities and people of Nigeria together.
The CEO/Founder of Twenty Bucks Creative Charbel, Olusanya Jarrouge, made the observation while addressing journalists in Abuja.
He said sports can bring people together in ways that nothing else can and connect the people on a personal level.
“Playing or watching, both are great ways to develop or maintain strong personal connections with other people. Sport has always been a unifier from all aspects of the human race, from the rich to the poor, no matter where you come from,” he said.
Jarrouge, whose organisation is partnering with the Jalo Okwor Foundation to host a football tournament among political parties, in order to promote peaceful coexistence ahead of the 2023 elections, expressed concern that Nigerian politicians failed to understand the power of football and how it work to unite people amid increasing rate of violence in the past few months of political campaigns.
“I can say that even the peace accord is not working at the moment and I can give my opinion as to why I feel it is not effectively working, because who fights the wars if not the youths. So, in order for this to work, we are planning to sign peace accords with all the youths leaders. I believe this will help change the mindset of the youths who are being used as a political tool for violence.
“Our Foundation is not just limited to football but sports in general, though we agreed on football because football is one of the best tools to unite Nigerians and Nigerians appreciate football more.
‘I would like to relate football, violence and peace together by giving an example of a former footballer from Cote d’Ivoire, Didier Drogba who stopped a war for years just because of a tournament he hosted in his country. Another example is that FIFA recently launched the Football unit, the world campaign and they added that football is one of the vehicles to promote peace but unfortunately Nigeria is not included,” he stated.
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