BY DUSTAN AGHEDO, Lagos
The House of Representatives Committee on Sports has expressed disappointment at the state and condition of the National Institute for Sports (NIS), liken the institute to a ghost town and no longer what it used to be.
The Reps, who were at the institute as part of their oversight functions, urged the management of the institute and Sport Ministry to effect immediate developmental changes to the facility in a bid to revive the institute to its glory days, making it effective for the sporting users.
The chairman of the Olumide Osoba, charged the management of the institution to their thinking cap to generate revenues that can in turn be used for maintenance, noting that the sports committee will contribute its own quota to this resuscitation.
Leading members of the house committee on sports to the NIS and the National Stadium in Lagos, accompanied by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development, Gabriel Aduda, among other committee members, Osoba said, “We have told them what we want them to do at the NIS and in two weeks time some members of the committee will come back to inspect and confirm what we have briefed them. And we would be rotating members that would be coming here, as it would be quarterly to monitor them in NIS.
“It’s a bit sad to see the NIS in this state. We have a lot of people come here to get their professional qualifications and now the place looks like a ghost town. It does not look like what it used to be. We need to find a way to bring it back to what it used to be. This should be a revenue generating institute.”
In his reaction, the NIS Director-General, Dr John Dadi-Mamud, told journalists that, “The problem of this institute has always been funding. It is easy to put an edifice on the ground, and then there is the maintenance. Maintenance has always been the problem at the NIS.”
