Sports Devt: Dikko Vows To Address Infrastructure Challenges

The new chairman of the National Sports Commission (NSC), Shehu Dikko, has revealed that one of the fundamental objectives of the commission was to focus on the infrastructure challenges confronting sports development in Nigeria.

He made the remark at the University of Ibadan during the personality guest lecture of the Faculty of Education delivered by the former president of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Mr Amaju Pinnick, yesterday.
He said good infrastructure in Nigeria would contribute to the development of sports in the country.

The guest lecturer, Amaju Pinnick, said one of the major challenges confronting sports development in Nigeria was lack of maintenance and called for immediate remedy.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Pinnick said Nigeria was hugely blessed with talented and skillful individuals but the country is lacking in adequate facilities where those individuals would exhibit their talents and skills.

“What we lack in Nigeria is a culture of maintenance and it starts from our homes. If you do not maintain your homes, how will you maintain the sports facilities,” he said.

Pinnick said countries like Morocco, Egypt, Brazil, Germany and England are performing well in sports due to their investment in sports infrastructure development.

He said Nigeria has everything to succeed and called on state and federal governments to work with sports administrators in the country while renovating stadiums in order to have standard sports facilities in Nigeria.

“Nigeria cannot host FIFA competitions because most of the stadiums in Nigeria don’t have what it takes to call the facility a stadium.

“For example, the Godswill Akpabio Stadium in Uyo which we see as our best presently cannot qualify for such classification.

“It because it does not even have hospitality suites from where FIFA generates at least 30 percent of its revenue from matches,” the CAF Executive Committee member said.