The former secretary General of Nigeria Football Association Chief Taiwo Ogunjobi has proffered a panacea to the numerous problems he itemized bedeviling sports development in Nigeria.

The Chairman of Osun State Football Association revealed this while delivering a paper with the theme ‘The Ills Militating against Sports Development in Nigeria’ at a symposium organized Organization for Grassroots Sports Development (OGSD) held inside the indoor Sports Hall of Obafemi Awolowo Stadium Ibadan.

Ogunjobi, in his 5 pages paper enumerated 5 factors which included: Challenges of Implementations of the National Sports Policy, Challenges of Inadequate of Sports Facilities, Challenges of Sports Development Personnel and Finance problems as major challenges that is retarding the growth of Nigerian Sports.

He queried that, how many of our sports administrators that aware of the National Sports Policy, formulated in 2009 or have implemented it at any level, being federal, state or local government level?

“It is worthy to mention that the National Sports Policy as we have it today is a very and well written document , but permit to ask that how many administrators have seen it or have a copy not to talk of implementing it. I’m very sure only very few among our administrators know about it and besides, is there an awareness of the existence of such policy”, he queried.

“We need to develop a system whereby we would make all states’ development officers to understand the importance of the implementation guideline of the national sports policy and also create an avenue for evaluation of this policy through a feedback mechanism, so that we can as we progress, correct those ills in areas identified”, Ogunjobi added.

The ex-Shooting Stars Captain also advised our government not to see any money plunged into sports as a mere waste, saying Sports development is money consuming and for those who don’t understand the dynamism of sports would look at it as mere waste of resources.

He stated further that countries that must do well or currently doing well in sports are doing so because they have committed huge financial resources into the development of their sport.

Other dignitaries and personalities that graced the occasion  included the member of Nigeria Cycling Federations, Engineer Ndubusi Okorie, the Zonal Coordinator of National Sports Commission zone 1’ Steve Olarinoye,Osun State House of Assembly member, AbdulRazak Adeyemi and the Caretaker Chairman, Ogbomoso South Local Government, Olajide Isaac among others.

Akanbi Agiri