Breaking: Shehu Dikko fully takes over sports commission
The former chairman of the League Management Company (LMC) Malam Shehu Dikko has finally taken over the leadership of Sports Commission as the last minister of sports development, John Owan Enoh handed over to him on Wednesday.
The handiover event took place at the MKO Abiola National Stadium, Abuja, on Wednesday.
Dikko in a chat with newsmen shortly after the handiover noted that the Country’s journey towards a sustainable sports economy has begun.
Accordingto him, ” History has a way of coming full circle because in 2008 I was a consultant to the House of Representatives and was responsible for the drafting of the National Sports Commission Bill and about 16 years down the line i am here with the assignment to implement the work I assisted to put together”.
” The objective of Mr President is to harness the full potentials of the sports economy in Nigeria.
” And we have to first change our mindset from the fixation of just competitions and winning medals and come back and fix our Domestic Sports Development.
” When we set the foundation right the results and the winning of medals will naturally come in a sustainable manner and that should be the new mindset.
” We cannot continue to run in cycles so we need to have a different approach from day one because in my view and indeed the view of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, competitions is what we call “Consumption” because we just take scarce resources and burn out abroad without any impact on the domestic sports development and the Nigerian Economy.”
The former LMC boss emphasized on the need to go back to “Production” which he said is the deliberate sports development, where the structure, the framework is set right and put together good parameters to have a sustainable Sports Development which will naturally give us a solid Sports Economy and indeed guaranteed competitive participation at all competitions and medals.
Dikko added that, “We have to also work on Legislations and Regulations so as to set the framework to enable the Industry to grow effectively like what happened in the communications industry some years back”.
” The other Pillar is investing in purposeful world class infrastructures that will provide an enabling environment for Growth. These infrastructures must be deliberate with maintenance culture and span from world class infrastructure for professional sports to community infrastructure to drive grassroots sports and mass participation across the country.
” The thinking of Mr President is that , after having some of all these in place we should be able to measure the Country’s Sports by its contribution to the nation’s GDP by at least three percent and the number of jobs sports and its value chain are providing in country in the next four to five years and indeed our competitiveness across all competitions and tournaments,” he said.
