Photo credit: Nairametrics
The American singer, Johnny Nash released an album in 1972. In that album was the song, ‘I can see clearly the rising star’. Incidentally, the song was written while he was convalescing on an hospital bed.
The song became a super hit!
The wonderful performance of the national football team, the Super Eagles in these times of various embarrassing situations is really well deserved. At least, we have something to be nationally proud of.
We join other Nigerians in congratulating ourselves!
How I wish the victory could be used as a stepping stone to revive Nigeria’s sports. I am using the word, revive, as someone who has seen Nigeria performing rather well in sports competitions. Of course, I know that we can still perform well given the enabling environment.We, certainly, can do well if our rulers are ready to take certain steps in conjunction with the populace.
Let us use the opportunity of the victory to positively reorganise Nigerian football and indeed Nigerian sports. In the good old days the national space was filled.with football clubs like the darling club of Lagos soccer fans, the Stationery Stores, others included NEPA, NPA, the Nigeria Police, Julius Berger, Abiola Babes, IICC Shooting Stars, Raccah Rovers, Rangers International, and so on.
Then we had players like Adokiye Amesimaka, Murtala Onigbanjo, Siji Lagunju, Segun Odegbami, Sam Opone, Duro Adigun, Christian Okpala, Sam Ojebode,etc.
Most of the players were picked to play for the clubs from their respective secondary schools. Then we had very viable age grade football competitions.
The competitions started from the primary schools. The secondary school version was called the Principals’ Cup. It was organised in all the states of the federation.
We also had the Schools’ Sports, a national sports competition among secondary schools. It was an annual event that was hosted in turns by the states in Nigeria.
For the universities, we had the National University Games, NUGA. It was hosted by the various universities in Nigeria. We used to have something similar for the Polytechnics too.
We also had the National Sports Festival which used to be an annual event hosted by states in Nigeria.
So many sports stars were discovered through those games. And they went on to represent the nation at various competitions. Of course, they brought so many laurels.
Apart from positively engaging then youth, sports used to be a unifying factor for the various ethnic groups in the country. It is also a way of making the country popular.
And these days, it has been discovered that sports, if well organised, could be a major revenue earner. Nigeria could, of course, earn the big bucks from international sporting events.
But then, a lot of work needs to be done!
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