Youth Sports Federation of Nigeria (YSFON) last weekend showed that the moribund state of the nation’s sports sector can be revived, if every stakeholder in the sector can pull together and function as a team. The body spared no effort in its commitment towards the development of sports in the country by its swift move at electing a new president, Dr Nasir Yusuf Gawuna, to pilot its affairs following the sudden death of former president, Alhaji Jamiu Tunde Ojulari.
The Federation is one of the most efficient grassroots sports development organisations that have produced lots of sportsmen and women for the country. A peep into the history of body reveals that the organisation has a good focus from the beginning on what it intends to achieve and to some extent had done everything within its power to remain on track.
Knowing these enormous challenges and responsibilities that await him, the new president, Gawuna, who was sworn in last Saturday in Abuja as the third president of the association with the overwhelming support of the delegates to run the affairs of the Federation, vowed to give the organisation a quality leadership that would be devoid of any form of rancor.
He said he offered himself for the position of YSFON president because of his desire for a positive change. “I offered to be the president of YSFON because I want to lead a transformational movement. YSFON as family is passionate about our youth development. We all know that our sport is nose diving because of faulty foundations. I want to assure you today that, YSFON will be completely repositioned to revive our sports and bring back the lost glory,” he assured.
The former chairman of Nasarawa local government area of Kano State revealed that his first major task as he takes over the mantle of leadership of YSFON is to review the constitution of the organisation and make it sound and a time-bound constitution that will give every member the opportunity to make his or her contribution to the growth of sports.
“One way to foster teamwork is to engage members in activities that require them to work together. Working together for a charitable cause builds teamwork and gives the participants a good feeling of working together.
“As I promised you during my tour of zones, we are going to have our constitution reviewed to make a sound and time bound constitution that will provide opportunity for everyone to make meaningful contribution to sports development.
“We will decentralise the working structure of the organisation and give all zone autonomous power to operate.? This will definitely make us closer to the youths in all nooks and crannies of the country and also make our presence felt in all the local government areas of the country.
“We will partner with all the relevant sports bodies in the country and work closely with them to ensure that our lost glory in sports is restored. We are going to knock on the doors of every relevant body and individual that will help us to achieve our desired goal of lifting YSFON and Nigeria’s sports in general to greater height.? I appeal to all our states chapters to be up and doing and ensure that in all the 774 local government areas of the country, YSFON is in place. This is the only way we can truly unveil talents that are bond in all the nooks and crannies of the country,” he said.
Speaking at the swearing-in ceremony of the new president, former secretary of Nigeria Football Association (NFA), Fanny Amun, noted that the primary role of YSFON is to unveil talents; he therefore urged the body to separate politics from the objectives of its founding fathers. He attributed Nigeria’s failure in sports in the last decade to lack of vision and focus of the present administrators.
“The primary objective of YSFON is to unveil talents in the grassroots. Nigeria failed in the last 10 years in sports simply because everyone was after result and forgets to give our aspiring athletes a solid foundation that would enable them surmount the challenges ahead. YSFON must lead the campaign and return back to the basics of sports development.
Reposition the age-grade levels competitions and bring some level of sanity to the system.
Introducing some stringent disciplinary measures into the organisation of sports competitions among youths would help us to always get the right players in the senior national team,” Amun said.
YSFON, in spite of its tremendous achievements in sports development especially in football, the greater challenge has always been how to find a happy medium in the working relationship between the organisation and the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF). There has to be a symbiotic relationship between them so that the former can be fully exploited by the later for the benefit of the country.