Daily Archives: Jan 18, 2013

Sports Festival No Longer Suitable For Discovering Talents – Minister

The Sports Minister, Bolaji Abdullahi on Friday said the National Sports Festival (NSF), as presently run, could no longer serve the purpose of talent discovery for athletes to represent the country at the Olympic Games.

This, he noted, was because the average of talents from festivals ranges from 24 to 30 years.

The minister made the observation during Media Round Table with Lagos Chapter of the Sports Writers’ Association of Nigeria (SWAN) at its secretariat at the National Stadium, Lagos.

Abdullahi said it was only through talent hunt at the level of secondary schools that could guarantee the young talents that could be prepared for the Elite level Games.

He noted that the age of a swimmer who broke a world Record from China was 15. ``It is only at that age that we can harvest talents that can be presented at the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016.

``Schools have to be the hub for exposing children to play sports as early as possible.

``And that is why we said the National Sports Festival can no longer serve the possible of Nigeria as a means for discovering talents.

``The National Sports Festival could be the Nigeria’s equivalent of the Olympics; it should be the highest sporting event for Nigerians but if we want to continue to discover talents, we have to go back to children.''

The minister stressed that as part of the NSC role in developing school sports, it decided to initiate the National U-17 Youth Games.

``One of the immediate actions we took coming out of the London Olympics was the dissolution of the board of the Nigeria Academicals Sports Committee and the reconstitution of that board.

``And the reason we did that was also to achieve the kind of synergy you talked about now within the board of the Nigeria Academicals Sports Committee.

``You have the school sports federation strongly represented, you have YSFON strongly represented, you have federal ministry of education strongly represented then you have the National Sports Commission strongly represented as well as one or two individuals we brought in from the private sector.

``And the high point of what they are planning is the National U-17 Youth Games, which we are confident will happen by the middle of this year.

``The National U-17 Games is an acknowledgement that the Olympic Champion is in the child and not the woman or man.’’

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Maku Expresses Disappointment With Abia Sub-Transmission Station Contractors

The Minister of Information, Mr Labaran Maku, on Friday expressed disappointment with the conduct of contractors handling works at Abia sub-transmission station. The minister, who bared his mind during an inspection of the station at Ohia, Abia, said t...

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Kaduna Budgets N11bn For Health Care Services

Kaduna State Government is to spend over N11 billion this year to improve health care services, the Commissioner for Health, Mr Turaki Kalik has said.

Kalik said while defending the budget at the State House of Assembly on Friday that, N4 billon of the amount would be spent on capital projects while N6.1 billion would be for recurrent expenditure.

Kalik said part of the amount would be used to upgrade some primary health centres, as well as the Barau Dikko Specialist Hospital being upgraded to a teaching hospital.

He said the recurrent budget size when compared to 2012, had risen from N5.5 billion to N6.7 billion, due to plans to recruit more doctors, nurses and other health workers.

He said the ministry had established a monitoring and evaluation department to supervise health workers and healthcare facilities.

He added that the state had provided N1 billion to fund the new free health services programme for children and pregnant women.

The Chairman, House Committee on Health, Alhaji Shehu Adamu expressed satisfaction with the ministry's presentation.

Adamu assured that the assemby would appropriate the funds requested in order to enhance healthcare delivery in the state.

In a related development, the state government said it would spend N5.6 billion on the digitisation of its broadcast stations, and an additional N341 million for other works on the state radio.

The Commissioner for Information, Alhaji Saidu Adamu said while defending the budget of the ministry at the assembly that the aim was to fully equip the stations to provide quality services to the people. (NAN)

 

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