The Nigerian Taekwondo Federation (NTF) President, Lagos State, Mr. George Ashiru, had urged the Nigerian government to embark on mass recruitment across 36 states in Nigeria to tackle insecurity.
He stated this in an interview with Voice of Nigeria, during the 10th annual inter-house sport Competition of the school, Christ College situated at Ayetoro community, along Ibadan express way, Ogun State, South-West, Nigeria.
‘’The government should ensure that all hands that has nothing to do must get employed,’’he said.
He also suggested ways to boost the sport sector in Nigeria, ‘one of the best way to develop the sport sector in Nigeria is to catch them young and develop the ministry, to bring honour to Nigeria, citing an example of himself being caught young through sports.
Ashiru was represented by a former Assistant Commissioner of Police, Mr, Gideon Akinsola.
Catch the young talented ones
However, the sport master of the school, Mr. Onalaja Oluwafemi also advised the government to take sport activities to the grassroots across the 36 states in the country in order to catch the young talented ones.
‘’The ministry of sport in the various states in Nigeria are doing their best; I believe they can still do better especially in the area of the youths engagement. I want them to bring the sport activities down to the grassroots, so that the students can benefit more,’’ he said
He also suggested other ways the government could boost the sport sector, ‘If the government can also get involve in various schools inter-houses ports and other events in the country, they can from there pick them young and train them to become professionals. They should get involved in all the school programmes, most especially, sport programmes, and also sponsor some of the events. If they want to impact in the lives of the youths, they should organize educative events, like sport events, that will motive the youths not just focusing on their social lives.’’
Significance
However, Mr. Onalaja Oluwafemi said the significance of inter-house sport was to expose students in sporting activities and also to publicise the school’s activities.
‘’Apart from academics, Christ College, developed the talent of students in different areas including sport. We want to build that sport spirit in them, to identify them young, train them, and to expose them to competitions like this, and also take them out of the school to compete with others and from there, they could go to represent the state and country in general,” Mr Oluwafemi explained.
The Chairman, Board of Governors of Christ College, Mr. Samuel Olatunji, also explained the importance of inter-house sport in the lives of people in the society.
‘’Apart from academic, we also build the students on various sporting activities during inter-house sports, today we celebrate talents, achievements, determination, corporation, teamwork, and excellent performance, in short, depending on areas of interests and endowment,” he stated.
Facilities
Olatunji, also mentioned some of the facilities they have in the school which assisted in moulding the students to a complete personality: ‘’We have all it takes to run a school; we have academic and boarding facilities, we have classrooms, technology, privacies for all kinds of initiatives and innovations. Our curriculum is broad and deep to take care of every aspect of life. We are preparing the students for life not just to pass examination.’’
The peak of the event was during the race of the various houses and Blue House emerged the winner among the other houses in the race.
A senior school student from Blue house, Miss. Peculiar Kour Nanna explained the secret to their success in the race: ‘’I have to be honest, the house in general have lots of doubt, they did not believe in themselves initially.”
She said they tried their best and encouraged everybody to believe in themselves and have faith.
Lateefah Ibrahim