Taekwondo President Says Kebbi State Has Potentials In Sports
The President of the Nigeria Taekwondo Federation (NTF), Sa’idu Abdullahi, said Kebbi State has a lot of potentials not just in Taekwondo, but in all sports as the organisation spreads it tentacles down to the grassroots in search of talents and future champions.
Abdullahi made this known to newsmen shortly after presenting gifts, certificates and medals to prominent personalities and winners of the Taekwondo Kids Competition held at the Haliru Abdu Stadium, Birnin Kebbi.
The maiden edition of the Taekwondo Kids Competition in Kebbi State was organised by the Kebbi Taekwondo Academy.
“What you see here today is a 10-year dream. For the past 10 years we have been developing this academy and the essence is to help build Taekwondo at the grassroots level and the only way we can do that is to catch them young,” Abdullahi said.
“So, we established this academy to educate, train and teach our own children the art of taekwondo sport and taekwondo self-defense. What you are seeing today is the first ever Taekwondo kids competition in Kebbi State.”
In a bid to encourage and develop the sport of taekwondo, Abdullahi noted that two competitions were slated to hold in Kebbi this year, comprising the Kebbi National Open Championship scheduled for September and the Inspector General of Police (IG-P) National Taekwondo Championship, slated for November.
According to the Taekwondo president, these competitions will give local athletes the opportunity to improve on their taekwondo skills.
While calling on the Kebbi State Government to invest more in sports in view of the fact that “it is a big business”, Abdullahi recalled that the Federal Government had released a policy on sports.
“The State Government should be able to reach out to people like us who are philanthropists and have passion for sports so that we can partner with government in moving sports forward in Kebbi State,” Abdullahi added.
“Kebbi State has a lot of potential not just in taekwondo but in all sports, but they are just there lying untapped. Remember, you can use sports to take youths away from social vices, so engage the youths more in sports, the rest will be history.”
“For the academy we’ve just started a year ago, but for the structure it took us almost 10 to 11 years to get it to the standard it is today. These kids you are seeing today are future national champions and Olympic hopefuls for Nigeria,” the Taekwondo president said.
On his part, the Acting Permanent Secretary of Kebbi State Ministry of Youths and Sports Usman Ladan, described the competition as amazing, assuring that the talents displayed by the kids signal a brighter future for them in their chosen sports career.
Ladan lauded the Taekwondo national president for his frantic efforts towards developing the game to an enviable standard in the state.
“That’s why we are all here. We are here to watch and see how and where we can advise government to come in, extend a helping hand to improve the game,” Ladan said.
He noted with satisfaction that the present administration in the State accords priority to sports, assuring that Taekwondo will not be exempted.
