Grapevine

Enoh urged to bring back National Sports Commission

The latter partly read, “Hon. Minister, you were right, and perhaps the only Sports Minister in recent times, to acknowledge that the current sports structure in Nigeria is inadequate and obsolete and hence needs a complete overhaul to restore its former glory. You also admitted that we needed a functional system and structure. These can be seamlessly achieved by ensuring that Nigeria embraces one of the global best practices in sports with the re-introduction of the National Sports Commission, with you as the Executive Chairman for the next three years, instead of the Ministry of Sports Development. This will enable you to overhaul the system and employ professionals who will run sports in Nigeria as an enterprise and not as civil service.

“It is when the National Sports Commission is put in place that the Nigeria Olympic Committee can become the hub of elite and grassroots sports—especially school sports—and not just like a department under the sports ministry, as currently constituted. This is one of the major changes that must take place in Nigerian sports if we are serious about taking sports to the next level.

Dr. Bankole also stressed the need to establish national sports science institutes and high performance centres across the country to conduct very basic, cutting-edge research that should technologically drive experiments, innovations, and breakthroughs, especially via sports science, digital, and sports business.

He stated, ”Hon. Minister, another major reason Nigerian sports is nose-diving is the absence of any Sports Science Institute with a Body of Researchers to conduct very basic cutting-edge research that should technologically drive experiments, innovations, and breakthroughs, especially via Sports Science, Digital, and Sports Business. There is none in Nigeria today.

“With the establishment of a National Sports Science Institute, Nigeria will be capable of evolving institutionalised sports development strategies and policies that will de-volently produce—very soon—totally tremendous levels of positive results in Nigerian sports through the inculcation of sports science into our sports training methodologies.