National Sports Commission Chairman, Shehu Dikko, said the era of losing best sporting talents to other countries is over.
 
Yesterday, Dikko said that aggressive grassroots talent hunting would be put in place and those talents nurtured and supported to achieve dreams of winning laurels for the country without being poached by opportunistic western world.
 
He made the remark while hosting 14-year-old serial-winning gymnast Stephanie Ogechukwu Onusiriuka and her mother.
   
Onusiriuka’s performance has attracted global attention and the Commission has moved to tie down her future to the country. She trains at the Leeds Gymnastics and is a member of the UK Gymnastics Club.
 
Having just finished her Senior Secondary Certificate Education (SSCE) examinations, her parents have been fielding calls from her UK club enquiring when she will be back.
 
To this, Dikko jokingly asked her mother: “Why are they so keen on her returning? What is their problem? Do they want to poach her? This one is our own and we will do everything to keep her. We will invest in her so that we can authoritatively lay claim to her.”
 
To this end, the Commission will accord her an elite status.
 
Dikko said: “She will be part of our elite plans and preparations. Let’s see what you have, then we will put heads together and do a new plan. Even if she is going abroad, she will be there on our own support and sponsorship. We will foot her bills. By 2026, she will be 16, so she will feature in the Commonwealth Games. In 2028, she can be a major medal prospect at the Olympics.
 
“Whatever we do for the likes of Ese Brume, we will do for her. We will also get someone to adopt her in line with our Adopt-an-athlete programme so the private sector will complement whatever we do as government. From our perspective, from now, she is part of our elite group.
   
“Gymnastics is such a sport that is done at a very early age. Funny enough, you will say she is only 14, but this is the beginning of the peak years of gymnastics. These next four, five years are the years she is at her peak to get us on the podium.
 
“We will get a desk officer for her and others to monitor her progress. We are going to follow this through all the way right from here, this very moment. Get us your details, let us find her something for Christmas,” he told her elated mother.
 
Onusiriuka, the golden girl of Nigerian gymnastics, won one gold, two silver and one bronze at the 2021 National Sports Festival, aged 11. With four gold medals, she emerged the best gymnast at the National Youth Games, Delta 2023.
 
She also has two gold medals from the African Club Championships in South Africa in 2019 and 2022.