610 primary, secondary schools enrol for event

Anambra State government has revived the moribund primary and secondary school sports festival, which last held 10 years ago, for both public and private sectors in the state.

Speaking at a press briefing/official opening ceremony of the festival, in Awka, yesterday, the Chairman, Anambra State Sports Development Commission, Patrick Onyedum, disclosed that about 610 primary and secondary schools across the 21 councils of the state have enrolled to participate in the festival.

He commended Governor Chukwuma Soludo for approving the first solution sports festival, which is organised by the Anambra State Sports Development Commission, in collaboration with the ministries of Education and Local Government Affairs.

He said the management team has enlisted 30 young athletes in different sporting events for monthly training, lamenting that paucity of funds forced it to place only six of them on monthly stipend of N20, 000, which is subject to review every year.

According to Onyedum, this grassroots sports development programme is borne out of the desire to take Anambra back to its days of glory in sports when it produced national champions in different sporting events, including Christ the King (CKC) 1977 team that won the world academicals in Dublin, Republic of Ireland.

He said: “We are determined to make Anambra number one talent hunt destination for national and international scouts in different sporting events. I assure that in no distant time, Anambra children will find their way to studying abroad through sports scholarship.

“We started preliminaries at the community level from May 17, while finals will hold between June 21 and 24 at different venues.

“Within the eight months life of this management team, the state has taken part in a number of national sports competitions, including the national sports festival in Delta State last year where we won six gold, nine silver and 24 bronze medals.

“We are confident that at the end of this tournament, we would have raised a generation of young athletes that would surprise the country at the national youth games in September this year, as well as the national sports festival in Ogun State next year.”