ANEEJ youth football competition ends in Benin 

A youth football competition organised by the African Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), as part of its Brighter Future project, tagged, ‘Building Youth Resistance to Crime,’ has ended at the Edo State School of Health Technology football pitch, Benin City.

The finals between Unity Football Club and Community Football Club, both of Ogummwenyin community, Oredo council, saw Unity Football Club winning the title by 5-3 via penalty shoot out after 1-1 ending of the regular time.

In his remarks, Deputy Executive Director of the African Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), Mr. Leo Atakpu, said sports and football, in particular,Jackpot is one of the activities that occupy the youths positively and keep them out of temptation to join organised crime.

“The objective of this project is to bring  young people together. We identified football as one sporting activity that young people in this part of the country take interest in participating.

“You don’t keep young people idle and we see that this is an opportunity to begin to build them, Livesport build their mindset to stay away from serious organised crime.”

You can hear them chanting ‘no to cultism, no to cyber crime, no to human trafficking’ and that is the message we are passing through these activities and it is the same thing we had with them in the indoor communications, Virtual trying to set their mindset to something more positive, talk to them, bring different experts to talk to them.

“If the youths focus on something more positive like sporting activities, football, it will be very helpful, instead of how they want to go from Benin to Europe by road or through the water and go and kill themselves in the desert.”

While speaking on other areas of youth engagement in the three-year project and its sustainability, the ANEEJ Deputy Executive Director noted that they are building synergy with the local communities of Ogumwenyin and Ogwa, where the football clubs are domiciled and the security agencies, including the Police, National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), online sports betting Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Oredo and Ikpoba/Okha Local Government  Councils.

Also speaking, the Edo State Zonal Commander of NAPTIP, Nduka Nwanene, appealed to the funders of the project to expand it to enable other communities benefit as youths are everywhere.

According to him, “I want to crave the indulgence of the funders of this project to assist in taking this pilot project to more communities to ensure that crimes are reduced to the barest minimum.” sport betting in nigeria High point of the event was the presentation of medals and boots to the champion, the first and second runners-up.