In sports, national teams are built from talents produced by the many clubs and organs given to producing and nurturing talents for the country. CHRISTIAN OKPARA writes that the recently-held South-West Games, the Niger Delta Sports Festival, and the other new regional competitions, will bode well for the country’s sports development if these events are managed to suit the purpose.
In most developed countries, planning for future international stars starts with grassroots development initiatives that give every youth the opportunity to display talent and be scouted by experts who are in the business of identifying potential future champions.
The American collegiate system, for instance, provides an opportunity for every school-age youth to join the athletics system that keeps the United States at the top of world sports. The United States also has regional competitions, which are bigger than invitationals but closer to home than nationwide competitions. This platform offers broad, targeted competition between a wider number of teams, while still staying close to where the athletes live.
Such systems have accounted for many Olympic and world champions, who transition from being schoolboy athletes to international stars. Great Britain (GB) has started an initiative aimed at identifying future Team GB and Paralympics stars. Targeted at active and sporty 16 to 24-year-old UK nationals and tagged “Find Your Greatness” campaign, the initiative is a new athlete recruitment campaign by UK Sport to find the next generation of stars.
The programme provides regional competitions in Olympic sports across cities in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with the exceptional athletes brought into a system that would nurture them to greatness.
Recently, the regional sports bug caught up with Nigeria, with the South-West, Niger Delta Region and the South-East leading the charge. Although the Nigerian experiments are private sector-led initiatives, unlike the state-sponsored Great Britain model, the aim, as espoused by the initiators, is to raise great athletes for the country from the grassroots and also help in developing sports facilities in these regions.
Targeted at youths, who, otherwise, would not have had the opportunity to express their talents to a large audience, the recently held regional competitions threw up some exciting prospects in many of the different sports, such that stakeholders are beginning to canvass for other zones to follow the same path.
At the Niger Delta Sports Festival (NDSF) held in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, youths from Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo, and Rivers states came together to vie for honours and also seek better opportunities to enhance their careers.
Although the games produced results beyond the initiators’ imagination, critics maintain that the “win-at-all-costs syndrome” was one sore point, which almost marred an otherwise noble initiative.
There were also allegations that some of the organisers were using their events to chase political clout, a development that not only undermined the original purpose of the festival but also diminished chances for genuine grassroots athletes to shine.
Also, instead of being a launching pad for young talents, the event saw a reasonable number of seasoned athletes who had little or no connection to the grassroots programmes of participating states.
Even though some observers applauded the South-West Games for the opportunity that it gave athletes, who hitherto had no such opportunity to compete with the best in their age grade in the South West region, its critics alleged that it was overshadowed by politics and not as open as it was supposed to be.
Seeing regional games as the pathway that the country has been searching for to facilitate its return to the global stage, some stakeholders say that such efforts would be more meaningful if truly young and new talents are allowed to compete without established athletes blocking their path.
To them, it makes no sense for an athlete that has made it to the Olympic Games at 20 or a younger age to be brought to a youth games just because he’s still less than 25 years of age as the country would be better served if the games are used to discover fledgling and hidden talents.
Be that as it may, among the immediate gains of the Niger Delta Festival is the discovery of weightlifter, Edidiong Joseph Umoafia of Akwa Ibom State. A few days after the games, Umoafia joined the Nigerian team to the African Weightlifting Championship in Mauritius and won two gold medals for the country.
Although he was known within the local weightlifting circle, the NDSF gave him the opportunity to be selected by national team coaches to represent Nigeria in his first international competition.
Regional competition is not really new in the South-West because in the past, the region had the DAWN Games, which produced Ruth Usoro and some other top athletes currently making waves internationally.
Stakeholders believe that given the right direction, the Niger Delta Games, the South-West Games and the South-East Athletics Championships, billed to hold later this year, will throw up fresh talents for the country, as well as help the host states to elevate their sports facilities.
Former African tennis champion, Dr Sadiq Abdullahi, agrees that organising zonal competitions would spur the country’s drive to unearth hidden talents, stressing, however, that the objectives of the competitions must be clearly delineated.
“Even though I understand that the NSC endorsed the sports festivals, their organisers must be compelled to meet the safety and welfare needs of all athletes, and facilities and hostels must meet national and international standards.
“Sports development is a collective endeavour involving athletes, coaches, sports administrators, governments, governing bodies and the private sector. It entails building sporting facilities and maintaining them, as well as the ability to enhance the local and regional economy. Importantly, there must also be a talent discovery framework in place.”
Dr Abdullahi noted that it was difficult to assess or evaluate the success of the regional festivals without an official report from the organisers, adding that the indicators of a successful sporting event are the impact on athletes and communities involved. “How many new facilities were built? How many new talents were discovered? How many schools benefited from the festival?” These are some of the questions that must be answered when doing a post-mortem of a regional sports fest
For a former Super Eagles’ Media Officer, Toyin Ibitoye, regional sports competitions will add a new dimension to the country’s efforts towards developing the sector, since each region has the right to organise itself and put programmes that would enhance its growth in place.
However, he said that the regions would truly aid the country’s sports development if they concentrate on their areas of comparative advantage, use the competitions to discover talents and expose these talents to the centre.
“For example, the Middle Belt is known for endurance and strength. Benue, Nasarawa, Taraba, Adamawa, and Plateau states have high altitude and can produce long-distance runners who can compete for the country in these areas.
“The South-West is known for producing boxers, short distance runners and athletes, while the Niger Delta has jumps, athletes, football, weightlifting, wrestling, swimming and boxing, which they can bring to the centre. If these regions are deliberate in developing these sports, it will make it easy for the country to plan for development by grooming these athletes to fulfill their potential.
“I am particularly gladdened by the Niger Delta Festival because it is a multiregional festival, involving states from the South-East, South-South and the South-West. I hope our states in the North can organise themselves and do something like this. There used to be Arewa Games, which produced great long-distance runners in the past. It can even be a way to solve the vices dogging the North. I hope northern governors and organisations can look at ways to use sports to engage the youths.
“I also hope that the South-West would be more deliberate with the Games and ensure that it works to build strong sportsmen for the region. In whichever way you look at it, it is a win-win situation for the country because apart from creating a new pool of athletes, it will also engage youths positively and curb crime to a large extent.”
Nigeria’s captain to the Montreal 1976 Olympic Games, which the country later boycotted alongside some other African and black nations as a protest to the Apartheid regime in South Africa, Dr Bruce Ijirigho, advises the National Sports Commission (NSC) to mandate all the regions to organise regional games as part of overall strategy for discovering skilled and talented athletes across the country.
According to Ijirigho, local and regional competitions give athletes a chance to assess their state of readiness ahead of the National Sports Festival and other bigger competitions.
He said: “The wide base needed for talent discovery is only useful when every locality can comb through and bring out their best for additional training and grooming on the way to stardom. The worst thing you can do to young athletes is to subject them to rigorous training sessions over long periods without exposing them to competitions that allow them to assess the efficacy of the long training sessions and the hard work they have been subjected to. Local and regional competitions fill in this gap since national events are usually far and in between, in Nigeria.”
He emphasised that Nigeria’s sports development strategy should mandate and implement five stages of competition for the sustainable long-term discovery of the best talents that can be pooled together and subjected to specialised training by the best experts, in preparation for podium performances at the world stage.
“Stage one should be local competitions such as inter-house sports, inter-school competitions, etc. The second stage is the local government competitions that bring all the schools together to select their best. The third stage is the state championships, where each local government showcases their best for selection to represent their state at the regional level.
“Stage four is the regional competition such as the Niger Delta Festival or South-West Games that allows each state to test run their discovered athletes to determine how ready they are to perform at the national stage.
“The fifth and final stage is the national event, such as a special championship for a particular sport or the National Sports Festival, as the case may be. We implemented this model perfectly with excellent results in Cross River State for six years (2009-2015) of Senator Liyel Imoke’s tenure as governor. He is still available for consultation.”
He observed that both the Niger Delta Sports Festival and the South-West Games were both well organised and served the purpose of allowing the athletes to assess their level of preparation ahead of the National Sports Festival coming up in Abeokuta from May 16 to 31, 2025.
“At this stage in my personal evolution, I am more interested in performance standards than the number of gold medals won by any state. How fast did they run? How far did they throw or jump? And how do these performances compare with African and world standards in their age categories?
“This is how we can begin to assess the overall success of our developmental efforts and project expectations for the future.
“For instance, Africa is hosting the Youth Olympic Games next year. How are our athletes performing now, and what do we need to do to elevate their standards of performance to world levels before the Games? When this is not done, there is the temptation to assemble overage athletes to represent Nigeria, as has happened in the past.
Responding to the insinuation in some quarters that the South-West Games was more of a political event than a sports development effort, the convener of the Games, Dr Lanre Alfred, said: “In reality, the overwhelming majority of dignitaries in attendance were from the sports community. This included state sports administrators, athletes, sports enthusiasts, corporate sponsors, and other stakeholders committed to sports development.
“At this point, it’s also important to note that the state sports administrators, who are key players in any regional Games or the National Sports Festival, are themselves appointed by governors and may be called political appointees. Their involvement reflects the necessary alignment between government policy and sports development, not partisanship or politics.
“We must also take cognisance of the fact that we just had the maiden edition of the tournament, hence it’d be too early to judge its degree of success. By what milestones and metrics would we be doing that? If anything, the Games ought to be commended for reviving and nurturing the culture of talent development and sports administration at the grassroots level.” Dr Alfred said that beyond the field of play, the South-West Games sought to promote and consolidate regional unity.
“It stimulated local economies through tourism and hospitality, and rekindled the spirit of healthy inter-state rivalry, which is crucial for the overall rejuvenation of sports in the South-West region and Nigeria in general. It provided a positive distraction to youths amid a pervasive atmosphere of vices. The interactions among athletes, coaches, and administrators also facilitated the exchange of ideas and best practices, which will ultimately enrich sports management structures in the South-West. Overall, it was a celebration of youth, sportsmanship, and regional integration.”
