National Sports Commission (NSC) Chairman Mallam Shehu Dikko held a strategic meeting with Minister of Youth Development Ayodele Olawande Friday night.
According to Olawande, the meeting was “to discuss strategies to advance youth interest in the sport sector.”
This partnership is apt considering the Commission’s resolve to create value chains around the industry. A move that would create jobs and take teeming youths off the streets.
Speaking in the wake of the meeting, Dikko said, “Quite an engaging meeting with my brother and friend (Youth Development minister). This is very much in line with what we are planning to do in the Commission. We want the youths to be properly engaged. Who are those doing sports in the first place? Is it not tbe youths? They are the ones with a lot of energy to burn. If you don’t deploy that energy effectively, they will use it negatively.”
Dikko believes that proper involvement of the youths in sports will drastically reduce crime and deal with youth restiveness.
His words, “A lot of these vices you see the youths involved in is because of idleness. Get them meaningfully engaged and they wouldn’t do those things. When we were doing night games in NPFL, the security personnel had statistics to show that whenever those matches were on, crime rate was low. This is what we are driving at.”
He is optimistic that such meetings with the Youth Development minister will aid the Commission’s course.
“We are widely engaging with those we need to succeed in this assignment. This is one of the most crucial engagements because the ministry caters for the core group we are going to be using. We have slated further meetings and the results will soon be evident for all to see”, he concluded.
