Speaker of House of Representatives, Rep. Abbas Tajudeen, has announced plans to establish a National Sports Academy for sustainable sports development in the country.
Tajudeen made this known in Abuja on Wednesday at the maiden distribution of sports equipment to principal officers and members of the House Committee on Sports for their various constituents.
He called for a return to grassroots sports development as a strategic pathway to restoring Nigeria’s lost glory in international sporting events.
Tajudeen recalled that as a student and when he began his career as a teacher in the 1970s, there existed regular inter-primary and secondary school sports competitions.
He said that a lot of big names in Nigerian sports sphere emerged through participation in school sports completions.
“This is where you identify the best of the best; people who have talents are identified young in such completions.
“The time has come with the dwindling fortune of Nigeria in the sport sector, particularly in the last appearances at the Olympics sports where we came back without a medal.
“It is unacceptable for a country of more than 200 million people to go for completions and come back without a medal.
“At the last Olympics, Saint Lucia, with a population of less than 100,000 people, won gold medal but Nigeria, with over 200 million, came back with nothing. It is unacceptable.
“I have put in the budget to build a National Sports Academy where all outdoor and indoor games for children of secondary school age who are identified through grassroots competitions will be admitted to continue their sports development.
“I believe that at the end of the day, this initiative will bring a lot of international stars that Nigeria will be proud of,” he said.
According to him, one way to regain Nigeria’s glory is to discontinue the current system where athletes are picked based on who they know and return to grassroots competitions.
The speaker urged members of the house to prioritise sports in their constituency development projects.
He said rather than focusing on skill acquisition centres or clinics which might not achieve long-term goals due to lack of funding, building sports centres and organising competitions would never go wrong.
The speaker said that sports would not only engage youths gainfully, it would spark development and revenue generation at constituency level for the country as a whole.
He commended the committee for achieving the feat within a space of six months, saying this was the first of its kind in the history of the National Assembly.
In his remarks, the Chairman, House Committee on Sports, Rep. Kabiru Amadu, commended President Bola Tinubu and the leadership of the national assembly for the 288 per cent increase in the sports sector budget from ₦29 billion in 2024 to ₦113 billion this year.
Amadu said that the aim behind the distribution of the equipment was to empower communities with the tools needed to foster talent, build discipline and strengthen social ties through sports.
He said that this would benefit 3,260 teams across the country, as each state would receive between 80 and 120 sets of footballs and jerseys, distributed through the committee members and the house leadership.
“Our goal is to build a sustainable sports ecosystem, starting at the grassroots where champions are discovered, talents nurtured and characters built.
“Investing in grassroots sports means investing in the dreams of our young people. Sports have the power to transform lives, but for too long, focus has been on elite athletes; today we begin to change that narrative.
“These items are not just physical equipment; they are symbols of opportunity, empowerment and national progress,” he said.
The chairman urged all members to ensure that the equipment reached the intended beneficiaries, stressing that the impact would be measured, not by quantity but by the lives transformed and talents discovered.
Also speaking, the Chairman, National Sports Commission (NSC), Mr Shehu Dikko, emphasised the need to change Nigeria’s sports from being competition-driven to development-driven.
Dikko said that the era where sports federations came to get money to participate in competitions must stop, to focus on sport development.
He said that all that needed to done to guide the process, ensure necessary reforms and necessary legislations must be done.
Dikko said that the aim was to make sports cleaner, more profitable and attractive to the private sector to complement government’s efforts.
“The final outcome we expect is to make sports the driver of the economy, to create two to three million jobs annually and earn foreign exchange.
“We want to make sports an international asset that will bring social life together and make the country proud,” he said.
The NSC boss said that a bill that would restructure the entire sports ecosystem in the country was on the way to the house.
He urged all the members to support the bill when it finally comes to the floor of the house, describing it as a game changer for Nigerian sports.