New thinking about sports

The advent of the new year brings joy to individuals, groups, and nations for various reasons. One of which is the opportunity it provid...

The advent of the new year brings joy to individuals, groups, and nations for various reasons. One of which is the opportunity it provides to remain alive, to hope for a new beginning and to aspire for greater achievements.

It provides an opportunity for reassessment of our lives in different ways including the domain of sports development for those of us that make it our priority. It is a given, however, that making the best of the new year is optimized when it's cast in perspective planning, of which a particular year is used for taking concrete actions towards achieving goals on a programme plotted on the visionary path of development.

In our society, our nation, unfortunately, is episodic and lacking in the capacity of staying on course in terms of national vision. Had we sustained our cherish vision 20:20 by this year, 2019 we would have started perceiving the fragrance and seeing the fruit of our vision. Tragically, it was abandoned a long time ago at the level of corporate governance. We should however not despair.

There is hope that national development will get better, beginning from 2019, if we think and act differently in productive ways. Fortunately, 2019 is a political transition year which makes it an opportune time for politicians to be tasked on what their sports development policies would be for the nation. Are they talking about it yet?  No to the best of my knowledge.

Sports development is an important sector of national development to attract the attention of discerning politicians. Developing sports also amounts to youth, economic, social and health development among others. It is one viable stone that can be used to kill many birds for the good of society. 2019 should provide us the opportunity to review and redesign the national sports service system. The unyielding clamor for the reinstatement of the National sports commission should be prioritized for actualization.

A political denominated ministerial structure with a wrong-footed leader cannot lead Nigerian sports to its desired destination. In the same vein, the federal government must endeavor to prioritize cognate competence requirements of sports leadership for progress to be made appropriately.

The national sports development policy of Nigeria should be relaunch to provide national guidelines for all level of sports development activities. This is a means of avoiding chaos in the sector. The aspect of this policy instrument should detail out the modality for sports facilities development and maintenance. Furthermore, school sports which entail teaching sports in schools, intramurals and school base competition in environment endowed with requisite facilities and manpower will be very helpful

Sports development is nourished with appropriate investment. This is always not receiving its due attention. Without investing in human and material resources, nothing significant can be achieved. Above all, sports development must be taken by the government as an integral component of good governance. Good governance will bring about a higher quality of education, economy, energy, industrialization, health, and prosperity for all Nigerians.

These are the macro factors impact sports development 2019 hopefully, will take us in the direction of positive development in the areas enumerated because they are the indices for measuring good governance. Take it or leave it, it is an incontrovertible thesis that sports development can never rise above the level of good governance in any society. Our hope, therefore, is that 2019 will bring about improvement in good governance in order to ensure upward swing in the level of sports development in Nigeria.