NAN-S-5
Grassroots
By Aderonke Ojediran-Lawal
Lagos, March 29, 2017 (NAN) The Federal Government has urged state and local governments to play their roles in the development of sports at the grassroots.
Dr Ademola Are, the Director of Grassroots Sports, Ministry of Youth and Sports, stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Wednesday.
Ademola added that his department is currently working hard to sustain efforts at ensuring sports development at the grassroots nationwide.
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“The ministry of youths and sports is doing a lot in the area of grassroots sports development.
“We cannot be in all parts of the country to develop their grassroots sports for them.
“But we encourage them because ours is a sports policy-making organ of the federal government, and we go to all these venues to ensure that they do the right thing.
“The local government must do what it is supposed to do, the state must do what is expected of them, then the federal is to come in and harness all these talents together.
“And that is why we ensured that when the National Sports Festival was no longer meeting its target, not even being regular now, of getting talents, we decided to have U-17 National Youth Games, which we had last year in Ilorin.
“The third edition will be coming up at University of Ilorin this year.
“We are doing all we can that’s why the federations are there so that we can build up on these talents for example.’’
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OAF/ERO/YEE
Edited by Emmanuel Okara/Emmanuel Yashim
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