Former Sports Minister, Abdullahi,  Promises to Sustain Grassroots Sports Devt 

Hammed Shittu in Ilorin 

A former Minister of Sports and Chairman of the defunct National Sports Commission,  Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi,  has reaffirmed his determination to consolidate on the gains of his sports development from the grassroots through his Omoluabi Foundation.

 Abdullahi who is the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Senatorial Candidate for Kwara Central in the forthcoming election stated this at the weekend while receiving the new leadership of Kwara SWAN under the chairmanship of Ayodeji Ismail at his GRA residence in Ilorin.

He said the Omoluabi Foundation has been championing and bankrolling the sponsorship of Volleyball, Karate, Table-tennis and Handball over the years and will sustain the events to further achieve the purpose for which it was initiated, noting that the idea behind the foundation is to use sports for youth development.

“Omoluabi Foundation is initiated to use sports for youth development and some of those children who passed through the foundation have gone to represent Nigeria in major competitions at the international level,” stressed the former minister.

He believes that Kwara State can carve a niche for itself from such games such as badminton, weightlifting, squash, table tennis, middle distance race and the likes, saying that football was never our game in the state as talented stars and athletes have been produced in racket games rather than football.

Earlier in his remarks, the Chairman of Kwara SWAN, Mr. Ismail, said the visit was to officially introduce the new leadership of the association to him as a critical stakeholder in the sector and to partner him for training and retraining of members to guarantee their efficiency.

He lauded various initiatives of the ex minister while in office, noting with delight, the 2013 AFCON triumph and the U-17 FIFA World Cup victories. Abdullahi introduced some radical changes in Nigerian sports shortly after the failed outings at the 2012 Olympic Games in London but was removed from office before seeing his programmes started producing results. One of such was the initiating of the High Performance Centre as well as the employment of top American coaches and instructors for the various sports in the country.