By Francis Ajuonuma
As new Sports Minister, Senator John Enoh, gets ready to settle down in office, pPresident General of the Nigeria Football Supporters Club (NFSC), Dr. Rafiu Ladipo has called for a serious re-engineering of Nigerian Sports.
Dr Ladipo, who made the call in an exclusive interview with ThisNigeria at the weekend in Lagos, blamed the sorry state of sports in the country on putting a square peg in a round hole in the day-to-day running of the affairs in the various sports federations.
He noted that, despite the positive image sports has brought to the country in the past, previous ministers have failed to take advantage of it, as the sector has been left underdeveloped.
Dr. Ladipo, who is also President of the Nigeria Boxing Board of Control (NBB of C), pointed out that although sports has not been that lucky with the appointments of minister, expressed optimism that things could change for better this time around under Enoh only if he surrounds himself with people with genuine interest to develop Nigerian sports.
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“Nigerian Sports needs what we call a serious re-engineering. Over time our sports has not been developed the way it should be. It’s sports that has brought Nigerians the best positive image across the world but unfortunately, we’re not taking advantage of our sports.
Sports has been very unlucky in this country that ministers will come and they will go and they will do nothing to improve our sports. This time we might be lucky. It’s possible but for us to be lucky, the new minister must come and invite genuine interest to develop our sports. Let him call them so that they can give him advise on the best way to develop our sports and that will be it,” he added.
