GODWIN KIENKA: National Sports Festival has become a joke

• Published date: 22 January 2023
• Publication title: Nigeria - The Nation

Journalist, author and tennis promoter, Godwin Kienka has roundly carpeted the the sports ministry at state and national level for watering down the National Sports Festival (NSF). This is coming on the heel of the just ended NSF hosted by Delta State.

According to the Director of the International Tennis Academy, NSF, which debuted in Lagos in 1973, had lofty goals.

'The two major ones were to engender unity in the country and to hasten the development of sports in the nation by identifying and developing talent. It became Nigeria's mini Olympics with the regions and then the states taking it really seriously and developing sporting talent in their domain. Some went as far as inviting other nations to play friendlies to win the football gold which was then regarded as the 'star' medal.

'You represented a state either because you lived there or you schooled there. I know because I represented Oyo State in tennis as a student of the University of Ibadan in the 'Oluyole 79' NSF. We were camped for weeks, paid handsome allowances and were properly kitted.'

The author of Sports in Nigeria - Going Round in Circles, said the NSF started a downward spiral when some low performing States ganged up to demand that the NSF become an age group, grassroots event in order to discover younger talent. Of course, the underlying objective was to dilute the field and make the under-performing States become a little more competitive. Their wish was granted and there began the age cheating syndrome in Nigerian sports with State officials, even sports commissioners, almost coming to blows to push through obviously overage athletes. Standards dropped, the media lost interest and sponsors turned their backs on the NSF.

'It got so bad that I was constrained to make a submission to the Minister of Sports, Samaila Sambawa, in 2006 through the late Babayo Shehu who had retired as Director -General but was well respected in sporting circles.

'The convinced ex director-general took my paper to the Minister and the end result was the conference of directors of Sports accepting a semi-open NSF with, if I remember correctly, a 50 -50 participation of...