By Dr. Salau Dee Elf (NUGA Publicity Liaison Officer- 1993-2001)
The Nigeria School Sports Federation (NSSF) is the body that is saddled with bringing out and taking care of Primary and Secondary School Athletes in Nigeria.
Prior to the establishment of NSSF, Regions/States has different organizations for Sports development in Students in their area of jurisdictions.
In the 1950s and 1960s, many School Sports athletes represented there Regions/States in different sporting competitions. It is on record that intra and inter Regions/States sporting competitions were dominated by School Sports Students from different Schools in Nigeria.
The likes of Haruna Ilerika, Samuel Ojebode, Christian Chukwudi, Emmanuel Okala are some of the products of the popular Principal’s Cup that was played all over Nigeria then. The same takes place in Athletics, Basketball and Table Tennis which are popular sports in Nigeria then
In the 1980s, School Sports Students dominated all facets of Nigerian Sports from Football where we have Adokie Amesimaka, Segun Odegbami, and others while Sunday Bada, Falilat Ogunkoya ruled the tracks with other School Sports athletes. The Table Tennis was purely for School Sports athletes as is the same with Basketball and others. Cricket pitch was dominated by Students from Kings College, St Gregory, Government College, Ibadan Students.
This good old days showcased School Sports products with raw talents fine-tuned for Nigerian Sports in all facets of the country’s sports. They competed and won laurels for the Country effortlessly.
From the 1990s till date, the era of short cut to proper development programme in sports saw the Nigeria School Sports activities pushed to the background for hurried Sports Academies. The motives of this Academies is not for the development of the athletes but the monetary gains. This eroded the important contributions of School Sports Students to the progressive development of sports in Nigeria
In the interest of progressive development of sports generally in Nigeria, it’s now or never that we revive the Nigeria School Sports Federation competitions to detect budding talents in Football, Athletics, Basketball, Table Tennis, Tennis and others for the greater glory of Nigeria.
Let’s urge the Federal, States and Local Governments to return to the Era of the development of the veritable assets in our Schools. The Principal’s Cup, Intra and inter States Athletics Competitions, Table Tennis Championship and others must be revived. This is the only way we can continuously get enough budding talents for Nigeria’s sports development
Dr Salau Dee Elf writes from Lagos and can be reached via
daudasalau2015@gmail.com