Students doing the 4x100m relay during a recent Cross River Schools Athletics Championship. Isaac Ogada believes Nigerian athletics will rise again if the authorities paid attention to schools sports.
A group of Games Masters has lamented the nonchalant attitude of sports administrators towards schools sport in Nigeria, describing the development as ‘detrimental to the school’ sports system. They also say the development has affected the morale of games masters and grassroots coaches.
A chieftain of the group, Isaac Friday Ogada, who is the proprietor of Brightville College, told reporters that the neglect of schools sports was responsible for the flaws noticed in university students during the build-up to a recent athletic event organised by University of Ibadan in its preparation for the upcoming West African University Games (WAUG).
Ogada, whose school participated and came out tops in the invitational athletics event, said the country’s future in track and field events would remain bleak if the administrators didn’t change their attitude towards schools sports.
At the event, some of Ogada’s senior secondary school two students defeated University of Ibadan athletes in the male and female 100 and 200 metres event that also involved athletes of the Oyo State Sports Council.
An SS2 female student, Kazeem Barakat of Brightville College, also made an astonished time of 11:00 seconds in 100 metres, a feat the proprietor of her school said she had recorded severally during their
inter-house sports meet
- Guardian