By Dwelleth Morountodun
The Minster of Youth and Sports, Mr. Sunday Dare over the weekend expressed optimism that Nigeria will rake in medals from the coming Commonwealth and Olympic games from its para-athletes team.
Speaking at the sideline at the opening ceremony of Nigeria’s 1st National Para Games at the Main Bowl of the Moshood Abiola Stadium in Abuja, on Saturday, the Minister acknowledged that 65% of the medals won by Nigeria in previous Olympics and Commonwealth came from para-athletes.
The hosting of the event, according to the Minister is in alignment with President Muhammadu Buhari’s vision and recognition that there is indeed ability in ability, adding that the recently passed disability Act and Commission reinforces this.
He said: “At the National Assembly, we have committees chaired by our lawmakers and so this is in alignment with that and we in the ministry believes that there is ability in disability and in the most recent Olympics we saw what they gave us, our greatest number of gold and medals and previous Olympics and the Commonwealth they did the same thing.
“If there is no competition no athlete can improve and excel and we felt that they deserve their own special national sports competition. Don’t also forget in December 2021, this ministry created a department for the first time for para-athletes and so that is what we are here to do.”
“I have great expectation because we have barely 95 days to the Commonwealth games when you look at the score board what we got in the last para-Olympics you will see that the para-athletics, boxing and wrestling gave us our highest medals.” He said.
Dare, acknowledged that the older athletes are not easing out, stressing that in the last two years some of the athletes are gradually easing out, there is therefore the need to find younger talents to fill gap, adding that the para sports will provide that fillip.
According to him, the ministry will leverage on this opportunity to see the athletes perform and benchmark their timing and for those who excel, they will be moved immediately into team Nigeria in preparation for the Commonwealth camp which begins in 60 days.
We will make sure that they part of that camp and they can follow us to the United Kingdom (UK), he said.
On the turnout of states for the competition, he said: “As you know, there is financial implication and this is also a function of whether you have developed your para sports.
“What we have done as a ministry is to make sure that we have prepared the games and to extend the invitation though there are 21 states some of them are on their way some of them have arrived and they needed time to just recover a bit don’t forget that by tomorrow on kick off we shall have a greater number of them here.”
He underscored that the ministry has built a sustainable model to continue the with the games in years to come, adding, the first thing that we did for the first time was to create a department of para sports and in the 2022 budget we had a budget for para sports itself that in itself is a sustainable model.
The same you have the national youths games the national sports festival, Olympics and others. Para-sports seats there will also get its fund, he added.