Dilichukwu Backs 4th NYG Screening Exercise, Frowns at Hijacking of Athletes by States

By Niyi Busari Director of Sports Department, Federal Capital Territory, Chief Mrs. Dilichukwu Onyedinma has expressed satisfaction over the screening exercise of the 4th National Youth Games in Ilorin. Dilichukwu who is in support of pegging the grassroots sports to ages below 15 believes with such Nigeria would have just started real grassroots sports development because the objective is for the states sports administrators, directors to go back and develop the young athletes in their different states. She admitted that almost all the states were affected by the rigid screening but it will serve as a lesson as all the states will come to the tourney with athletes between 10-13 years from the subsequent editions. She added that Team FCT who has always emerged as the Team with the youngest athletes was also affected by the screening as some of the top performing athletes were screened out. "States were affected by the screening because they came with athletes at age 15 and above. Surprisingly, Youth and Sports Federation of Nigeria (YSFON) were brought in to conduct the exercise and a lot of athletes were disqualified. "If we can go with the age of the athletes brought about by the screening of the 4th edition of the National Youth Games then Nigeria would have started real sports development." However, the former chairperson of the Nigerian Women Premier League frowned at the states that failed to develop young talents but interested in luring and enticing athletes from other states with money. He stated that such act will only help in defeating the objective of National Youth Games' of talents hunt. Team FCT lost about four excellent athletes to the illicit act which is one of the reason the number of medals won is reduced. "Team FCT have been training Ikechukwu Osadebe and Emmanuel Osadebe for the past five years but the two brothers started winning medals for FCT in the last two editions of the National Youth Games." "We are surprised to them playing for Bayelsa state in this year's National Youth Games. Also, in tennis, a girl who was trained by Team FCT represented and won gold medal for Team Kaduna. Same thing with a wrestler who competed for another state this year."