Sports

Sports: Another Panacea for Poverty Eradication (A Lesson From KADA Games 2009

Abbas A. Dikko

Before and after the returned of democratic rule in Nigeria, the aggravating situation of unemployment and poverty in the country had reach its crescendo and been in the main-stream of national discourse. Over the years, successive governments made concerted efforts through series of programmes, establishment of Institutions and agencies like National Directorate of Employment, Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure among several others, paying less emphasis on sports development that would have imparted overwhelmingly.

Soon after the inauguration of the civilian government of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, sports once again, took the back seat. Governments at all tiers, completely abandoned the enviable sub-sector that was long before now, a succour and ladder for the less-privileged and their wards to achieve economic well-being. At least, history of those sport men /women that curved a niche at the home front and abroad need not be mention; it is/was already at the public glare. However, that completes neglect of sports equally, led to its infrastructural dilapidation as well as, that of our sport-men /women, in nearly all the 36 states of the federation including Federal Capital Territory-Abuja thereby, increasing in no smaller measure the rate of unemployment and poverty in the country.

However, two years later into the his administration, the up-surging phenomenal increase of unemployment and poverty in the land led to the establishment of National poverty eradication programme as an umbrella of government to fight the scourge of the ever-increasing menace. Indeed, NAPEP came to lime-light at the centre and other complimenting poverty eradication programmes at the component units of the federation including Federal Capital Territory.

Billions of our hard earned resources were in addition to local/foreign donations sunk in the programme at the federal and its states chapters. However, the recent wake-up to their civic duty by the legislative arm, of course, the Senate, revealed the more devastating situation of the country’s poverty profile and the so far, disappearance of monies without corresponding performance. In 2001, before the inception of NAPEP, the country’s poverty percentage rate stood at 45 but today, with the agency’s almost seven years in operation along-side states programmes, the percentage index has raisin-up to more than 75%. More astonishing, if one takes into account, percentage number of beneficiaries, one discovers that the genuinely supposed beneficiaries; never at any point-in-time benefited.

They were unfailingly, mark you; unfailingly or deliberately denied access to the funds because of political sentimentality and corruptible tendencies. Wont this bewildered any one that NAPEP, an agency of government, brought on board and powered to eradicate poverty, by so doing; create jobs and wealth ended-up giving loans to mosques and churches. On what ground and whose benefit? Isn’t this crass insensitivity and abuse of its legitimate objectives? No! Magnus Kpakol, should be call to order, held responsible and accountable for every kobo unnecessarily and insincerely expended.

The states complimenting chapters too, represent wasteful spending, gross inadequacies, misplacement of priority and thievery. Motor-bikes were contracted at an inflated rate by their associates and forced same to civil-servants on revolving loan at exorbitant amount, payable through direct deductions from their merger salary while, the rest distributed as tips to their political thugs and touts at no repayable cost. Similarly, motor-vehicles were acquired through same process by same minute classes, distributed on loan schemes to their political god-fathers, associates and party chieftains whom in returned, leased out same to commercial vehicles drivers at cut-throat. Do these in any away, represent poverty eradication? No! It must bear another name, for God sake.

Today, what were the outcomes of these conjectures? Was there any reduction in the poverty index? Were there jobs and wealth created and at what percentage from inception of NAPEP to date? Millions of the targeted people are not even aware of the existence or purpose of such a programme; it only became an avenue for the political/ruling elite to acquire and amass wealth from all our inclusive resources. While the less-privileged on whom the programme was originally nurtured and conceptualized, continue to live in utter frustration, their kids and kin talent; wasted in an undignified manner.

Our semi, urban and cities completely littered with all kinds of motor-bikes and commercial-riders called kabu-kabu in certain places; express, constituting nuisance and adding to the traffic congestion, increasing the tides of accidents and victims and, all other forms of criminality in the society. Yet, certain people in authority bestowed with this onerous responsibility, came forward with power point presentation in their desperate moves to cover-up their misgivings, trying to convince the world of these unwholesome ignominies.

However, this analytical view was drawn on the predication of the outcomes and experiences of the 16^th National sports festival; Tagged: KADA games 2009 hosted and recently concluded in Kaduna, the state capital. The derivable benefits of such a fiesta, are by no means, unquantifiable from: show-casing the cultural heritage and tourism endowment of the state that would facilitate local/foreign investment inflow, state of the art sporting facilities that would hitherto, provide an enabling and conducive environment for national and International competitions in return for investment port-folios, jobs and wealth creation. Opportunity to discover and develop hidden talents and by so doing; reducing unemployment and poverty that was never achieved through the instrumentality of NAPEP and its states complimenting programmes.

In essence, if substantial part of the appropriated billions/donor’s funds and that of the states chapters were directed to the development of sports, the objective, if judiciously utilised, might have been by far; enormously achieved. And those on whom the programme was designed for, of course, the common people and their wards, would have no doubt, been the truly beneficiaries. Talent is an intellectual property that nobody no matter how highly place one is, can remove it from the hands of the endowed.

If not for KADA games, how can a girl of Nancy Mathew background be discovered and known nationally? A girl from one certain village in Kaduna State that in all honesty, supposed to be one among the beneficiaries of NAPEP but, never opportune, ran a distance race of 10,000meters bare-footed and won glory for self/family by winning a gold medal. If this medal was to be given on no account of this magnitude, sincerely speaking, Nancy of all; a daughter I believed of an agrarian farmer, would never for her life have the golden opportunity to even be closer to the ceremony venue not to even think of clinching a bronze medal.

Therefore, if quantifiable part of the monies allocated to NAPEP and that expended by the states governments were injected into sports development, the impact would have been more felt by the larger segment of the society. Unemployment and poverty would have been reduced to the barest minimum, opportunities would have been created for the less privileged and their wards, barrage of miscreants that constitute social-ills in the society; would have been dropped to the lowest ebb.

Another gratifying aspect of note of the KADA games was, how the state citizenry along-side settlers counterpart, joyfully and remarkably expressed their profound gratitude and blessings to the governor and government of Kaduna state that they have at least, seen where their money was spent. And that this is better than those who would steal their money and hide, anchoring sports as another tool for national cohesion, integration and transparent accountability.