At the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium Benin City last week, the Princess Mabel Madojiemu Athletics Foundation sponsored track and field championships came to a fitting end. It was really lovely seeing young schools kids coming out in their numbers to display their athletics prowess.
They would surely had a story to tell for a long time to come just like some of us during our formative years. The sporting memories that we have are indelible, even as only a hand of us made it to the global spot light. There were numerous sports competitions back then, schools sports that took some of us to cities and stadia that we never dream of reaching as kids.
Sadly, in Nigeria today when school and grassroots sports is supposed to be blossoming, sporting activities meant to discover grassroots talents are evidently lacking with little hope of returning soon. The national school sports was last held in 2014, two years before that in Port Harcourt, when it was held, some notable athletes that participated in that competition were Ebere Agbapuonwu who transformed to Salwa Ed Naser and Edidiong Ofinome Odiong they are both running for Bahrain now.
That is the power of grassroots sports development, it is a forum where talents are discovered, it is an arena where coaches take notice of trainable athletes who can be world beaters in no distance future. It is where the likes Tobi Amusan and Ese Brume were discovered.
Before them great sports people, from late Stephen Keshi to Innocent Egbunike have their origins in school sports.
But Nigeria as country and all the States of the federation are missing it big time. There is no grassroots sports going on anywhere and so the country now rely on individual athletes who braved the odds to get to the international level.
It is a shame that a country of 200m people would be struggling to win just a medal at international events. This is because there is no nursery for athletes discovery and grooming. In Jamaica for instance they don’t joke with school sports; every year there is a big festival, where athletes in raw form show off their prowess and every four year there would be world class athletes emerging.
In her own little corner this is what Mabel Madojiemu is trying to create. Driven by passion and concern for youth development, she has spent her hard earn money to sponsor school sports athletics competition in Edo State. Had she gotten bigger resources like MKO Abiola, she would have invited the whole nation to participate.
The first edition of Mabel Madojiemu Athletics Championships was first held in 2019 at the University of Benin Sports Complex. And this year the event returned with over 500 kids featuring. The out come was fantastic. The young lads were so excited participating, only if there would follow coach for the noticeable ones.
Madojiemu herself was a grassroots discovery, she dominated the national junior 400m at the Yinka Folawiyo Championships back in the 1990s and then went on to establish herself as an international athlete. She was at the Commonwealth Games 2006 in Melbourne Austria and then after decided to relocate ‘Down Under’. But she hasn’t forgotten her roots.
“My main motivation is to seeing young athletes express themselves on the tracks,” she said in an interview.
“Of course it was the same route that I took to achieving athletics stardom and so, I would continue to support the championships through the Princess Mabel Madojiemu Athletics Foundation , this is with the hope that others would join in their own locality so that at the end of the day we can have more talents and the country wouldn’t be pinning all their hopes on one athlete.
“We don’t necessary have to wait for government to be able to develop our athletes, let us do what we can to help the young ones grow.”
But how many ex-internationals are ready to follow her example? In all sports there are very few people committing themselves to grassroots development. In Basketball for instance Olumide Oyedeji is trying his best.
So many other ex-internationals have zero commitment to grassroots development, they would rather take sides with sports administrators who are out to exploit the process to make money for themselves at the detriment of the sports men and women.
The Sports Ministry and the Edo State government need to support the Princess Mabel Madojiemu Foundation in this drive so that, it wouldn’t just end with the championships. There should be a bigger meet where other kids from other states can get involved, After the competition, coaches like Buka T who was on ground in Benin City can start working on the talents discovered.
