The Director General of the National Sports Commission, NSC, Hon. Bukola Olopade has always said that ” When we take care of our athletes, our athletes will take care of the country with medals”.
This quote forms the backbone of every concept that is being initiated by the leadership of the National Sports Commission, led by Chairman Mallam Shehu Dikko and the Director General, Hon. Bukola Olopade.
The quote often resonates in the heart of why the Sports Commission centres its modus operandi on an Athletic-centric based approach in its policy formulations and budgetary prioritisation and allocation.
This explains why Nigerian Elite Athletes are currently enjoying yearly and quarterly Training Grants through a scientific Hungarian system of grading put together by the Elite and Podium board of the NSC.
It is the first of its kind in the many decades of Nigeria’s involvement in international Sports and the concept has in no small measure restored back the lost confidence that an average Nigerian athlete was having in competing for the Country.
Nigerian athletes can now focus fully on his or her training for major international competitions without the usual distraction of lack of financial support from the country.
So far the National Sports Commission, has spent over 400 million Naira, on paying Training Grants to Nigeria Elite Athletes across the various Sports, in the last one year that the current leadership of the NSC was set up by President Bola Ahmed, GCFR.
By the way , Mr President, is the real “MVP” in all of these commendable transformations going on in Nigerian sports in a space of just one year. Mr President singlehandedly began it by boldly scrapping the bureaucratic Ministry of Sports and replacing it with a vibrant National Sports Commission.
He did not only re-establish the NSC, he appointed unarguably and undisputedly two of the country’s finest brains in Sports administration in Nigeria to lead the Commission in Mallam Shehu Dikko and Honourable Bukola Olopade.
And from day one, which is just more than a year ago, they have both not taken their feet of the pedal, building generational policies and concepts that will continue to solidify the real foundation of Nigerian sports development at every level.
Just recently, the appreciation tour concept of the Commission which many including the biggest critics , have called the real game changer, has further sums up why Nigerians are experiencing real renewed hope in the Sports sector in the last one year.
With the appreciation tour , the Director General of the NSC and his team embarked on a surprised visit to the school of two of Nigeria’s young swimming talents , Aidan dumuije-Abili and Tofunmi Ibidapo who excelled at different domestic and international tournaments last year.
In a short but highly significant ceremony, both athletes were presented with cash prizes of 3 million and 2 million Naira respectively. The DG was also in Abeokuta to honour and present similar cash rewards to Nigeria exciting young sprinter Majekodunnmi Afusat Biola.
Nigerians and even members of the Sporting media believe the NSC, is not only ticking the right boxes but setting the Country’s sports on a path of sustainable and verifiable growth and Podium success.
It will be recalled that in 2025, Nigeria won a total of 376 medals in various international competitions out of which 200 of the medals came from the country’s young and promising athletes.
Beyond just the money, the Nigerian Government through the National Sports Commission is now properly managing Nigerian sports through the right module of both Grassroots nurturing and scientific elite athletes management.
