Dr Geoffrey Ogu, President of Para-Athletics Federation of Nigeria, has called on the Federal Government to institutionalize the development of sports in schools.
Ogu told the News Agency on Tuesday in Abuja, that the call became necessary because of the inadequate investment in sports, a situation, which he said had contributed to the collapse of the sector.
He said: “The best way to start is to institutionalize the development of sports in Nigeria and by so doing you will have to take sports back to school.
“You will have to take para-sports back to special schools and other institutions; equip them and let it be part of their regular activities.
“Once we are able to do that – taking sports as an integral part of their curriculum activity and make sure that we have an avalanche of young athletes to replace the old ones – we will be instituting is succession plan.
“But, where you depend on incidental approach, where you catch one person on the road and you leave that person halfway and without replacement plan, then your success will disappoint you one day because you would have not succeeded in building on a very solid foundation.
“Our legacy project must be how do we take sports back to schools so that when you talk of inclusive development of sports in Nigeria, you are talking in practical terms.”
NAN reports that PAFN is an association geared towards full integration and inclusion of para-athletes in national sports.