Youth Festival is yielding dividends already – Yakmut

The Chairman, National Youth Games Organizing Committee, Mallam Al-Hassan Yakmut, is thrilled with the successes recorded by the Games so far as at Day 3.
Yakmut, the Director of Grassroots Development of the National Sports Commission, said that the timely intervention by the Sports Minister, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, and the Director General of the National Sports Commission to organize this competition as a fall out of the Presidential Sports Retreat of 2012 has now recorded pool of talents that would take Nigerian sports by storm in the next four years.
Yakmut said: “I would say it has been so far so good in terms of performance of the athletes (that are between 13 and 17) as at today (Tuesday), which is Day 3 of the competition.
“Sincerely speaking, with the feelers we are getting, this country has been shortchanged for too long as regards the absence of well established youth programmes.
“I am using this medium to commend the Honourable Minister of Sports, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, and the Director General of the National Sports Commission for their tenacity on the initiatives that led to the First Edition of the National Youth Games.
“As a result, Nigerian youths have been given a technical sports voice through this games.
“I am happy that it is an annual event.
“Could you imagine within three days we have been able to conclude six sports?
“I think it’s an achievement.
“Although 657 out of 2,937 athletes have been wielded out because of their complications with date of birth and age brackets.
“Despite this, the game has not lost its focus and it has achieved its objectives going by the selected athletes that are already competing.
“Volleyball, handball, basketball, weightlifting, boxing, taekwondo and squash have been a success story because of the number of talents discovered.
“At the end of the games, we will give Nigerians the statistics of the athletes that have been discovered and what will be done with them.”