The organisers of the just concluded Federal Capital Territory, FCT, School Sports Festival have expressed satisfaction with the success recorded during the staging of the event.
The multi-sports festival among the selected Secondary Schools in the Nigerian Capital, Abuja was staged as a test run ahead of the main event scheduled for September 2023.
The Sports Festival is organized by the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) in collaboration with Ratels Sports Development Foundation (RSDF), a non governmental organization.
Speaking at the closing ceremony held at the Old Parade Ground, Area 10 Abuja on Thursday, March 30, 2023, Education Secretary, Mallam Sani Dahir, El-Katuzu, who was represented by Mr. Joseph Abunike, who is a Director, Department Policy, Planning, Research & Statistics, FCTA, said apart from using the competition to discover talents, it’s also part of curriculum activities of educational sector in the territory.
“Although this festival is an eye opener, the dry run event, was staged to showcase the talents in the territory, talents like Nwankwo Kanu, Austin Okocha, Mary Onyiali, Falilat Ogunkoya etc will be discovered from this competition. Also looking at the benefits, more sponsors will come in, more facilities build for schools and interaction among students, all these make the festival unique” Mr. Abunike said.
Also speaking at ceremony which includes participants in other non-sporting events like quiz, debate and spelling bees competitions, the President and Founder RSDF, Barr. Paul Edeh said the festival will enable the students showcase their God’s given talents to the world.
“We are collaborating with government to develop sports. This is a dry run programme to what to expect in September this year, so FCT being the center of unity, we in RSDF, will work with the authority to discover talents for national and international competitions” He said.
The Director, FCT Sports Department, Adamu Hashimu said the September 2023 Sports Festival, with the theme “Discovering Young Stars” will be the biggest sporting event in the lives of the students.
“From what we saw at this dry run event, the coming Sports Festival in September will be like tourist attraction for people. The event would make our students gain national and international recognition through laurels, and impacting the sports world to everybody’s delight” He said.
At the end of the competition, Government Secondary School, Karu, dusted other 15 schools to emerged champions in Senior Schools category with 10gold , 5silver and 1bronze while for the Junior Schools category, JSS Gwarko amongst 18 schools finished best over all with 4gold , 4silver and 1bronze medal.
The main attraction of the day was in the Football event where Junior Secondary School, Jabi 1 beat Junior Secondary School, Orozo 2-0 to be crowned champions of the boys football competition while in the girls category, Government Girls Secondary School, Dutse defeated Government Secondary School, Karu, 5-4 on penalties after regulation time ended 1-1.
Prices and trophies were awarded to the winners in various categories of the events as students defied rain to celebrate their successes to late evening.
It would be recalled that the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) entered into partnership with Ratels Sports Development Foundation (RSDF) as a measure to promote sports development and management in the territory.
Specifically, both the government and non-governmental bodies signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to annually organise School Sports Festival within FCT for primary and secondary school children.
All these are aimed towards organizing sporting programs for schools in FCT, to organize workshops, seminars and retrain sports officers in all schools, all geared towards producing athletes that will win laurels for their schools, FCT and the nation at large.
Source: Voice of Nigeria