Nigeria minister of sports and chairman National Sports Commission (NSC), Bolaji Abdullahi has called for a review of sports development policy in ECOWAS member countries. He made the call at the meeting of the ministers in charge of sports in Supreme Council for Sports Africa (SCSA) zone 2 and 3 held yesterday in Abuja.
He said the call became necessary in view of the poor performance of West Africa’s nations at the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
According to him, with the 3rd edition of ECOWAS Games coming up next year in Cote d’Ivoire, there is an urgent need to look at the present architecture of the games in order to serve the region better. “It is no longer news that no West African country won gold medal at the last Olympics Games in London. This calls for serious concern considering the fact that we have the talents, manpower and wherewithal to excel at these games.
“We need to review our performances and come up with plans and programmes to forestall future occurrences of this nature,” he said.
The meeting of the ministers of sports in the Supreme Council for Sports Africa (SCSA) zone 2 and 3 was called to harmonise the position of the zones and present a common position on the dissolution or otherwise of the Supreme Council for Sports Africa (SCSA) during their general assembly coming up next month in Cote d’Ivoire.
Amongst other issues also discussed during yesterday’s meeting is the hosting of CIGEPS Regional meeting slated to hold in Nigeria in March, 2013; MINEP V meeting in Germany; ECOWAS position on the winding up of SCSA; ECOWAS Games and ECOWAS countries’ performance at the Olympics.
Eight countries from SCSA Sports Development zones 2 & 3 namely: The Gambia, Ghana, Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea Bissau and Liberia as well as six sports technocrats attended the meeting.