Amaechi reaffirms Buhari’s commitment to sports

Transport Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, has reaffirmed the current administration’s commitment to sports development in Nigeria, saying the Federal Government would continue to support the sector through adequate budgetary provision and prompt releases.

Speaking at the opening of the 15th Research Institutes Games Association of Nigeria (RIGAN Games), yesterday in Zaria, Amaechi assured Nigerians that President Muhammadu Buhari would do everything possible to revive sports in the country.

He said Buhari’s administration was determined to unlock and harness the potential of the citizenry for optimum performance.

“As we gather here today, ‎sport is at work for peace and unity, sport has an inherent transformative capacity and potency for social integration. It has been said that nothing can measure up to sport providing bonds of national solidarity or in creating collective consciousness of one’s country,” he said.

Declaring the games open, the special guest of honour, Kaduna State Governor, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, said sport has huge benefits to good health of citizens.

Represented by Commissioner for Works, Housing and Transport, Alhaji Usman Mahmud Hassan, El-Rufai said, “sport, for all intent and purposes, teaches us the value of team work, which is a vital tool for efficient service within the civil and public services and indeed any forward looking organization.

“It teaches us the importance of fair play and observing the codes of rule, it sets aside our personal aspirations for the benefit of collective course and teaches us that winning and losing can be done with honour knowing that one did the very best of one’s ability.”

He, therefore, called on participants to play by the rules of the games and also understand ‎that in any competition there must a winner and a loser.

He added that the state government had put adequate security in place and charged them to take advantage of the peaceful atmosphere in Kaduna.