President of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) Solomon Ogba has urged stakeholders in the sports sector, especially zonal representatives and other board members to emulate the North Central Zone representative on the board of AFN, Alhaji Tunde Abdulkareem Agbaji, the organiser and sponsor of the North Central Athletics championships which holds at the main bowl of the Ilorin township stadium.
Abdulkareem who is the Vice-President of AFN also sponsors the Kwara State All Secondary Athletics Championships, an annual event.
Ogba said, ‘’we have crops of young talents that have the potential to become world beaters in the next two or three seasons, but there are still many others across the country, and it is only through competitions like that we can discover these hidden talents. I, therefore, urge my colleagues on the board, zonal representatives and stakeholders in track and field across the country to regularly organise talent hunts to discover new talents’’.
Ogba said that with the establishment of Athletics High Performance Center at the University of Port Harcourt, discovered athletes can be sent to the center so that they could have access to specialised training at a very early age and continue their education at the University which has facilities for all categories of students.
Ogba also urged schools across the country to revive the culture of inter-house sports, ‘‘learning is incomplete without physical exercise, we must give our children the opportunity to put their God-given talents to use.’’