As effort to reposition the Nigeria Cricket heats up, president of the federation, Onyeama Emeka has said the game should not be viewed as old school game, but an elite game that commands tremendous followership, financial benefit and physical health.
To this end, Onyeama said plans are on to popularise the game nationwide with the major target being the talented youths that abounds in the schools.
The new president of Nigeria Cricket Federation told Pilot Sports that having been chairman of the Abuja Cricket Association and sponsor of the game for a very long time, he hoped to institutionalise and nationalise the game in the country as efforts are on for the federation to work with the state association and get cricket back into the secondary schools.
Onyeama said following bad management of the federation in the past, a lot of sponsors abandoned the federation, but with new development, the new board will work hard to bring back these sponsors so that together Nigerian youths can be developed through cricket.
“We are going to organise a national school cricket competition and be actively involved in the National Sports Festival, NSF. That is our focus to get youths back to playing the game. WE want people to know more about cricket the way they know much more about football.’’
The former FCT chairman said much work would be done to sensitise people on the importance and benefit of the game and in doing so, the federation hoped to work with the international association and NSC that have been behind the Cricket Federation for a long time.
“In the past, Cricket was made to look like a Lagos game and that was the mistake our predecessors made by making the game look like Lagos game. We are making plans to build a cricket stadium in Abuja and we are going to work with the NSC and FCT administration to get a land for that purpose. It was the problem of the last board that made sponsors like NNPC and Indomie to abandon the game.”
Onyeama said the last board sponsored cricket like cow boy or old school boy’s king of affairs where some people wanted to perpetuate themselves in power. Noting that with the turn of event, cricket will henceforth be a grass root game.
