As a departure from the past, the annual Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development, North-West U-19 Volleyball Championship will be holding in Gusau, the Zamfara State capital this year, to bring about all round development, Zonal Coordinator, Mr. Olushola Luke has disclosed.
He expressed this while speaking at a media briefing held at the Ahmadu Bello Stadium, Kaduna on Thursday.
Mr. Luke said that the North West comprises of seven states and it would be unfair to keep giving only one state the hosting right, while others deserve equal opportunities.
He praised the sponsor of the competition, Engineer Musa Nimrod, who is also the Chairman of the Kaduna State Volleyball Association.
“Because of the passion he has, our sponsor has once again decided to bring together the youth at the grassroots, which he has decided to improve their skills and value.
“Only few weeks ago, we gathered at this same stadium for the final of another competition, a football event, which he also sponsored. I told someone who was here then that with the army of unemployed youth who were at the stadium, if not engaged positively, would become Devil’s workshop,” he said.
He explained that due to financial constraints, zonal offices have not been finding it easy, but he singled out the North West Zonal office as one that stands out because of its zonal representatives that have been supporting them.
“I want to tell you that this is the most vibrant zone in the country because of people like Engineer Nimrod. We would be organizing a handball competition which is organized by another zonal representative from the zone,” he explained.
In his remarks, Engineer Nimrod said that he personally prefers to develop grassroots sports because it helps in developing future talents.
He said that sponsoring competitions for elite athletes should be left out for the federations.
“Today we are sponsoring competitions from the grassroots, in the future, we would move on to sponsoring open championships or league,” he said.
He was optimistic that the issue of age cheats would be completely eliminated from the competition.
The competition is billed to hold from April 26 to 30 at the Federal College of Education (Technical), Gusau.
