Abuja – The Chairman of the National Sports Commission (NSC), Mr Bolaji Abdullahi, on Thursday in Abuja inaugurated an eight-man panel to reposition the National Institute for Sports (NIS).
The National Institute for Sports (NIS), established 40 years ago, is the engine-room for sports development in the country.
Members of the Visitation Panel on National Institute of Sports, inaugurated by Minister of Sports, Malam Bolaji Abdullahi, in Abuja on thursday (23/8/12).
Inauguration of the panel is the first step taken by the NSC to restructure the sports sector, following last week’s presidential directive for re-organisation of the sector after the country’s miserable performance at the London Olympics.
The panel, which has Prof. Rasheed Farouk as its chairman and Dr Ademola Are as secretary, has four weeks to submit its report.
Other members of the panel are Dr Abdulkadir Muazu, Mr Cyril Anyanwu, Mr Nelson Ine, Mr Victor Onagagamue and Mrs Victoria Kayode, who is representing the Federal Ministry of Education.
Inaugurating the panel, the NSC chairman charged members to evaluate the staff strength, incorporation of the governing council and to assess the sports science and sports medicine department of the institute for better results.
The panel is to also carry out full and detailed audit of the academic and professional programmes of the institute, including admission procedures and the curriculum offered.
It is also expected to undertake a review of the organisational structure and management practices, including forensic audit of the financial management of the institute.
The panel also has mandate to evaluate the staff strength, qualifications and quality of the NIS academic programmes, including its suitability for upgrading to parastatal agency status as well as to evaluate the level of adequacy or otherwise of NIS facilities and equipment.
The minister also urged the panel to evaluate the level of competence and internal capacity of the NIS leadership in steering the institute to greater heights and assess the structure and composition of its governing council.
It is expected to also examine the enabling Act and the in-house capacity of the NIS as presently constituted to undertake additional functions outside its original mandate, such as the development of elite athletes.
To achieve this target, Abdullahi told the members that the idea was not to witch-hunt anybody but to identify how to achieve the target of five gold medals given by the President for the 2016 Olympics.
According to him, this report will not end like other reports if our sports must be revived for the desired result.’
The NSC boss pointed out that several countries succeeded at the Olympics because of the type of institutions they had, adding that Nigeria’s case should not be an exception.
“We all still agonise over our abysmal performance at the London Olympics and several questions have been asked since then; the countries that have succeeded why did they succeed and the countries like ours that failed, why did we fail?
“ It’s not because God did not like us or because we did not pray hard enough.
“The evident pointer is that medals and victory are not for those who have prayed hardest but for those who have worked hardest.
“Now the question on moving forward is what are those things we need to do to ensure that this kind of disgraceful performance we had in London does not happen again?
“One of the key issues that we have to deal with is to think of how to reposition the respective key institutions we have around sports development in Nigeria,” Abdullahi said
The chairman of the panel assured that the panel would do a good job, given the track record of its members.
He expressed optimism that the sports sector would blossom again if stakeholders cooperated with the panel members in the discharge of their duties. (NAN)
