Sports: A Tool for Economic and Social Development

Muyiwa Olumilua

The clouds were always beautiful and calm those days, but my heart stayed thumping as I focused on the bar. My mind wandered a thousand miles, thinking what it would feel like to ace the bar and what it would feel like if I stumbled while making my jump. Those were tough but beautiful days still, despite the unavoidable tension I would make the jump and celebrate the victory with my team mates. With vivid remembrance, I can still feel the ecstatic spasms that ran through my veins after every successful jump.

Convincingly, I have learnt to conclude from those moments that sports is more than just the activities. As a high jumper in my high school days, it provided me with a strong sense of belonging and earned me the respect any young man craved at that stage of his life. Every jump provided me with a sense of purpose.

Every time I visit my country home in Ikere-Ekiti, Ekiti State, a visit I make regularly, I see a lot of young men who struggle to define their place in the society. A lot of them, as expected, are street footballers who would jump at any opportunity to express their entertaining football skills. Understandably, a good number of these young men are not interested in schooling but developing these amazing talents.

Consequentially, some never get to see their dreams through and turn to the fast lane. They still maintain their amazing skills but gradually turn into social delinquents. After several visits, the question of harnessing the power of sports in such a way that it can be used to tackle societal issues built a burden in my heart.

Drawing inspiration from the moments I experienced in my high school and the recent words of Segun Odegbami, I would be sharing my opinion on how leaders can make use of sports as a tool for societal development.

The first suggestion is that governments design special schools that would employ the use of special curricula. These curricula would integrate traditional learning methods and sporting activities in a manner that would interest young sport enthusiasts who are not particularly interested in schooling.

Asides from providing communities with well-groomed sporting personalities, it would provide these young people with a sense of belonging.

Sadly, a lot of them are treated as outcasts given that they have chosen to focus on development of their talents at the expense of their education. Hence, such an arrangement would serve as a comfortable platform. This would further help tackle the issue of delinquency related to these amazing talents abandoning their education for sports, and also integrate delinquents who have interest in sports but have not developed their sporting skills. Segun Odegbami has exemplified the possibility and success of this idea with a school he set up in Ogun State.

Also, with this idea we would be promoting the educational development of our communities. Thence, if the enrolled students choose to move away from the path of sports, they would still be able to actively participate in society in a positive way and further their education to tertiary institutions.

Secondly, sports can provide our communities with higher levels of employment. Host communities of well-planned sporting events over time have experienced a rise in employment that last beyond the sporting events. This in turn would help contribute an improvement in the standard of living for the members of these communities. As an indigene of Ekiti, the pleasant looking highlands of my state
inspire thoughts of the possibility of my state hosting a world class mountain biking competition.

Aare Muyiwa Olumilua is an APC aspirant for the Ekiti 2018 Governorship elections