By Uzor Odigbo
Nigeria’s ex-athlete and former vintage shot put prodigy, Friday Enoye has lamented the sorry situations faced by young talents in Nigeria owing to lack of Competitions to discover them.
Enoye who was a member of the Contingent of Nigeria’s International AthIetics Association (NIAA) that organized a one-day competition for secondary schools in Nigeria at Yaba College of Technology sports center two weeks ago said, “it’s painful to see young talents on the streets hawking products, wasting instead of going to school and be discovered as future Athletes for Nigeria.”
The US based ex-AthIete revealed that the idea behind NIAA Schools AthIetics Competition is to provide sports facilities and Competitions for Schools in Nigeria for talents discovery.
“These Schools need Competitions to grow talents and that was how all of us were discovered, some of us got spike shows as gifts from people in our nascent days as young AthIetes,” he said.
He added: “Since year 2000, this Competitions has been going on and we have achieved a lot in talent discovery and more Competitions will be provided for them in future.”
Enoye is also part of Eyoto Foundation, an annual grassroots AthIetics and other sports competitions also for primary and secondary schools in Benin.
He averred that their efforts so far in Organizing the talents hunt grassroots Competitions stems at giving back to society from where they benefited in the past and it doesn’t come cheap as every NIAA member sacrifices and contributes to make the competitions happen.
