Segun Odegbami
Former Super Eagles captain, Segun Odegbami has applauded Ogun State for the hosting of the National Sports Festival on-going in the state and assured that the fiesta would live up to expectation by bringing to fore young athletes and sportsmen that could be developed for the future.
Explaining the catch-them-young programme of the State Government, Odegbami pointed out that “See them young, take them young and start developing them for the future is what the festival is about.
Odegbami, recently appointed by Gov. Dapo Abiodun as Ogun State Sports Ambassador in an interview after the opening ceremony of the 2024 National Sports Festival, at the MKO Abiola Sports Arena, Kuto Abeokuta, said “when the festival was created, it was to discover young athletes and take them to the elite level”
“The young athletes we are talking about are those that are in school. When I was picked in 1973, I was a student at the Polytechnic, I was even old at that time, I was 20, the junior athletes now are going to be the biggest beneficiary of this festival,” he said.
Odegbami, advised the State to imbibe the spirit of maintenance culture to protect all the facilities, explaining that the sports festival was good for the development of sports and to discover young talents.
While commending Governor Abiodun for his braveness and courage to explore the usage of sports for infrastructural, social, economic and cultural development of the State, Odegbami noted that if the facilities provided 19 years ago, when the State hosted the games, were well maintained, there would not be need to spend much on renovation.
“The festival is a good thing, it’s not every State that has the capacity to host the festival. Ogun hosted in 2006, we put in place fantastic facilities and when you look back now, 19 years after and you see what is on ground. Why do you need to spend this amount of money doing this renovations to effect changes if we had maintained what we had in 2006. We have challenges with our maintenance culture,” he said.
