Itiako Ikpokpo popularly known as Malik has described the ongoing National Sports Festival in Ogun State as a huge improvement from what we have always seen, saying it’s probably because of the personalities involved.
Ikpokpo, who spoke in an interview yesterday with journalists during the finals of the swimming event, said the two personalities involved in managing the National Sports Commission, that’s Shehu Dikko and Bukola Olopade has brought a lot of their experience to bear, which you can see the razzmatazz, the excitement and the joy.
According to the two-time chairman of Isoko South Local Council of Delta State, and Director-General of ALGON who through his company, Dunamis Icon Limited, launched Delta State Local Governments Sports Festival, “the idea is that for every festival there must be improvements. If there are no improvements there won’t be any legacies for people to see, he noted.
He however stated when confronted with the question on whether Gateway games was worth the wait that, “the important thing is the outcome. Every good program needs time to plan. I think they have planned well, whether it took them six months or one year or two years, we’re all enjoying ourselves.
Ikpokpo who successfully managed the recently concluded Niger Delta Sports Festival, insisted that we should have the Sports Festival in it’s full weight before we can now be able to judge on how it impacted in the performance of the States from that region, but he can assure that the Niger Delta Sports Festival prepared a lot of the athletes for what we are doing today.
Speaking further he affirmed that the State governor’s must realize that they cannot continue to take sports for granted because sports is part of our value chain, sports is part of our lives, but that there are also a lot of states that takes sports seriously, Delta, Bayelsa, Edo, Lagos, Rivers, Ogun but he thinks it should become a general phenomenon.
He revealed that his biggest supporters in hosting the NDSF were from the NSC which gave him a lot of ideas because they know the athletes are theirs. “NDDC does not want to own athletes neither does the MD of NDDC want to be the one monitoring athletes, he just wants his intervention for athletes who are products from the zone and that’s what we did and that’s what we will continue to do.
“For me regional Sports Festival is good but do it to your capacity because not everyone has the kind of funds to do what we did in the NDDC. But it’s also important that the state is a part of what we are doing, states must take up that role, states must play that vital role in taking these young people into limelight, taking them from crime, taking them from the streets, taking them from prostitution and giving them food in their plates because when you raise an athlete you have raised a generation”, he concluded.
Ikpokpo also confirmed his joining the fierce presidential race in the Athletic Federation of Nigeria (AFN) forthcoming elections even though he declined from speaking further concerning that for another day, choosing to stay only on issues surrounding the Gateway games.
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