The Nigeria Senate Committee on Sports Development, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Youth Development, has launched a national sports and economic empowerment programme aimed at youth engagement and de-radicalization.
The programme, titled “Nigerian Youth Economic Engagement and De-Radicalization Programme (NIYEEDEP),” was officially flagged off at the Senate building, National Assembly on Wednesday.
Presiding over the event, Senator Ned Munir Nwoko, Deputy Chairman of the Senate Committee on Sports Development, emphasized the programme’s focus on discovering young Nigerian talents.
“The essence of this competition is to try and discover young talents. There are many young talents out there in different parts of the country but they are never given the opportunity because nobody knows them, nobody has heard of them,” Senator Nwoko remarked.
He emphasized the committee’s interest in NIYEEDEP due to partnerships with international stakeholders, particularly Germany-based football academies, which are keen on identifying promising Nigerian youths for training and potential professional development in football.
“Some of the partners are foreign, specifically German-based. They have football academies and are looking at how they can identify the very best of our young ones to be trained and hopefully become professional footballers,” he noted.
The Distinguished lawmaker representing Delta North senatorial district, linked the programme’s goals with his own Sports University of Nigeria (SUN), which aims at combining sports with education.
He stressed the university’s commitment to ensuring that students receive a dual focus on athletic and academic pursuits.
“The whole idea of the university is to give young ones the opportunity of combining sports and education. It is not an academy; it’s a full-fledged university,” he said.
“For example, if we discover young talent at 16 years old who want to go to my university to play football, it is not enough for them to play football. The university made it mandatory for them to take another degree in conjunction with football.”
Addressing the challenges many athletes face upon retirement, Senator Ned Nwoko emphasized that Sports University graduates will have academic qualifications to fall back on.
“Most of our sportsmen, when they finish their sports career, they don’t have much to do because they don’t have much education. But with the university partnering with this initiative, we are able to produce young ones who are not only good at sports but also have academic qualifications”.
“We are hoping that this particular initiative will, at the end of the exercise, identify some young talents across the country. Those of them that are extremely good will be supported to go abroad, train further, and hopefully represent Nigeria at the national team,” he added.
Senator Ned Nwoko further explained that the NIYEEDEP initiative is expected to attract wide interest from various groups and football clubs nationwide, providing young Nigerians with an opportunity to showcase their talents and contribute to national development through sports and education.
The Minister of Youth Development, Ayodele Olawande, also emphasized the inclusivity of the talent search. “This talent hunt is open for everybody with interest in football; they should come together, be productive, and do better,” Olawande said in his remarks during the public unveiling.