The Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Udom Emmanuel, has restated the commitment of his administration to empower the youths of the state.
According to a statement by the state government, the relentless efforts by Emmanuel’s administration in empowering the youth of Akwa Ibom cannot be overemphasised.
The statement added that in addition to working tirelessly in the educational sector to ensure free and compulsory quality education, establishing agricultural infrastructures that employ youths and creating various entrepreneurship and capacity-building programs to inspire youths, Emmanuel has taken keen interest in garnering skilled youths in the sports sector.
“The Akwa Ibom State Youth Sports Festival was initiated by the Emmanuel administration to meaningfully engage the youth in sport related activities. The project has gradually turned the state into the football capital of Nigeria after hosting the Super Eagles during the Russian 2018 qualifying stage,” the statement said.
The statement quoted Emmanuel as saying that “This is the only state in the country that runs youths sports festival every year, where we are discovering talents”
“In addition, the Emmanuel administration is also currently working on establishing ten modern sports centers, one in each of the ten federal constituencies. The sport centres are to be built within the secondary school premises,” the statement added.
The state Commissioner for Information, Mr. Charles Udoh, who lauded the initiative, said the goal is to boost sports development.
“Indeed, Akwa Ibom is becoming a state of sports and sports laurels,” Udoh said.
According to Udoh, there is a mini-stadium under construction in Eket and it is almost at the finishing level.
Speaking on the size of the stadium, Governor Emmanuel said it was built to guarantee minimum maintenance cost.
“We are building something that would require less maintenance. Secondly, consumption is a function of availability. So, we must provide the facilities. In three years, we have won the FA cup two times. This is something we have never won since independence. But as a state, within my three years in power, we have won it two times. Excellence doesn’t happen by accident or mistake; you must deliberately have a strategy to achieve it,” the governor explained, according to the statement.
“Governor Emmanuel’s goal is to produce athletes that can represent Nigeria as a whole in any international sports competition and do Nigeria Proud as a whole. He believes that for this goal to be actualised, a series of conscious decisions need to be made,” the statement added.
