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• Says FIFA’s World Cup decision will favour Nigeria
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From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
National Sports Commission (NSC) Executive Chairman, Shehu Dikko, gifted President Bola Tinubu a special jersey at the State House on Thursday, describing it as a symbol of profound gratitude during his briefing on 2025’s stellar sports triumphs and bold infrastructure plans to ignite economic growth in 2026.
Briefing State House Correspondents, Dikko said the gesture underscored the President’s unprecedented support. “To thank him for the unwavering support he has been giving sports in Nigeria. What the President has been doing for sport has never been like that, everybody will tell you,” Dikko stated, noting endorsements from the National Assembly during recent budget defences.
He highlighted Tinubu’s directives to streamline sports funding: “Remember the decisive approvals and directives he gave a couple of weeks ago to reset the sport funding, directing the relevant agencies that look, put adequate money for sports in the budget and once the budget is passed by the National Assembly, and Mr. President signs the Budget, all monies for sports are due, they should be released immediately.”
Dikko’s briefing detailed transformative 2025 milestones, which the President himself shared on social media. “I’m sure if you are following, you’ll have seen that two weeks ago, Mr. President himself published it on his Twitter handle, the progress that was made in 2025. Last year was huge; we made almost 375 medals across all sports, contributed about 1.2% of the GDP in the third quarter of 2025, about N50 billion of private sector funding that have come in, and all the firsts that we have won across all sports.”
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He said the NSC delivered its annual report, securing approvals like the constitution of the Nigerian Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) board. “Mr. President has signed the bill since last year, after almost 20 years in the hiatus of the antidoping bill, he has signed it, and now he has approved that the board of the Anti Doping Agency of Nigeria should be constituted, which is one of the conditions WADA wants to see us achieve. Already, Nigeria has been cleared as a clean country in sports.”
Dikko also said the economic impact shone brightly: “Last year we induced almost about 140,000 jobs, both direct, indirect and induced, across all the sporting ecosystem.” This, he said, aligns with the “New Hope Initiative for Nigeria Sports Economy”, measuring success beyond medals. “Sports is not just being measured about the medals, it’s being measured about what you contribute, the GDP, how much was created.”
On the infrastructure push for 2026 and beyond, the NSC boss said President Tinubu’s excitement was palpable: “Mr. President is very happy, he’s very excited with the progress.” Dikko prioritised infrastructure to sustain momentum. “One of the things that we have to now push more is about the infrastructure because we need infrastructure to work. So we also discussed that, and part of the memos Mr. President is looking at is to see how we can fast track the development of sporting infrastructure across the country, both the elite sports and also the grassroots sports.”
He noted that grassroots efforts drew special focus, with talents emerging from national festivals and youth games in Algeria and Angola. “We have made an unprecedented progress on that… We went to the African School Games in Algeria, you saw how Nigeria did very well… We have a collaborative partnership with the Ministry of Education… To bring back the school sports the way it should be; the NUGA Games, the Principal’s Cup and everything.”
He explained that the 2026 budget includes provisions that federations must prove grassroots commitment for international support.
On football, Dikko referenced an ongoing FIFA case after the World Cup playoffs but stressed forward focus: “We are confident we have a good case… But we have put the World Cup behind us already.” He added that FIFA’s World Cup decision would ultimately favour Nigeria.
Dikko concluded optimistically: “So we are really on the right track… We are winning on the pitch, we are also winning on the economic side.”
