Lagos State boosts school sports with new equipment
The atmosphere at the Adeyemi Bero Auditorium of Alausa Secretariat on Thursday, July 4, was filled with all sorts of sporting equipment with students from public secondary, colleges, and tertiary institutions in Lagos State on hand to take delivery of the state-of-the-earth facilities courtesy of the Lagos State Sports Trust Fund (LSSTF).
The special guest was the Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who used the occasion to pledge his continued support to grassroots sports development as over 644 public secondary schools, five state technical schools, and five state tertiary institutions benefited from the gesture of LSSTF headed by Olaposi Agunbiade.
The governor who was represented by the Commissioner for Youth and Social Development, Bolaji Ogunlende said the gesture was part of his administration’s promise to students within the sports and educational sectors.
“Currently, Nigeria is laden with various kinds of instabilities such as political, ethnic, and religious violence, and there is no doubt that youths (mostly students) are now at the centre of these vices. This is because the love of sporting activities among the youths has been replaced by other endeavours like internet fraud, drug abuse, armed robbery, and some other vices.
“It is against this background that the Lagos State Sports Fund (LSSTF) is creating and uniting opportunities capable of diverting the attention of the youth from crimes by focusing on the development of school sports in Lagos State. We are here today to further demonstrate our understanding that the benefits of Sports in education are vast and are not just physical benefits. While many subjects at schools are taught primarily in the classroom, sports and physical education provide a great opportunity for students to head outside, get active, and focus on developing different skills,” he said.
He, however, pledged, “Let me assure you that this intervention will get to more schools across the State. The LSSTF understands the place of sports in the overall development of the youths and the multiplier effects on society at large.”
He charged the students to take ownership of the sports equipment by protecting them from vandalization, theft, and abuse.
In his remarks, Executive Secretary of LSSTF Agunbiade thanked the governor for his support to the agency while promising to unveil more laudable projects that would take the state to a more enviable position in sports.
The distributed equipment includes table tennis boards, boxing punching bags, basketball hoops, crickets helmets, taekwondo kicking pads, judo mats, swimming caps, badminton rackets, tennis rackets, track suits, soccer balls, jerseys, and a host of others.
