Solomon Dalung, Nigeria’s sports minister, has said that sports has the ability to move the country out of the current recession.
While speaking on Wednesday, September 28, 2016, when the chief of army staff, Tukur Buratai, a lieutenant general, paid him a courtesy visit.
Buratai was accompanied by the members of the Central Organizing Committee of the 16th Nigerian Army Sports Festival which is set to start on October 10 to 16.
Dalung said sports is the only industry that can bring the country out of recession. He added that it is only in sports that five to six benefits can be enumerated that are very key to National development.
“Sports provide valuable employment today… it is a foreign exchange earner and can also help build a tourism base,” he stated, including that sports has the capacity to take a lot of youths off the streets if funded properly.
Emphasizing that the development of sports In Nigeria has been sustained by the country’s military and the paramilitary organs, Dalung said that the number of great athletes that have competed internationally and done the country proud, have military backgrounds.
He also applauded the military for taking brave steps to organize an event of this scale, even though they were faced with insurgency in the country.
