IBADAN – Hon Adedapo Lam-Adesina, member representing Ibadan North-East/Ibadan South-East Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, has distributed football kits including jerseys, soccer boots, hoses, shin guards and others to 64 football teams in the two local governments, noting that the action was part of his efforts to fulfill his campaign promise to the electorate.
Speaking with newsmen, Lam-Adesina, maintained that the effort was aimed at encouraging footballers and ensuring that the sport is developed in his federal constituency with a view to giving the teeming youths in it a platform for better future.
At the event, which took place at the football pitch of St Luke’s Primary School, Molete, Ibadan, featuring a football match between Lam-Adesina’s friends known as Omo-Oloore team and the football team of the Sport Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN), Oyo State chapter, Lam-Adesina and the Oyo SWAN chairman, Mr Niyi Alebiosu, decried the poor funding for sports.
The duo encouraged government at all levels to do more in the areas of funding and provision of sports infrastructure, even as they called for a more robust approach to sporting development beginning from the grassroots.
According to Lam-Adesina, who is a former Commissioner for Sports and Youth Development in Oyo State, lack of infrastructure for sport development as well as poor funding had remained the bane of sports in the country, noting that this realisation made him embark on the building of a football pitch at Okebadan High School and the distribution of football kits.
Alebiosu shared similar views while speaking with newsmen, commending Lam-Adesina for the effort, which he described as a good development, noting that if other public officials could emulate it, it would be good for sports development.
This was as the Oyo SWAN boss further charged the lawmaker to go beyond football to develop other sports in the constituency.
Some of the teams that received the football kits included: Cosmos FC, Sharp Shooters FC, Oloya FC, Unity Agugu FC, Unique FC and Ladi Oluokun FC, among others, with the lawmaker promising not to relent in serving the constituents, even as he advised them to always elect leaders they could trust.
