Young School children, in commemoration of the United Nations Day on Sports for Peace and Development in Nigeria, played a ‘football match for peace’ on Friday April 4.
The match, which was played between LEA school Utako and LEA school zone 2, ended 1-0 in favour of the former.
The children put in their best, in a bid to call the government to act on their role of protecting the citizens from mayhem and bringing about peace in Nigeria.
With the continuous attack on people including children in Nigeria, especially the murder of about 22 children in February by the dreaded Boko Haram sect, the children thought it very relevant to ask for
peace using sport.
Isah Ahmed, a primary school student urged the federal government to put a stop to the killings and find a way to stop the sects tormenting and torturing the lives of people.
He said “I want to beg the government to put a stop to the killing of school children, Boko haram should also please stop torturing the people, please I beg”.
The International Day of sports for peace is to highlight the potential of sports to advancing people’s life and promoting global solidarity.
The event coordinator, an award winning journalist Ms Aderonke Ogunleye, said she organised the event because she believes there is power in sports for development.
“Sports is a powerful tool for development, it helps in spreading messages of peace, driving social change and meeting the millennium development goals, and we equally use it to ask for peace in Nigeria.
I believe in a peaceful nation, a peaceful Nigeria and it can be echoed through the football match,” she said.
Speaking about the event, she said the football match was a successful one.”The school children were all happy with what they did, being peace ambassadors made them happy. I join million Nigerians to tell all the terrorist groups to stop the attack and embrace peace”.
Eugene Igbudu, representative of the UNAIDS Country Director Dr. Camara Bilali at the event also said they are on a road to educate for peace, he said “it is our own way of bringing peace to the nation, we are here to educate children and Nigerians on the need for peace through activities like this sports especially which is a universal language, this way we can achieve peace and achieve all our goals and objectives, it is a developmental process”
The event was sponsored by the Nigeria Football Federation, Nigerian Red Cross, UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNICEF and John Utaka Foundation.
The event organizer Ms Ogunleye thanked the partners for helping bring the event to fruition. She said, “‘We thank all our partners for being part of this remarkable event; it actually shows they are socially
responsible and also showed their contributions to the society. We are indeed grateful and I wish them all the best”.
