Chairman, National Sports Commission, NSC, Shehu Dikko during his visit to the State House on Thursday discusses several issues on Nigerian sports including the Super Eagles, DR Congo eligibility saga, and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s support for the commission. Below are excerpts:
About the visit to President Tinubu
It’s just a normal visit, you know the the National Sports Commission actually reports to Mr. President. So we came to brief him on what we have done last year, and there are so many approvals Mr. President has given. So we had to brief him on the stage of execution, and also the plans for 2026 and so far so good, Mr. President is very happy, he’s very excited with the progress, and he’s still giving the unwavering support and the push that we need to be able to deliver on the mandate to create a sports economy in Nigeria.
Implementing his programs for the sports sector:
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, and also the challenges.
So we are really on the right track, and I believe Mr. President is happy, and that’s why we are now having this conversation to see how we can make it better in 2026 and beyond, and I submitted our annual report of what we have done, formally, to Mr. President and then there are certain approvals. For example, he approved the constitution of the Nigerian Anti Doping Agency, which is a must for us, because WADA are on our case.
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 and a clean country in sports. So we are really on the right track and there are so many other approvals that Mr. President has given today for the benefit of sports, going forward.
Roadmap towards making the sports sector really economically viable:
Yeah, of course, that was the reason why the President is talking about sports is not just being measured about the medals, it’s being measured about what you contribute, the GDP, how much was created. Last year we induced almost about 140,000 jobs, both direct, indirect and induced, across all the sporting ecosystem. That is how we are now measuring our sports and other kinds of parameters.
I remember right from the beginning, we unveiled what we call the New Hope Initiative for Nigeria Sports Economy, the real framework, which clearly defined where we are going and which way we are going, and has a clear objectives and has a clear outcomes that we are looking at, what will be the final outcome, and that is the final outcome we are seeing; we are winning on the pitch, we are also winning on the on the economic side.
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.
Specific progress the sports commission has made regarding development of grassroots sports:
Well, we have made an unprecedented progress on that. Remember the last sports festival that we held, we created what we call the invited junior athletes as a 38th state of the country and they competed within that band and you can see the talents that we have been able to on earth through that process that followed that.
We went to the African School Games in Algeria, you saw how Nigeria did very well on that. We went to the Africa Youth Games in Angola, you saw how good we have done in that and now we have created what we call the intermediate games. We’re going to have it this year, to have under 18 to under 20, apart from the youth games that we held this year. So we are all doing that.
Already we have a collaborative partnership with the Ministry of Education. Myself and the Minister of Education are co-chair so that we can bring back the school sports the way it should be; the NUGA Games, the Principal’s Cup and everything, a committee is already working on that and if you look at the Budget 2026, there’s already provision for that. So we are really on track to do that.
We have a definitive directive to our sporting federations, if you are not showing us what you are doing on the grassroots and the domestic scene, we can’t support you to go for international competitions.
Update from FIFA regarding Nigeria’s participation in the 2026 world cup:
It is what it is. I keep saying it, when we came in as a sports commission, already the World Cup issue was already virtually lost, remember when we spoke here, we were three points out of 12, but we pushed, worked with the NFF, with everybody, and we nearly made it. We had a misfortune or penalties in the playoffs. We lost it, but we found out there are some breaches here and there, which we believe, even before we played the playoffs, those breaches, we noticed them and we already documented them.
So ourselves and the NFF submitted to FIFA, what we feel were the breaches against the rules and regulations, which is also part of sports, it’s not being sore losers, it’s just what it is. So the relevant bodies of FIFA are dealing with it, and we are hoping, any moment, we will hear their decisions. But we are confident we have a good case. But I keep saying, we have put the World Cup behind us already. Whatever happens, it is what it is. But we are not looking at that, we are looking at how do you build for the next competitions, the next AFCON, the next WAFCON is next month.
You can see how we pushed the performance at the last AFCON in Morocco, everybody was happy about it. So World Cup is a closed chapter, but yes, we have a pending legal issue to deal with. It’s not within our competence to do, our own is to say this is what we feel was the wrong thing that was done, and we leave it. Even FIFA, it’s not the FIFA deciding, there are independent bodies in FIFA who are independent of FIFA; disciplinary committee, ethics committee, are independent bodies of FIFA, they make their decision based on what they see on the rules and they won’t tell you, we are doing it tomorrow or next tomorrow, when they finish, they will tell the world. But we are confident that, yes, if it is legal issues, we have a good case. That’s why we submitted the case.
On why he presented a jersey to the President:
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. Even the last week I was at the budget defense, the whole National Assembly and the Senate confessed that this is the best president that has supported sports the best way.
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, so as to avoid all this, that there’s no money because sports is timely, sports work with time. So if the monies are not released in accordance to the schedule there will be problem. So Mr. President approved that so that we can plan well, we can progress well, so we are good with that. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Congratulations.
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