Director General, Lagos State Sports Commission, Lekan Fatodu tells Charles Ajunwa that Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu is marketing Lagos as a destination for sports tourism. He also says the Governor is developing sports with a bottom-up strategy from primary, secondary, and tertiary

Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, is making efforts to improve sports tourism in the State. Can you throw more light on this?

You will see for the first time in modern times, Lagos State Government is so dedicated to exploring opportunities across the value chain within the sports ecosystem. From sports tourism, to sports management, to sports medicine, to fitness, wellness, recreation, everything all-encompassing. We want to create opportunities for great Lagosians to have multiple options and to look into entrepreneurial opportunities within the game of sports in Lagos State.

So as far as sports tourism is concerned, it’s actually heavily infused with entertainment because we understand that Lagos State, is the entertainment capital of Africa, not even just in West Africa. And that’s the reason why a lot of people are actually showing interest on development in the city. On the side of Lagos State Sports Commission, we are collaborating with organisations who have strong interests in some sports that can be described as exotic sports. Sports that are not really popular as our regular swimming, football, boxing and the rest. When I say Sport that are exotic, we are talking about fencing, archery, boat sailing, motor sports and many others.

Also, we know that we have a huge community of expatriates in Lagos State and a lot of them have been asking about what we are doing about these sports. When we showed them, what we have done so far, they were really impressed. And by so doing, a lot of them are beginning to inform other foreigners and their friends who are just coming into the country that Lagos State is leading the charge around these sports, which provides an opportunity for them to engage in their sporting interests. By so doing, we are marketing Lagos State as a destination for sports tourism.

We are marketing Lagos State as a very veritable ground where people can have recreation around sports. Where people can have fun, things that are tailored towards sporting engagements. So, we are also moving to people around some of our islands, who engage in things like jesking, flight boarding and all of that. We want to stretch our hands so that we can be a go-through platform for information around sports tourism for anyone coming into the country who want to have a special experience that’s uncommon. So that’s what we’re doing in that regard. We’re bringing in an archery range within this Teslim Balogun Stadium. This is one of the reasons why sports tourism is actually at the centre of such efforts and decision, which provides opportunity for a lot of people to have multiple or diverse choices around sports. They can locate what they want to do within Lagos, not just our beautiful food, not just our rich culture or hospitable populace but also experiencing Lagos State from the perspective of sports tourism.

How is your commission interfacing with players in the hospitality sector to promote sports tourism in Lagos?

We have three dimensions in terms of interventions around sports: sports for competition, sports for fitness, and sports for recreation. And we know that many of hospitality facilities, provide some measure of recreation for our citizens. So, as a result of that, we are engaging with all of them and we are designing some programmes that can fit into what their facilities can accommodate for us. For instance, we are partnering Bamura on some of the events that they are doing.

They are doing so much in terms of boxing and a lot of people are coming out now not just watching boxing for the kind of energy and passion that usually come out of that sports. But in an environment where they can interact, have fun, have beautiful food and also network. So that is the kind of relationship we’re having and we’re having this across the board.

The Sanwo-Olu administration has made investments in youth development, from primary, secondary and tertiary levels. What structure are you focusing on?

Our structure in terms of talent identification, growth and support is broken into two. We have the Under-15 category, and we have the Senior category. So, many of these Under-15 category, they actually move from Under-15 and graduate into the Senior category. What we do is to spread our tentacles into schools. We have very robust and vibrant school sports directorates, where we interact with sports masters and sports instructors in schools so that we can give them some of our tailor-made ideas and initiatives through which they can engage many of our youths and young people and we can locate diverse interests in different sports. Many of those people are sort of recruited or scouted from those avenues. Equally, we have some who are actually within the community and we’re very heavy about our grassroots development. We have strong partnerships and relationships with various local governments and LCDAs in Lagos State. So those are strategic catchment areas for us in identifying raw talents, shaping the talents and also giving them the opportunity to grow and excel. From the state, our Sports-loving Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu is doing a lot in terms of sports development. He has improved the welfare of these athletes and he has also been supporting them in different areas. Equally, the coaches and the technical teams we have improved their welfare. We have given the opportunity for motivations such that when they win or they do better than the previous performance, there is an incentive for them. They are relatively better incentivised now to enhance performance. That’s one of the steps that we have taken in identifying the talents, nurturing them and shaping them to a better future in the sports that they have chosen. It is not also limited to that. We know that some people who will not pursue a career in sports at the end of the day, there’s opportunity for entrepreneurship where they are trained to learn some certain skills within that ecosystem. Those are some of the things that we have done successfully well.

In terms of identifying and nurturing young talents, are there efforts to ensure they go through formal training institutions to enhance their skills?

The whole essence of Mr. Governor providing facilities and ensuring that every community has a facility that is closer to it so that it will reduce mobility from one community to another. The reason why it’s done is to really domesticate these talents and locate them within the various communities. They can be an advantage to those communities in terms of growth and inspiration for other young people. While we sit at the centre pulling them in to further encourage them and also understand some of their needs. Many of these people also need some of the soft skills that will make them excel in life in terms of punctuality, communication, coordination, psychological preparedness and make up for some certain tasks and responsibilities. So it’s an entire intervention strategy that is aimed at ensuring that they become a total being.

What do you consider as your greatest achievement so far?

My greatest achievement, number one, we have a governor who believes truly in sports and who believes in whoever he has appointed to take up responsibility. It’s a huge task dealing with different stakeholders and all of that and we came on the saddle with a lot of challenges. But because of the fact that Mr. Governor understands the terrain and he knows that the person that he has put into that responsibility can deliver. So that is the number one motivation and opportunity to do better for us.  Number two greatest achievement is our determination to bring back trust and support from the private sector. We believe that the state cannot do it alone. So we believe why we need that strategic partner is for us to be able to accelerate the attainment of some of our plans and programmes to bring them to actualisation. We have partnered on this journey with Tecno, Post Assurance Broker, Paralex Bank. All of these partnerships are aimed at harnessing the talents and potential of our athletes. And also helps to bring sanity, stability and progress within the society because through their supports some of them are sponsoring some of our athletes, providing resources and using their support to ensure that our athletes are really busy on things that are positive. Some people thought that it’s not going to be possible for us to bring back many of these private sector players after a long hiatus of non-communication and lack of engagement. I would say that with it, we have established, it’s a template that we can run and this will help even do better in the future for sports development in Lagos State because the private sector is the engine of any economy. Sports is a big business outside of this space and Lagos can set that example for the rest of the country.