TRACKING >>The immediate past Minister Youth and Sports, Development, Barrister Solomon Dalung, has revealed his greatest regrets during his tenure in office.
Dalung made the revelation during his Send forth ceremony organised by the Sports Ministry at the Abuja National Stadium yesterday.
Dalung mentioned that his inability to secure the funding for the sports ministry to prosecute its major activities for the year topped his major regrets.
“Am leaving office when am not be able to secure the funding for the All Africa Games and the Beach volleyball games in Cape Verde and the Olympic Games despite writing and requesting for the funding over a year ago and pursuing it in all quarters down to the ministry of finance and get the presidential approval for the funds to be released hat is only my regret leaving the office” he said.
“But I will continue to use my influence to reach the president and the ministry of finance to ensure they release the funding on time ahead of the games otherwise Nigeria at the Africa games will be disgraced and they will not be a good representation and performance at the 2020 Olympic Games.
He, however, underscored his achievements as the sports minister, while calling on all the relevant stakeholders to play their respective roles to ensure the development of sports in the country.
“The highpoint of my stewardship will be majorly the revival of the some of the sporting traditions that have been abandon for some time and some of the infrastructures, like the Olympic swimming pool in Lagos, will remain very dear to me,
“when I assumed office it has been abandon for over 20years today it has been put to used, the national youth games when I came it has been abandon for about 3years today the games is a huge project and has contributed positively to the building of talents and redefining image”
According to him “Also the National Sports Festival which at a point in time we taught we will not have the ambitions of hosting it but by determination and convictions we did the games, in which we got the funding 9days to the opening ceremony and the wisdom behind the success is that we identified the areas that needed urgently funding and we source for it elsewhere” he concluded.
