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Sports Minister Gives Account of Stewardship in Six Months

Published

7 years ago

April 3, 2020

…Says You Can’t Score Yourself in an Examination

Joel Ajayi

Minister of Youth and Sports Development Mr Sunday Dare, has said he remains focused on his vision for the Ministry in spite of the challenges facing the Youth and Sports sector and the country at large.

He said while giving account of his stewardship in the last six months in an interview in Abuja.
“It would be totally wrong to score myself. You can’t score yourself in an examination. The score card should be done by relevant stakeholders who have been monitoring what we have done since assuming office.

“But by and large, we have tried to re invent the wheel of Youth and Sports Development, restore confidence in the sector. We have changed the wrong perception about the Youth and Sports Development Ministry,engage with critical stakeholders, the athletes and those that are genuinely interested in supporting us to actualize our vision. We have succeeded in convincing the athletes who are at the core of winning honour that we mean well and their welfare remains our central focus.We have re focused sports development by dwelling on the core issues that matter.”

The Minister while maintaining that athletes remain top priority added, “Without the athletes winning laurels, sports wil be meaningless. So we have focused on infrastructural development, the development and discovery of athletes and taking care of their welfare.We have also insisted on doing things right to change the echo system in Youth and Sports and most negative perception that we inherited has changed. We met alot of challenges but when look back in a year or two we believe alot would have changed for good.”

On the biggest challenges since assuming Office and he has been able to navigate around them, he said, “The Youth and Sports Development sector is not insulated from the challenges that characterise other Ministries and sectors of the society. We inherited alot of challenges like projects that were started and abandoned, those that were completely made to rot away, Youth unemployment and the sector that was completely neglected.
With all these problems, we had to devise strategic options of adressing the problems.

” We came up with the Adopt an Athlete Initiative and Adopt a Stadium. With this we have gone into partnership with committed individuals, Corporate bodies,State Governments, Government Agencies to support our athletes and address the infrastructural problems. These are problems that had always been and we had to take pro active steps to tackle them. This strategic move has achieved a lot with state governments like Edo, Delta, Anambra adopting athletes. Unlike in the past,money meant for athletes are paid directly into their account without anyone taking anything. This is to enable the athletes train well for the Olympics before it was cancelled Good enough, we ate constantly monitoring the athletes to know how they are faring.

“With the lockdown and postponement of all sporting event, we are keeping tabs on the athletes to ensure that they use the money well and also use private in door facilities to keep in shape.”

Speaking on infrastructure, the Minister said Stadiums like the MKO Abiola Stadium, National Stadiums in Lagos and Ibadan are being given a face lift by individuals, just as the Ahmadu Bello Stadium in Kaduna has been given a new look courtesy of the Kaduna State Governor Malam Nasiru El Rufai.

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Alake Inaugurates Nigeria-US Solid Minerals Committee, Dismisses $700bn Claim, Says No Assets Sold

Published

4 days ago

October 28, 2026

The Gleamer

Joel Ajayi

The Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr. Dele Alake, on Tuesday inaugurated the Nigeria-United States Committee on Strategic Cooperation in the Solid Minerals Sector in Abuja, dismissing reports that Nigeria sold $700 billion worth of solid minerals to the US.

The inauguration followed the strategic cooperation framework established between Nigeria and the United States during the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York.

In a statement issued on Wednesday by the Head PRESS and Public Relations Department Mrs. Kania Maliki Andeyaba stated that, Alake in the Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, signed with the US is a government-to-government platform to facilitate business-to-business engagements between American investors and Nigerian local operators, not a sale of assets.

Harping on the importance of the solid minerals sector to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s economic diversification agenda, he noted that the administration was committed to reducing dependence on a mono-product economy through the sustainable development of Nigeria’s vast mineral resources.

According to him, the Nigeria–US partnership as a strategic initiative to attract investment, promote technology transfer, strengthen local mineral processing and create employment opportunities.

“There is no sale of any Nigerian asset. There’s nothing exchanging hands,” Alake declared.

“We created a platform to facilitate mingling of US investment ventures with Nigeria’s local operators. It is in the public domain. We signed it in public and published it in four or five national newspapers.”

The Minister said reports claiming the US was coming to take over Nigeria’s minerals and security architecture were untrue at best and products of riotous imagination at worst.

Explaining the policy thrust, Alake said Africa has historically held the short end of the stick in global economic transactions, and Nigeria is determined to change that model.

“We have the resources, the critical elements the world needs to transit to clean energy. So we are creating a new paradigm — you bring your capital, expertise and technology, to match with our natural resources and create a win-win situation . The investor gains, Nigeria gains.’’he said.

Nigeria, he stressed, had operated a mono-cultural economy dependent on oil, while solid minerals were exploited informally — with ores taken “from pit to port” without value addition.

Alake said government has now made local processing mandatory, refusing to grant mineral titles to investors without a clear pathway to processing in Nigeria.

He said the policy led to the springing up of processing factories, including the largest lithium processing plant in West Africa commissioned recently in Nasarawa by the Vice President, and informed the formation of the African Minerals Strategy Group.

Alake noted that investor confidence has returned due to macro-economic reforms by President Bola Tinubu that guarantee security of tenure and repatriation of profits.

He charged the committee to discharge its assignment responsibly, saying its work is strategic to achieving the President’s $1 trillion economy target.

To this end, he told the Committee to ensure effective coordination, identify investment opportunities and translate the framework into measurable outcomes capable of positioning Nigeria as a competitive player in the global solid minerals industry.

In his welcome address, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Engr. Faruk Yusuf Yabo, said the inauguration translates growing bilateral engagements into a structured framework for practical cooperation and investment mobilization

Economic Officer at the US Embassy, Jonathan Baas, said President Donald Trump has prioritized three areas for US embassies — energy, artificial intelligence/super intelligence, and critical minerals.

Baas said Washington’s direction is to work with partners to secure critical supply chains while ensuring partners capture value.

“We just signed a contract today on looking into building AI data centres in Nigeria at the Nigerian Economic Summit. That’s the direction Washington wants us to go,” he said.

In his vote of thanks, CEO/Managing Director of Nigeria Solid Minerals Company, NSMC said that the committee

is expected to coordinate implementation, facilitate investment and monitor progress towards achieving the objectives of the Nigeria–US cooperation framework.

The inauguration reinforces the Federal Government’s commitment to repositioning the solid minerals sector as a key driver of economic diversification, industrial development and national prosperity under President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.

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