By Aherhoke Okioma,
Organizers of the Annual Milo Basketball Championship for Secondary Schools across Nigeria have been tasked to do more than monetary benefits and laurels for this year’s winners of the age-grade school competition with a view to entrenching a lasting legacy in St. Jude’s Model Girls Secondary School, Amarata-Yenagoa, who won the female category of the competition for the seventh time consecutively.
Senior Special Assistant on Media to the Governor of Bayelsa State, Comr. Tamarakuro Oweifie, disclosed this on the sidelines with news hounds in Government House Yenagoa when the winning team alongside their technical crew paid a courtesy visit to the Governor of Bayelsa State, Senator Douye Diri, to present the trophies they won to the state governor.
Comr Oweife expressed concerns that winning the coveted adolescent trophy in basketball, for the seventh time in a row, is no mean feat for the adolescent girls and therefore more capital projects needed to be on ground in the school, beyond laurels and cash awards, as this would go a long way in encouraging the school to further groom and expose other budding younger athletes to excel in sports and education.
“One cannot over-emphasize the need for more tangible projects to assist St. Jude’s Girls Secondary School, Amarata-Yenagoa, which has brought this glory to Bayelsa State for the seventh time and counting,” he said.
“Governor Diri has shown unparalleled commitment to sports in just two years of his first tenure, attracting world-class wins in wrestling through Olympic silver medalist Blessing Oborodudu (who incidentally is also a product of St. Jude’s Girls’ Model Secondary School, Amarata), rising athletics champion Tamar Godbless, and clinching a record 3rd position on the medals table at the last National Sports Festivals in Edo State, as well as both female and male football teams winning the 2021 AITEO football league cups.
“The Miracle Governor thought it wise, and rightly so, to pronounce the immediate construction of world-class basketball courts in both schools – Jude’s Girls Model Secondary School, Amarata and Bishop Dimeari Grammar School, (BDGS) Ovom-Yenagoa – whose boys also won the male category of the annual Basketball Championship in Lagos State earlier in June this year.
“It is in that same direction that I call on the organisers of the annual Milo Secondary Schools Basketball Championship (Nestle Foods Ltd) and other corporate bodies to toe the line of Governor Diri and stamp their brand in gold by constructing lasting capital projects in the St. Jude’s Girls’ Model Secondary School, Yenagoa – which is an all-female public school in Yenagoa – to give the school a lasting sense of belonging.
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“The project should be sited in St. Jude’s Girls’ Secondary School, Amarata-Yenagoa. It can be a standard sports facility or laboratory or even a multi-indoor sports complex in honour of the female champions and the corporate brand as a befitting legacy for their unparalleled feats!”
Comrade Oweifie, a veteran television producer and media administrator, lauded the efforts of Nestle Foods for its consistency in sponsoring the annual Milo Basketball Championship for secondary schools since the year
2000 with over 10000 participating secondary schools this year alone and challenged other corporate bodies, especially those in the oil and gas sector to emulate this sportsmanly gesture of Nestle Foods Ltd to support grassroots, host communities and school-based sports competition to entrench Nigeria and the Niger Delta in annals of sports in the global arena.
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