My mission is to export Imo budding talents – Ukaegbu
From Everest Ezihe, Owerri
Poised by the commitments of making Imo State youths to jettison antisocial vices and explore their talents in various fields of endaevour, Hon. Mandela Ukaegbu, the State Commissioner for Youth Development and Talent Hunts says he has advanced plans to export the harvest of Imo State born talents to various parts of Nigeria and the world in general for enhanced socioeconomic benefits.
Ukaegbu disclosed this on Thursday when he hosted members and leadership of Sports Writers Association of Nigeria, SWAN Imo State chapter in his office as they paid him courtesy cum solidarity visit.
He commended members of the Association for their tremendous support and collaborative synergy with the Ministry since he assumed office about three months ago, noting that the essence of Governor Hope Uzodimma whom he described as youth friendly Governor creating the Ministry is to explore the various areas of socioeconomic endaevours for the youths to be deeply involve so as to help them in discovering their destined talents and optimally explores them in line with the global best practices and for their socioeconomic benefits.
The Commissioner also informed that the Ministry is poised to roll out a lot of entertainment programmes in line with the Ministry’s mandate of discovery and training budding talents for export.
According to him,“the Ministry will be coming up with a lot of activities for our younger generation that are not only football alone, we would also include other sporting activities, we would look at sporting activities like Chess, Javelin, marathon, shot put and others.
“We want to see how we can promote our youths by discovering these young talents and then projecting them to the world. This is why we will need SWAN to help in this project.
“We are not restricting it to sports alone, we will also look into talents in areas like ICT, Agriculture, business and other socioeconomic means. When we discover them, we will now hand them over to the Ministry in charge for further development which is why we have partnership with Heartland FC, Ministry of Sports, Ministry of Agriculture and so many other Ministries that will be in charge.
“By doing all this, we are trying to create a lasting synergy between the Imo state government and Imo youths.” Ukaegbu said.
Members of SWAN further reassured the Commissioner of their willingness to partner with the Ministry and help in anyway necessary for proper projection of the younger generation.
On the minor misunderstanding between the organizers of the ongoing Governor’s cup with Imo FA, the Commissioner said, “FUTO couldn’t honour their match early enough because of some technical issues and to that effect the referee walked them over and the decision was upheld by the committee.
“FUTO then wrote an appeal letter stating their issues and pleading for a reconsideration. And bearing in mind that we had to be careful in handling the situation that concerns the student community because they are volatile, full of energy with a lot of understanding and misunderstanding, so it is a very delicate situation that we need to handle with concern.
“An opportunity came to give them a second chance among the losers, which is the 8th team that would complete in the knockout stage team for the quarter finals.
“That last slot was given to the best losers who lost out from the initial stage. So, we considered that since FUTO was among the losers, and not disqualified, we decided to give them the opportunity to compete among the losers for the last slot remaining to complete the quarter finalist. Am appealing to Imo FA for understanding” Ukaegbu concluded
Speaking earlier, chairman of Imo SWAN, Comrade Cosmos Chukwuemeka hinted that the visit was to familiarize the Commissioner with the new leadership of the association as well as seek his Ministry’s collaborative partnership.
Chukwuemeka emphasized that both Ministries of Youths Development and Sports are like siemese twins and must work in synergy to ensure the meaningful engagement of the youths in productive activities.
Describing SWAN as committed and dependable partners on issues of youth and sports promotion, Chukwuemeka advised the Commissioner to tap into the vast media space provided by the association to promote activities of his Ministry.
He appealed to the Commissioner on the need to motivate members of the Association in the coverage of the ongoing Governor’s cup.
