Adopting Sports as Weapon for Tackling Nigeria’s Insecurity
By Abdulsalam Mahmud
It has several benefits. Playing sports helps one stay in shape, teaches you how to organize your time, boosts friendships, and builds relationships with peers and adults.
Playing sports enables one to create friendships one otherwise might not have formed. Many times, the friendships one create on the field remain intact even when one is not playing sports.
Participating in sports helps build leadership skills. Sports teams give one an opportunity to surround himself/herself with competitive people and role models, and learn from them both. One can demonstrate his/her own leadership through team captainships and individual actions to improve one team’s success.
The physical benefits of participating in a sport are probably the most obvious. Athletic training helps strengthen bodies, develops coordination, and promotes physical fitness. Through sports, youths learn physical fitness in a fun way that encourages healthy living habits.
Once young athletes develop these habits, they are more likely to continue them throughout their lives. This is important since physical fitness helps combat major health issues such as obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.
In addition to these physical benefits, many social benefits result from participation in sports. Participation in sports provides opportunities to learn teamwork. Playing by the rules and overcoming adversity helps youths learn qualities of good sportsmanship and personal responsibility.
Time management and good organizational skills must be developed to achieve both athletic and academic success. These benefits transfer to everyday situations, providing social skills that allow you to succeed in the real world.
Desirous of keeping their troops and personnel in good physical condition and mental shape, various arms of the Nigerian Armed Forces – the Nigerian Army, Air Force and Navy- regularly organize sporting competitions, locally.
They also sponsor their sporting teams to participate in regional and international military games such as the Sahel Military Games, for members of the Armed Forces of the Sahel Region.
The objective of the Sahel Games is to promote peace and togetherness among the participating countries of Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Cameroun and Benin Republic.
There is also the Armed Forces Inter-Service Sports Competition, AFISSC, which the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Gen. Leo Irabor, believes will strengthen military ties, instill discipline and provide team work required for optimum performance of troops during combat operations.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the 2022 AFISSC, at Mogadishu Cantonment, in Abuja, Irabor, noted that Nigerian troops require the agility to wade through difficult terrains during operations.
“To withstand any warfare and grueling experience, the troops need the ability to advance long distances with full combat gear through rugged terrains and to fight effectively requires strength, agility and stamina,” he said.
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Irabor, represented by Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal, Oladayo Amao, noted that the competition will provide both physiological and psychological benefits that will reduce stress, illness and injuries especially during operations.
“The area of physical training especially through sports is one that requires much attention in order to better prepare for current and emerging challenges.
“The nature of insurgency and other internal security challenges which places huge demand on personnel combat readiness and thus necessitates the need to sustain high levels of physical fitness and combat alertness,” he said.
Irabor noted that the current engagements of troops in several operations across the country, requires a high level of physical fitness for operational successes.
On his part, Minister of Defence, retired Maj.-Gen. Bashir Magashi, maintained that physical fitness remains the cornerstone of troops combat readiness in contending with myriads of security challenges confronting the country.
He said that physical fitness also helps to keep service personnel in top state that would enable them to carryout and achieve assigned tasks.
The Minister said the inter-service sports competition, organised by the Defence Headquarters (DHQ), was designed to provide the platform for the services to interact with one another towards sustaining the good relationship built and enjoyed over the years.
According to him, the importance of physical fitness to an armed forces such as ours cannot be over emphasised, particularly at this time that Nigeria is contending with a myriad of security challenges.
“It is physically and mentally fit personnel that make the difference in combat operations.
“These physically and mentally fit personnel are able to endure tough weather and terrain conditions and other stressful harsh battle conditions.
“Physical fitness therefore remains the cornerstone of troops combat readiness as it keeps Service Personnel in top physical state that enables them carryout and achieve assigned tasks.
“On the whole, physical fitness is the basis for service personnel’s good health and physical wellbeing,” he added.
Magashi said the current security challenges confronting the nation were enormous and thus, calls for synergy and cooperation among the three services.
He said that avenues such as sports competition, needed to be continuously created to facilitate mutual interaction amongst troops.
The minister commended the troops for their efforts and sacrifices at tackling the security challenges as well as the DHQ for organising the sports competition.
He charged the participating athletes to imbibe the spirit of sportsmanship and strive to put in optimal performance towards winning laurels for their various services.
“Furthermore, let fair play be your watchword as you keep in focus, the objective for the organisation of this sports fiesta.
While it is apt to posit that sport prepares soldiers for combat by increasing their fitness, channelling aggression, and focusing their mind, it also strengthens the ties between troops, instilling discipline and readiness to serve a common cause.
Indeed, sport has played a crucial role throughout the evolution of the Nigerian military, and with the benefits it brings to operational deployments – as well as peace time duties – it will continue to be at the forefront of service life, for many more years.
*Mahmud is the Deputy Editor of PRNigeria.*
