Two shooting practitioners in Lagos have lamented the non-inclusion of the sport in the upcoming 18th National Sports Festival (NSF), to be hosted by Lagos State.

    The festival will hold from November  27 to December 12 in Lagos.

The athletes noted that the development was not in the best interest of the athletes and the growth of the sport.

According to them, this is discouraging as they will not be able to showcase their talents, after they had worked hard to prepare for the event.

 A Lagos State shooting practitioner Tunde Akintimehin,  said that he felt bad and discouraged when he learnt that Shooting would not feature in the festival.

“Shooting is gradually becoming a dead sport in Nigeria; we are only trying to do the little we can do for the sake of our interest in the sport.

“It is like the government is not interested in sustaining the sport or to take it to the world standard,” he said.

Akintimehin, then, called on the Organising Committee of the NSF to reconsider the sport, so as to boost the athletes’ morale.

Rahman Adisa, another state athlete said the non-inclusion of shooting in the festival was very bad.

Adisa noted that when other countries of the world were trying to add new sport, the country was removing from the existing ones.

“To me, what it shows is that sports administrators want to kill the sport for reasons best known to them.

“I was even surprised that Lagos State that has good athletes in the sport has not worked hard to sustain its growth,” he said.

Adisa then advised sports managers to include the sport, saying that it had the potential to offer as much as five gold medals.

The Technical Adviser, Lagos State Shooting Association, Bidemi Adeboye confirmed the non-inclusion of the sport in the festival.

Adeboye, however, promised that the association was still working hard for it to be included in the Games.

“I do not want these guys (shooters) to get discouraged, as we are still pressing buttons to include the sport, so as to allow them to showcase their talents too,” he said.