Federation Urges LGAs To Promote Swimming

The Nigeria Swimming Federation (NSF) has appealed to Local Government Councils to help promote swimming at the grassroots.

NSF Technical Director Olugbenga Lawal, who made the appeal in an interview with newsmen in Lagos, said the sport was suffering from neglect. He said that talents abound at the grassroots but could not be tapped due to the lack of swimming pools.                        According to him, swimming pools are the greatest and most important asset of the sport and if each council area could build a 25-metre pool, it will help swimmers to develop. “Swimming is not developing because our local government council authorities are not doing what is needed to be done to promote the sport. “A 25-metre pool in every local government area will be okay to groom swimmers who can be future champions and win laurels for the country. “We have been making this appeal to them for a very long time, I just hope they will have a rethink and help to promote swimming,’’ Lawal said.

The technical director said that open water or streams were not advisable to be used as swimming pools, adding that there were lots of dangers lurking in them. He appealed to the state associations to always collaborate with the local governments to discover talents.

“The state associations should partner with the local government councils and we believe that the councils have the resources to build the pools rather than training swimmers in dangerous open water,’’ he said.

Lawal said that the NSF would soon roll out its programme for the year, which would focus on grassroots talent discovery and the development of swimmers to international standard.