Former England international John Fashanu has described Nigeria’s sports men and women as the most talented in the African continent.
The Nigerian born prolific striker who represented England twice at the senior level was speaking at a grassroots football and basketball Super Cup organised to mark the 20th Anniversary of African International College, AIC, and Africa Community School Abuja, ACS, Abuja.
He lauded the talents exhibited by the students, stating that there is hope for Nigerian sports. “Honestly this’s how I started over five decades ago.This young and tall boy called Jordan Ajene – he’s even taller than me. He’s simply amazing. He reminds me of Michael Jordan and luckily his name is also Jordan. He should be dreaming big now and he has the potential to be a great basketball player and I hope very soon he will be a household name as far as basketball is concerned in Nigeria. But I was surprised by my interaction with him, he told me he wants to be a footballer.”
Fashanu, who scored 134 league goals in a career spanning 17 years in England before retired at the end of the 1994–95 season, singled out three players as potential talents that could represent Nigeria at the cadet level in the nearest future after watching the thrilling encounter between AIC/ACS Love team and AIC/ACS Grace team held at the School Football arena.
Exuding with joy following the sporting spectacle that greeted the 20th anniversary of the school, Mrs. Caroline Yakubu, the Executive Secretary of AIC/ACS, said the sporting events were part of the school’s management efforts geared towards improving the students’ intellect through full involvement in school extra-curricular activities such as Sports.
“The match was actually the core idea of the anniversary. You can see that parents, teachers and students were all involved in football and even in basketball events. Through these we have been able to exercise our bodies, we have been able to touch one another, we have been able to have fun and we have been able to watch our children participate fully in sports” These are pointers to our motto “knowledge in the fear of God.”
One of the parents, Lady Nene Oche, on the occasion described the coordination of the Basketball and Football events as top notch. “The coordination is excellent. No doubt, we have enjoyed ourselves here, seeing our children compete and am so happy that the events were injury free. I can’t wait for next year’s edition. Am proud of the organisers”
Chairman of the organising committee, Dr. Tope Ojeme, said the sporting competitions had helped to bond staff, parents and students of the school with lovely clement weather.
According to Ojeme: “We are speaking to the future through our students. They’re the future leaders, future stars and future scholars. Just as the saying goes “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” We don’t want our students to be dull, rather excel in their studies here. You saw the excitement that in the teachers/students match and in fact the entire games – can you imagine four games were played on this pitch and all were characterised by the razzmatazz, thrills and frills of football”
Other activities carried out to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the school were Art, food and music festival, road walk, courtesy visit to the less privileged and anniversary thanksgiving and Church Service.