Lagos – Deji Tinubu, the Chairman, Lagos State Sports Commission, on Tuesday said that the state government was ready to partner with any organisation toward development of sports.
Tinubu made the assertion at the Media Vision Price Water Cooper (PwC) sponsored Chess4Change Grand Slam Tournament at the Indoor Sports Hall, Teslim Balogun Stadium, Surulere.
He said that Lagos as the Centre of Excellence would welcome programmes aimed at developing sports, especially at the grassroots.
“Lagos State is not new in sports development; we have been encouraging sports, especially developmental programmes.
“We want to use sports to let Lagosians feel the impact of government in the state. The government is embracing all sports not on one sport.
“We are annexing all opportunities to develop sports and we are ready to partner with any organisation toward achieving this,’’ he said.
The project officer, Media Vision, organisers of the competition, Benjamin Chibuogwu, said that the purpose of the tournament was to develop the minds of the students.
“We want to use Chess to build the minds of the students because the game has the ability to train peoples’ minds.
“Chess gives people the opportunity of engaging in critical thinking and strategic reasoning and if people can adopt it early, it will make a lot of difference.
“We also want to build the mental strength of the students perhaps; they may take up chess as a career in the future.
“We also realised that chess can help one to take decisions on life issues, critical decisions that could help in lifetime,’’ he said.
Chibuogwu said that the competition was the second to be sponsored by the organisers, adding that 13 schools had benefited directly for the initiative.
“This game is an initiative whereby we take chess to Lagos schools to develop them. We provide facilities in these schools, so far 13 schools have benefited.
“The chess facilities were provided by Media Vision for the selected schools and we also provided facilitators to train them. What we are seeing today is how far they have gone.
“We are encouraging more schools to participate in this initiative which could serve as a means of mentorship in the sport.
“We equally thank both the Ministries of Education and also Youths and Sports for their support in achieving our goal for this competition,’’ he said.
NAN reports that PwC Chess4change Grand Slam Tournament is an initiative of Media Vision and sponsored by Price Water Cooper.
The three days tournament which has 20 schools participating will end on Thursday. (NAN)
