For decades, history sold us the idea that Akwa Ibom state’s sports glory of the yesteryear, orchestrated by the Samuel Peters, the Vincent Enyeamas, the Lawrence Iquaiboms, the Enefiok Udo-Obongs, &c, could never be repeated, an idea firmly predicated upon the dearth of sports competitions and talent-discovery programmes.
Please step forward PASTOR UMO ENO.
The 2025 Akwa Ibom State Sports Festival, an initiative of Pastor Umo Eno, the Governor of Akwa Ibom state, designed with the aims of discovering talents, unlocking their potential and propelling them to national and international reckoning, may have come and gone. Worthy it is to note that, through the games, the foundation for the creation of a new sports era has not only been properly laid, but the legacies therefrom have already begun being palpably felt.
Beyond the thrills and spills that greeted a superbly organized sports meet and the amalgam of doled-out largesse it left in its wake lies the story of talent discovery never before told in this part of the country’s divide.
Arising above the limitations of life in the hinterland and bearing the insignia of Udung-Uko, a twelve-year-old Edidiong Ime took only 13.20 seconds to traverse the 100m track of Godswill Akpabio stadium in the T47 female junior category.
Contrastingly, the gold medallist in the same category at the recently concluded National Youth Games in Asaba, little Miss Faye of Team Bayelsa, achieved her feat by running 13.18 seconds, only 2 centiseconds faster.
Therefore, one cannot help but think that with exposure to proper training and tutoring on the rudiments of the business, Edidiong, a female pupil of Community Secondary School, Udung-Uko, thus, stands ready to conquer Nigeria whenever the 10th and next National Youth Games get under way; a gold medallist in waiting.
Edidiong’s story is not dissimilar from that of others like her.
The Jecinter Andrew Lawrence story passes nicely for the story of the festival. The teenager, a student of Aka Community Secondary School, took part in six track events and came out tops in all of them, amassing six junior category gold medals in 100m, 200m, 400m, 4x100m, 4x400m and 4x400m mixed relay races, to help Itu LGA on its way to festival glory.
Also representing Itu were the teenage duo of Goodnews, a student of Community Secondary Commercial School, Ibiaku Itam, and Ekemini, a student of West Itam Secondary School, who participated and won gold medals in both junior and senior categories of Beach Volleyball, sweeping aside challengers who outweighed them in age, size and body weight in the process.
Clergy Edet, who represented Uruan, set a state 1.70 metres women’s High Jump record, Uduakobong David Daniel defied her special needs to stand out in the women’s junior F44 Shot Put in the colours of Oruk Anam, while both Ekeme Abraham and Otobong Johnson of Etinan left marks on men’s Discus and 100 meters race respectively.
No fewer than seven female footballers who represented different LGAs received invitation to team up with the state’s female football standard bearers, Ibom Angels, in the immediate aftermath of the festival. Head Coach Edwin Okon described them as being loaded with the potentialities to reach the very pinnacle of the women’s game in record time.
Today, thanks to the vision of a Governor who has continued to tick all the right boxes of governance, and kudos to his inter-ministerial team of experts led by the ultra experienced Commissioner for Sports, Elder Paul Bassey, who gave form to that vision, Akwa Ibom state boasts a ready-to-use pool of effervescent young sports talents poised to grab, with both hands, all that the foreseeable future portends en route to making a name for themselves and conquering the world.
Go on and shine, all ye stars! The future is yours to take!
By Edidiong Stephen