By Kayode Adeoti
The state command of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) has emerged winner of the just concluded Kwara State Joint Paramilitary games.
The tournament was the 3rd edition of the joint paramilitary games and it was hosted by the Nigeria Prison Service, Kwara State command.
The NSCDC defeated the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Nigeria Customs, Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and Nigeria Prison Service with 1 gold, 1 Silver and 1 bronze while its immediate rival, Police had 1 gold.
FRSC had one bronze and the Prison service that won the tournament in the last edition secured no medal.
In an exclusive chat with the controller of Prisons, Kwara State, Adebisi Adewale Francis stressed that what informed the competition is the quest to ensure mental and physical alertness of paramilitary officers as well as the inmates.
“As paramilitary officers, we need to keep fit all the times and sport is the only thing that can make us achieve this. We’re prison officers and we’re professionals, we want to look at a situation whereby we reform human beings in his entirety and sporting activities has been a veritable tools we’ve using in the prison.
“A slogan says, idle hand is devil workshop, if we engage in sport, they will physically fit and their minds will be at alert to receive whatever instruction or therapy we’re administering on them to change so that they can be better citizens after leaving the prison.
“We felt it is better to extend it to our officers and other paramilitary personnel to bring about a kind of synergy between us. What we had here was a competition, it runs for two weeks, we just hand the grand Finale here today (Tuesday). We had novelty game and we presented the trophy.
The controller also charged electorate to play politics just take the game of politics like sports following the 2019 general elections that is fast approaching.
He charged further that members of the society should take politics as unifying factor saying it will go along way to instill sanity in the democratic system of the country.
He noted that policians should desist from playing politics of either do or die but take it as a game sport where one wins and the other wins.
“In sporting activities, we don’t look at either one loses or wins. At the end of the game, we embraced ourselves, the same thing should extended to politics so that there won’t be violence, hatred and our society will move forward.
In the same vein, the Special Adviser on Parastatal, Mahmud Babatunde Ajeigbe commended the prison service authority for organising the sporting event which he described as a unifying factor.
“Just as sport is a game, electoral process is also a game, somebody will win, another person will lose, there should be no bitterness or enemies. “
