THE adopt-a-talent initiative of the Nigerian Ministry of Youth and Sports Development bore more fruit on Wednesday when three commercial banks donated $200,000 (about N100 million) to jointly adopt the country’s men’s basketball team, D’Tigers, and the women’s team, D’Tigress, who will both participate in the Tokyo Olympics.
The ministry announced on Wednesday that Zenith Bank, Access Bank and Guaranty Trust Bank responded in a timely fashion to the appeal by the minister Sunday Dare for corporate organisations to adopt the national teams.
The adopt-a-talent programme is an initiative that gets corporate organisations and state governments to sponsor athletes with funding for training and other expenditure, to take some weight off the federal government.
D’Tigers and D’Tigress each got $100,000 from the three banks through the programme as support to prosecute their participation at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the sports ministry said.
The ministry expressed its appreciation to the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria Godwin Emefiele, who it said was central to the process leading to the adoption.
It also noted the CBN governor’s earlier support to the revitalization of the Principals Cup this year.
The ministry further thanked the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Zenith Bank Ebenezer N. Onyeagwu, Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Access Bank Herbert Wigwe and Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of GTBank Segun Agbaje and their financial institutions for adopting the national basketball teams.
While assuring that there is still room for other corporate organisations to adopt Olympic-bound athletes and teams, the ministry expressed confidence that the financial support has further brightened Nigeria’s chances of winning medals in basketball.
D’Tigers and D’Tigress are both in the United States of America preparing for the basketball events of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics which begin on 25 July.
The women’s team were in attendance on Wednesday morning when the men faced Australia in a pre-Olympics exhibition game in Las Vegas.
