Stakeholders have called for continuity in the nation’s sports sector as speculations are rife over President Goodluck Jonathan’s planned cabinet reshuffle which may be total.

According to the President, Nigeria School Sports Federation (NSSF), Ibrahim Muhammad, sports have witnessed resurgence under the present leadership of the National Sports Commission (NSC) in recent times.

He said the resurgence is most noticeable at the grassroots level with special attention given to school sports, which came to fore at the last National School Sports Festival held recently in Ilorin, Kwara State.

The NSSF President opined that the Minister of Sports/ Chairman, NSC, Bolaji Abdulahi has shown that he is passionate about the grassroots sports with the setting up of a new board for the National Academicals Sports Committee (NASCOM) chaired by Yemi Idowu.

“I want to say that any alteration in the leadership of NSC will surely bring us back to where we were coming from.

“Since assumption of office, the minister has displayed some seriousness in reviving the fortune of sports, and this became obvious when he attended the last National School Sports Festival.

“Never in the history of the games that a serving minister will attend the championship and this alone has given us hope; that in few years, we will get back to our glorious days in sports,” he said.

He continued: “Changing the leadership at this point in time will not help sports generally and it will be counter productive. So I want to appeal to the Presidency to allow the present minister to carry on with what he had started so that in few years, Nigeria can return to its rightful place in the world.”

The President also disclosed that the National School Sports Festival had a private sector support for the first time, made possible by NASCOM, a body reconstituted by the minister.

“For us at school sports, we will forever be grateful to the minister because in the history of school sports games, we have never had it so good like what we had in Ilorin.

“Sterling Bank single-handedly sponsored the games, while Nestle also contributed at the games. So for us, NASCOM has been a blessing because they had shown that they are really partners in progress.”

He listed some of the achievement of the present leadership of NSC, as winning the AFCON 2013 and FIFA U-17 World Cup while Nigeria also returned to the global stage in athletics.