President, Nigeria Chess Federation (NCF), Mr. Lekan Adeyemi, has said that the federation plans to introduce 12, 000 school children to the game in a bid to popularise the sports across the country.
Adeyemi said in Benin City, Edo State on Tuesday that the initiative would aim at attracting the attention of sponsors nationwide.
According to him, government alone cannot develop the sport, then underscoring the need for corporate sponsorship.
“We want to take sport to schools; that is the only way we can generate the numbers that corporate sponsors require bankrolling the sport. We have a strategy known as, ‘Project 12,000’; we want to introduce the game to 500 children in each state in the country.
“Every zone will produce 3,000 school children each excluding two zones in the North, where there has been ongoing war against the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East of the country. If we achieve that, corporate sponsors will be interested in financially supporting the sport, because there is a ready market to explore,’’ he said.
He said the pilot phase of chess training/competition would begin in December, when schools would be on vacation.
The president also said that the federation would undertake the pilot stage after which the idea would be sold to sponsors to organise subsequent editions.
