Over the years, countries, organisations and groups have used sport to achieve some socio-economic goals. In some countries, sport, which is big business and great employer of labour, also serves as a nation-building tool deployed to enhance national unity and peaceful co-existence. GOWON AKPODONOR writes that such is the power of sport that the United Nations declared April 6 every year as the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace.
One of the most memorable moments in Nigeria’s history was in 1969, during the Civil War. The date was February 4, 1969, when the late king of football, Pele, achieved a momentary ceasefire in the three-year war, which had then claimed over a million lives.
It was in the midst of that period that the Brazilian football giants, Santos, landed in Benin City to face a Mid-Western State side and the soldiers agreed to drop their weapons in…
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