By Okechukwu Onuegbu
Njikoka Local Government Area (LGA), on Friday, emerged as the 2025 champions as the Anambra State Solution Initiative (ANSSI) sports championship came to a halt in Awka.
The ANSSI 2025 tournament which began since March 19, 2025 was organised by the Anambra State Sports Development Commission (ASSDC) in collaboration with State Ministry of Education and Ministry of Local Government Areas (LGAs) with a view to harvest sports talents for the world.
Contingents from Njikoka LGA won 18 gold medals and 14 silvers to emerge as champions and were presented with a sum of N4 million Naira which comprised of N1m initial prize from the organisers and N3m addition from governor Chukwuma Soludo.
Also, Onitsha North and Awka South LGAs who came second and third positions at the just concluded game equally received additional N2m and N1m respectively from governor Soludo, who equally rewarded the football club champions, and those emerged as second and third positions in various categories, including makes and females team.
Speaking on the occasion, governor Soludo expressed happiness that the Statewide schools champions league had produced talents currently on scholarships and those making impacts in sports across the world..
He described it as sports economy, which according to him, was aimed at engaging the youth positively, improving people means of livelihood, wellbeing, and active while creating employment opportunities for the talents to be found by those scouting to catch them young.
Earlier speaking, the Chairman of ANSSDC, Mr Patrick Estate Onyedum commended the governor for been a lover of sports which according to him, was why he consistently supported the project and would continue to use it to empower the younger generation while encouraging healthy living.
Onyedum equally commended the various personalities who sponsored the 2025 edition and urged the players and schools to prepare for the next edition he believed would be more rewarding as already promised by Governor Soludo.
The 2025 ANSSI which was third edition kicked off on March 19th, 2025 with over 15,000 participants, including males and females from the State, federal, private and mission primary and secondary schools across 179 communities in Anambra State.
It was initially aimed at rewarding winners with prizes totalling N15 million across 11 sporting events but the governor who was overjoyed over the students (players) performance decided to personally reward the winning teams, including the two youngest players.
The competition was held across 21 local government areas, progressing through the three senatorial zones, culminating in the grand finale where the winners of gold and silver medals where determined across the 11 sporting events such as Football, Athletics, Chess, Ncho, Basketball, Cricket, Scrabble, Table tennis, Swimming, Taekwando and Volleyball for U-12, U-14, U-18, among other categories.