Osun Lawmaker, Babatunde Olatunji Organizes Ayo-Olopon For Middle Schools In Osun East (Photos)

‘Tunde Olatunji Ayo Olopon competition- “Middle School Category” flag off ceremony.

It was indeed a day of great joy and excitement for about one thousand students, teachers, officials of Osun SUBEB and all of us present at the ‘Tunde Olatunji Ayo Olopon competition- “Middle School Category” flag off at Osun East Senatorial District -Anglican Central Government Middle School, Ilare, Ile -Ife on the 13th of March, 2018.

We did not only break record, we made history. This is the first Ayo Olopon competition with the highest number of school children participants in Nigeria – three hundred and seventy one (371) middle school students between the ages of 10 and 17years.

This is beyond recreation, it is about promoting our culture and preserving our heritage. It is about making education more attractive and interesting to our pupils. It is about providing them with a game that has empirical proof of boosting a child’s basic arithmetic and logic reasoning skills as against prevalent modern games that adds no value to them. It is about ingenious approach to creating jobs and creating wealth.

Football was Europe’s gift to the world, America gave the world basketball, this is Africa’s gift to the world and we are committed to reviving, promoting, and developing the Ayo Olopon game.

If the global chess game industry could worth billions of dollar today, we can also build a viable industry from the oldest board game in Africa – Ayo Olopon.

The train moved to Osun West Senatorial district on the 14th of March for the second Ayo Olopon qualifier holding at Olufi Government Middle School, Gbongan and on Monday, 19th of March, it will be the turn of Osun central at Laro Government Middle School, Osogbo and St. Micheal Middle School,Otan Ayegbaju on the 20th of March.

The final holds on the 4th of April, 2018 (Osun SUBEB, ASA day celebration) at the Osogbo City Stadium.

A very big thank you to all our middle school students, the teachers, parents and most specially, the ASA Committee of middle School directorate, Osun SUBEB. You are truly wonderful!