Diminutive duo, John, Dutse, dream of winning AIM’s students prize

The distance between Bwari Area Council of FCT and The Pavilion, venue of the ongoing Abuja International Marathon Expo, is over an hour. But like men on a mission, the duo Peter John and Sunday Emmanuel Dutse, accompanied by Danladi Mailamba, their coach, manager and teacher, arrive at the Expo ground before dawn daily.

John (11 years old) and Dutse, 12 years, both students of Knvlope Primary School, in Bwari Area Council of FCT, are not just out to participate in the five-kilometre race at the Abuja International Marathon. They say their mission is to win the prize money of N500,000.

According to their coach, Mailamba, a former sprinter and quartermiler, whose athletics career was aborted after secondary school because there was no marriage between sports and education at National Teachers Training Institute, where he did his NCE (National Certificate in Education), running the five-kilometre race is not a big deal for John and Dutse,

“Twice a week, we do more than 10 kilometres as part of our six days training weekly. We normally run twice weekly from Knvlope to Shere, a distance that is more than 10 kilometres, so running and winning the five- kilometer race is achievable on April 29.”

Mailamba is of the opinion that talents died in Nigeria because of lack of development programmes. “We are talented in all sports, but there are no development programmes… we need to start proper elite athlete development programmes. We are grateful to FCT and Unicentral for the Abuja International Marathon, but we need more, not just in Abuja, but in all the nooks and crannies of FCT… we have what it takes to excel like East Africans, but we need to start early, like age 6 or 7.”

On what his wards will do with the prize money if they