From Mike Tayese, Yenagoa

The Governor’s Cup in Bayelsa was initiated and managed by Mr. Onoriode Kelvin Akpe  since the time of former governor Henry Seriake Dickson.

He started the tournament with the titled “Restoration Cup” which produced young bayelsans football athletes and since then, the governor’s Cup has come to stay in Bayelsa and has been acknowledged by government across the federation.

Ono as is fondly called was the former Director General on New Media to former governor Dickson.

Not relenting in it efforts continued from where he stopped after Dickson left office with the current administration of governor Douye Diri  but this time termed “Prosperity Cup”.

In May, the Prosperity Cup Season 6 was kicked Off by the state deputy governor, Senator Lawrence Ewrhudjakpo at the  main bowl of the Samson Siasia stadium in Yenagoa the state capital.

Ono Akpe who is the Director General of Prosperity Cup was not only interested in recruiting young talented footballers  that will represent the state and by extension Nigeria as a country and also play in an international clubs but also interested in equipping Bayelsa Referees by training them to understand new techniques in carrying out there job and acquire knowledge that will help them Excel in order to be at par with their counterparts in other states and across the world.

Seeing and knowing the importance of training decided to collaborate with the Bayelsa state Football Association  to organised a One Day Training for all of them with the mindset of equipping them with required knowledge by an erudite, a scholar and thorough bread professional with several years of experience in the field to come and refresh the Bayelsa state Referees for them to perform maximally and effectively without biased and good sense of judgement especially in the ongoing Prosperity Cup.

It’s with this love and passion that the Referees Refreshers Course was organised for the Referees at the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Yenagoa, Bayelsa state.Participants who participated in the training  not only commended the Organisers of the Bayelsa State Governor’s Football Tournament Season 6, (Prosperity Cup 2024) for  putting together a one-day refresher course for the national referees’ council, Bayelsa chapter,but implored other states to emulate it, as the importance of training and retraining for any professional body cannot be over emphasized. While talking to the participants, the man who initiated and bring to birth the Governor’s Cup, Mr Ono Akpe, said the refresher course which was in partnership with the Bayelsa State Football Association, was aimed at enhancing officiating skills of the referees and equip them with updated information of the game, inline with best global practices.
Speaking to journalists in their various interviews after the refresher training for referees,  a resource person Mr Chukwudi Chukwujekwu (FIFA RTD) and Deputy President of  Nigeria Football Referees Association, Mr Kelechi  Mejuobi believed that the initiative  of refreshers course for training of referees was not only worthy of emulation by other states, but timely in view of the on going prosperity Cup ,a grass root tournament targeted at  hunting  professional youth  footballers.

The duo described the collaboration as fantastic and promised that the young referees will be invited to Abuja soon.According to them , they are happy with Bayelsa state government’s target at young referees,other states needs to emulate this initiative.Also speaking , Mrs Felicia Okugbawa Okonji ( FIFA RTD ) reiterated the essence of refreshers course for referees and the training will go along way for the improvement on officiating of matches in line with global practices. On his part, the Tournament Director of the Prosperity Cup season 6, Perela Aboro , host of the event, averred  that the training will enhance the participants confidence on modern techniques in Nigerian referees in their officiating of matches.

The Chairman of Bayelsa state Nigeria Football Referees Association, Ebi Nwankwe applauded the organizers of the training and with  rich contents from distinguished resource persons, the members have been massively impacted  and that will bring about  improvement on their officiating henceforth,while soliciting for more regular programmes for the improvement on the skills and performance of it’s members.” We look forward to more of such collaborations in future and to our members to whom much  is given,much is expected ” he said.

The one day event had the Director General of the Prosperity Cup season 6 ,Mr Ono Kelvin Akpe  as it’s chief host and was graced by Chief Patimidi Tukuru, permanent secretary, Ministry of special projects, as special guest