Sports Festival can’t hold in January, Edo government declares

.Wants event held in March/April

By Akeem Lawal                                                     

THE Edo State Government has said that the January 3, 2021 date for the commencement of the 20th National Sports Festival (NSF) is not feasible, Sportsbiz247.blogspot.com reports.

The festival tagged Edo 2020, was initially slated for March, but had to be postponed to December due to the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.

The festival was then slated for Benin from December 3 to 13 but after a virtual meeting between the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), and Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, the event has now been rescheduled to hold at the same venue from January 3 to 17, 2021.

However, the Edo State Deputy Governor, Comrade Philip Shuaibu, who is also the Chairman of the Local Organising Committee for the festival expressed worry over what he called lack of consideration of the athletes.

“We thought we would have been put in the mood the way it was done before the date is fixed. But since they have fixed the 3rd of January, fine for them. But to us, we feel they are not sensitive again to the environment. We have Christmas and the New Year celebrations. So they are telling us to bring our athletes and two days after the New Year celebration, they start the tournament. For us, that again is insensitive to the feelings of our people.

“The National Council of Sports the highest decision making as far as the tournament like this is concerned and they also need the host state to be part of the date they are fixing. But the top-down approach is what they have done again”.

The deputy governor now wants the Task Force to have a rethink of the proposed date to enable a good outing through adequate preparation by the athletes.

“As it is, January 3rd is not feasible for us. Not because infrastructures are not ready, but as far as the National Sports Festival is concerned, we are waiting to see that the National Council of Sports will hold a meeting to discuss the date the Presidential Task Force has given to us. We will make our position known to the council of sports that January 3rd for us is not a good date. We will prefer it adjusted to maybe around March ending to the beginning of April and it will be subject to our deliberation at the council of sports meeting,” Comrade Shuaibu stated.