Cross River Demands For N650m To Host Sports Festival – Minister

TAIWO ADELU

The Ministry of Youth and Sports may host the 19th National Sports Festival in Abuja, Nigerian capital city.  This is because the Cross River State that won the rights to host the festival is not forthcoming with a date for the event.
Minister of Youth and Sports Barrister Solomon Dalung said the Main Organizing Committee for the festival is asking for a whooping N650 million to host the festival.
“We conveyed a meeting of the National Council for Sports in Calabar and made several inspection tours of facilities to ensure that we hold the event this year but it does appear to us in the ministry that we might be going back to Plan B. Our Plan B is that if Cross River State cannot host the event, we will come back to Abuja and host the National Sports Festival. We are determined because without the National Sports Festival we cannot enrich the talents’ profile of our athletes for national and international competitions.
“We have succeeded in hosting the National Youth Games against all odds and we will go back to our Plan B if Cross River State relocates the burden of funding the games to the ministry. They have insisted that we provide as much as N650 million for them to host the festival. If we had N650 million, then why do we have to go to Calabar?” Dalung quipped.
The National Sports Festival which is held biennially to discover talents for international and continental competitions has suffered many postponements in the past but the ministry is determined to hold the festival this year irrespective of a looming disappointment by Cross River state.
The last festival was held in Lagos in 2012.