</em> <em><strong>DG Oluwatoyin Gafaar (2nd right) with other officials watching one of the events at the festival</strong> </em>
Hon. Oluwatoyin Gafaar is the Director General of Lagos State Sports Commission. He has been with Team Lagos participating in the ongoing Delta 2022 National Sports Festival, giving the athletes, coaches and other officials enough support for them to excel in the competition. On Sunday night, Gafaar had a brief chat with the media at Stephen Keshi Stadium in Asaba where he charged the athletes to rise to the occasion by giving in their best to make the state proud of them.
Your assessment of Team Lagos performance so far
It is still very early because a lot of events are ongoing. As of Sunday, we have nine gold medals and our position is within the top 3, though not yet official from the Main Organising Committee. I want to assure that we will try as much as possible to maintain this momentum and even get better by the day. On Saturday, we have four gold medals and on Sunday we have another five. So, the athletes are doing well as the tournament progresses.
</em> <strong><em>A shot at the boxing event</em></strong>
How will you react to the challenges pose by Edo and Delta in the last three sports festivals?
It is Edo, Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers not in the last three festivals. Edo came in the picture last festival which they hosted; we can understand their emergence. This time, I don’t see Edo as a threat to our position. I know this sports festival will be our best outing ever.
As the sports festival progresses from Monday, what is your message to Team Lagos
The message is clear and loud that they should put in their best and make Mr Governor proud because he has kept his promise. All promise made are all promise kept. He has done his own part; it is now left for us to do our own part. He has asked the athletes to do Lagos proud and make him proud. On behalf of the athletes, I am telling Mr Governor that we are going to make him proud.
</em> <strong><em>Male basketball team</em></strong></dd>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd">
Your reaction about the issue of poaching
There is little or nothing we can do about it. It is something that need to be address at the level of institution. The fundamental mistake that we do is that most of the athletes live in Lagos, but they are not Lagos state athletes. They are in Lagos to train and use our facilities. In the meantime, we have mapped out the strategy since last festival that have prevented these set of athletes from using our facilities, but they later shifted to the National Stadium, unfortunately for them, the National Stadium is under renovation and reconstruction, they have to been looking towards our facilities again.
We are going to do with this problem very cautiously because Lagos is a home to all. This won’t be sanctioning but systematic and scientific way to deal with the issue of poaching. We are very much on top of it.
Ironically, most of these athletes, coaches and even administrators were one time or the other with us in Lagos until they found themselves in other states.
The plans of the Lagos State Sports Commission for Year 2023
We have robust plans in the pipeline, but first we have to do away with the sports festival before coming to that. Our focus is on Delta 2022 event. We have the package that would soon be unveiled to the public. Our concern now is the sports festival
</em> <strong><em>Female hockey team</em></strong>
Your target for Delta 2022 Sports Festival
The target is do better than we did in Edo, both in the number of medals to be won, and the position on the medal table.