A Nigerian Universities Games Association Games official, Cecilia Arinye, on Friday said that the 24th sports fiesta, scheduled for the Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, Osun State, had been postponed indefinitely.
Arinye, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos, blamed the postponement on the indefinite strike of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, which started on July 1.
NAN reports that the Games had earlier been scheduled for October 3 to 13.
Arinye said that the NUGA Council would not stage the biennial competition until the industrial action was over.
She said: “The industrial action has made it difficult for students to be mobilised for the event.
“Athletes are not in their campuses because of the impasse between their lecturers and the Federal Government.
“Since then, no concerted training had been conducted by any school.”
Arinye, who is also the Director of Sports at the University of Lagos, regretted the time lag between the Games’ preliminaries in April and the event proper.
She said that the time lag would not allow the athletes to be at their best.
The NUGA Council official, who also Coordinates Zone F, comprising universities in Ogun, Lagos and Oyo States, advised that the event be held early in 2014, in the athletes’ interest.
She added: “If the athletes are hurriedly mobilised for the event, assuming the strike ends in a week’s time, they will not be at their best.
“And if athletes’ best performance is jettisoned for time, then the core essence of the Games is being eroded.”
The UNILAG sports chief said it would take up to three months for any meaningful preparation to be achieved, considering the time lag from the preliminaries.
Arinye added that the administrative bottlenecks involved in the release of funds and arrangement of logistics, for an event of such magnitude, would require the postponement of the Games till 2014.
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