A whopping sum of N650 million has been budgeted to host the 19th National Sports Festival in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
This was contained in a statement by the Special Assistant to the Sports Minister on Media, Nneka Ikem Anibeze, on Thursday.
According to Anibeze, the Minister of Youth and Sports, Solomon Dalung, is considering to host the Sports fiesta in Abuja since the Cross River State Government that won the hosting rights are not forthcoming with a date for the event.
To this end, Dalung said the Main Organizing Committee for the festival is asking for a whooping N650 million to host the festival.
He said: “We conveyed 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 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 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 N650m for them to host the festival. If we had N650m, then why do we have to go to Calabar?”
The National Sports Festival, which is held biennially to discover talents for international and continental competitions, has suffered several 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.
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