The facilities for the forthcoming 2022 National Sports Festival (NSF) will be ready for the Nigerian biennial sports fiesta which will take place in Asaba the Delta State capital.
Chief Tonobok Okowa, the Executive Chairman of the Delta State Sports Commission stated this in an interview in Asaba recently, while dwelling on the preparations NSF.
Chief Okowa said having won the National Sports Festival in Edo and National Youth Games in Ilorin, the attention of the State Government has been shifted to preparing and hosting one of the best games in the annals of the National Sports Festival.
He said Governor Ifeanyi Okowa has expressed satisfaction with the States performance at the National Youth Games in Ilorin, adding that Delta State was now ready to kick start preparations for the National Sports Festival as the memorandum of understanding between the State and the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development would be signed soon.
Chief Okowa said that contract for the new venues for the games would soon be awarded, stressing that majority of the facilities were already on ground. He said there was need to add new ones to ensure that the state lived up to its billing as the home of sports in Nigeria
He also lauded the Sports Minister Chief Sunday Dare for taking steps to check age cheats in the National Youth Games asserting that the State Sports Commission had some been in the forefront of discouraging age cheats at the Games
Team Delta are the current champions of the National Sports Festival having won seven times from the last nine editions since 2000 and the National Youth Games where it has won all six editions of the games since inception.
Jude Agbeyeke
