A six-man committee has been put in place by the Edo State Government to prepare a road map for a successful outing of Team Edo during the forthcoming 20th National Sports Festival.
The sports fiesta tagged Edo 2020 is scheduled to hold in different centres in Benin City, Edo State from March 20 to April 4, 2020.
Edo State Deputy Governor and Chairman, Local Organising Committee, Edo 2020, Philip Shaibu charged the committee headed by Godwin Dudu-Orume, Chairman, Edo State Sports Commission to immediately put machinery in motion towards hosting the third Edo State Sports Festival, where a strong and formidable team would be put in place to represent the state during the national sports fiesta.
According to the Deputy Governor: “ We must not fail, we are committing all these resources because we want to redefine national competitive sports in Nigeria. We are not just hosting, we are hosting to win and win clean and show the world what national sports festival should be.”
He said the third Edo State Sports Festival is not going to be a jamboree, rather, it is expected to serve as ground for talent hunt to discover young and fresh athletes to replace the tired and ageing ones. He further emphasised that “ no automatic ticket for anybody. Every athlete, old or young has to compete for a place in the 32 sports lined up for the festival”.
In all, 32 sports, including football and traditional sports would be competed for during the festival, starting from the 18 local governments in the state to the zonal elimination in the three senatorial zones and finally to the state where the final athletes to represent the state would be selected in keenly competitive games.
Towards this end, the committee hit the ground running, meeting all through the weekend, brain storming. The unity torch for the games was expected to start its movement in Igarra, capital of Akoko Edo on Wednesday, from there to other local government areas of the state and terminate its journey in the metropolitan Oredo Local Government on Monday, January 20. The 18 local government chairmen are expected to receive the unity torch in their respective domain during the six days tour.