Edo Deputy Governor, Philip Shaibu, on Tuesday in Benin said the state would be using the 20th National Sports Festival (NSF) tagged “Edo 2020’’ to showcase its future plans for sports.
Shaibu, during a courtesy visit to the Vice-Chancellor of University of Benin (UNIBEN), Prof. Lillian Salami, said: “Edo 2020 is a launching pad to showcase the activities and programmes we have for sports in the state. That is why we are taking it seriously.
“And we are also happy and excited that the University of Benin is playing a role in this regard, as our intellectual youths are in this great university.
“This is the headquarters of our youths.’’
He said the state government also intended to have the state’s local festival, the Edo Sports Festival, before the National Sports Festival in March.
“The essence of this is to test our facilities and to do a final screening for the athletes of Team Edo, who will put on our red shirts to represent us, and a lot of your students are going to be part of these athletes.
“We hope to use the UNIBEN main campus and the Ekekewan campus to camp 75 per cent of the athletes expected for the festival.
“We also hope to use the tennis court, the indoor sports hall and the main bowl of the UNIBEN sports complex,” the deputy governor said.
In his remarks, Salami assured the Edo state government of a good partnership with the Gov. Godwin Obaseki-led administration.
He said the festival was giving the institution the opportunity to upgrade its facilities to modern standard, pointing out that the school would greatly benefit from the festival(NAN)
