A sports enthusiast and former Chairman of Gombe State Football Association, Alhaji Ahmed Shuaibu Gara-Gombe has faulted the decision to stage the 2020 National Sports Festival in December as he said the decision is borne out of selfish interest.
The fierce social critic said instead of the sports ministry to waste money on hosting the sports festival which he said only serves the purpose of discovering new athletes, such money should be channeled into Team Nigeria’s preparations for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
Gara-Gombe, therefore, described the approval of December 3-18, 2020 as the new date for the postponed 20th National Sports Festival, tagged ‘Edo 2020 Game’ by the National Council on Sports (NCS) as diversionary just as he accused the handlers of the sports sector of pursuing personal benefits.
Consequently, he warned that if there is no change of mind on the part of the sports ministry, Nigerians should prepare for Team Nigeria’s disastrous outing at the postponed Tokyo Olympics rescheduled for the summer next year.
The world’s biggest sporting spectacle which was originally scheduled to hold in July 2020, but postponed due to COVID-19 fears would now start on July 30, 2021 and run till August 8 2021.
“With this sports festival, I know our preparation for the Olympics is under threat. Very soon, the Ministry will start blaming the Presidency that money has not been released. Why not use the money for sports festival and open Camp for Olympics Preparation?.
“The objective of the National Sports Festival is discovering talents that can represent Nigeria in the Olympics. That has been done and those who would represent Nigeria in Tokyo are already known.
“So, what we need to do now is to concentrate on preparing them, and stop chasing money to put in our pockets,” he said.
