2012 National Sports Festival: Why Lagos Must Raise The Bar

Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, has explained why the state must deliver on its promise to stage a world class sporting fiesta with yesterday’s unveiling of the icons for the 18th National Sports Festival tagged Eko 2012.

Governor Fashola, said the state plans to put up a private sector driven festival, which would rival some of the global tournaments.

Fashola, who spoke at the unveiling of the icons for Eko 2012, said having accepted to stage the tournament, it behoves on the state government to put up a good show for others to follow.

“For us in Lagos, it will be nice to win the championship, but much more successful is to find more stars through the festival who will bear our torch at global level.

“I want to commend the Local Organising Committee (LOC) for their efforts so far, and the unveiling of the logo, mascot and website is a process to announce in the consciousness of Nigerians about the festival. With Lagos, being a commercial nerve centre of Nigeria, I believe if we cannot deliver a private sector driven festival, I doubt if there is any state that can do it,” Fashola explained at the Muson Centre on Thursday.

The governor added: “Hosting the festival is one of the symbolic gestures of our commitment to sports because we intend to provide facilities for our youths, where they can dissipate their energy by taking part in sports. This, we will not relent to do as more sports centres will be constructed across the state. For Eko 2012, we are committed to putting up a good show.”

and we believe it help to bring us back to the right path from our wilderness experience in sports.”

For the Minister of Sports, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, Lagos would surely deliver in its promise considering the efforts put into the staging of the event so far by the LOC as well as the Governor Fashola-led government.

“I am sure with the unveiling of the icons, it will help to sensitise people about the festival. Sports especially have lot of gains most importantly at engendering friendship and peace co-existence. I am confident that Lagos will set higher standard for the festival,” he said.

The NSC boss however, faulted the idea of staging the festival during the Olympics year, saying, “I believe staging the festival during the Olympics year will not achieve the ideal of the championship and I want to say that from the next festival, we should always see the competition as an avenue to prepare and harvest athletes for major championship like the Olympics,” he said.

In his remarks, NSC Director General, Patrick Ekeji charged Lagos to raise the bar of the festival in order to fulfill the objectives of the championship.

The occasion also brought together captains of industry and sports technocrats to the official launching of mascot, logo and website.