Minister of Sports and Youth Development, Solomon Dalung, has said that the 19th edition of the National Sports Festival will go on as planned with athletes and officials all set for the 10-day event.
Contrary to speculation that the festival may be delayed due to some logistic challenges at the National Stadium in Abuja, the sports minister who, spoke with State House correspondents after a meeting of the Federal Executive Council, said the competition which began on Thursday, December 6, 2018 will run without any problems till December 15 2018.
According to Dalung, participants for the festival were drawn from 35 states excluding Ebonyi.
Ebonyi state’s exclusion from the games is due to the Ebonyi State Government’s active participation in the 1st Ebonyi Governor’s Para-Military Games 2018, which left no room for the state to prepare its athletes for the 2018 NSF.
Dalung noted that Cross River was originally billed to host the games however, their sluggish organization forced the federal government to step in and take over running of the festival.
According to a breakdown of participation by the sports ministry, 7,227 athletes, 710 coaches, 322 other team officials and 602 state delegates have registered and will take part in this year’s event.
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