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[BREAKING] National Sports Festival: Edo Govt Dares FG, Locks Out Officials

Published

4 years ago

Apr 8, 2021.

BREAKING: FG Postpones National Sports Festival Over Coronavirus, Edo

The Edo State Government, on Thursday, shut down the Main Organising Committee (MOC) office of the National Sports Festival.
The Edo State Government had on Wednesday threatened to shut down the Festival over the failure of the Federal Government to release funds.

The Edo State Government, on Thursday, shut down the Main Organising Committee (MOC) office of the National Sports Festival.

The government said it took the decision as a result of the failure of the Federal Government (FG) to release funds for the event ongoing at the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium, Benin City.

The Edo State Government had on Wednesday threatened to shut down the Festival over the failure of the Federal Government to release funds.

But the Federal Ministry of Sports and the MOC of the festival had said they were unaware of any plans or threat by the Edo State Government to shut down the event.

While reacting on Thursday morning, the Deputy Governor and Chairman, LOC of the Festival, Philip Shaibu, accused the Federal Government of betrayal of trust.

Shaibu stated that the MOC, which has the officials from the Federal Ministry of Youths and Sports Development as members, will not be allowed to perform their duties any longer.

He said, “We may be shutting down the National Sports Festival; not because Edo State is not ready; the facilities are here. You can see we have the state-of-the-art facilities.

“We had no cause to doubt the Federal Government’s plan to fund the 20th National Sports Festival after so many postponements caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and at the instance of the government.

“It took the grace of God for the traders not to shut down. Other vendors are threatening to shut down and hence the LOC will have no choice but to shut down the 20th National Sports Festival if we don’t get full commitment from the federal government by noon tomorrow.”

Shaibu continued, “We already it had in our plans to shut down the MOC by 12pm today and other venues will be shut down by tomorrow noon if we don’t full commitment. But by 12 noon today, the MOC office will be shut down, we will allow the games to continue and by tomorrow, if we don’t get full commitment, we will shut down.

“This is not a threat as we are ready to collaborate with the federal government in all its policies but it is just that our vendors are threatening to shut down and the state has no resources to commit to the extent we have already committed.”

It was, however, gathered that the office of the MOC was locked and there was no official to comment as of the time of filing this report.