By Ugochim Uzoije
The long-awaited 20th National Sports Festival (NSF) has been scheduled to commence in December 3, 2020. The multi-sports competition tagged Edo 2020 had been previously scheduled to hold earlier in the year, March through April 2020, but was postponed due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The National Sports Council (NSC), at the end of a two-day Technical session in Asaba, gave the recommendation which is however, subject to the buy-in of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 (PTF) and final approval by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, who is the Chairman of Council assured that all the guiding protocols of the Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19 shall be fully implemented.
Similarly, the Deputy Governor of Edo State, Hon. Philip Shaibu, who was also present at the meeting, reaffirmed the State’s readiness of daily testing of Covid-19 for all athletes and officials who will attend the competition.
“It is indeed heartwarming that the long awaited NSF is holding this year 2020 as jointly approved the National Council on Sports, today in Asaba”. – Shaibu
The Council recommended that the Games Village would open on Thursday, December 3rd. Meanwhile, the festival will be in two phases: December 6 – 10, 2020 was scheduled for phase 1 of the competition. Thereafter, the break and arrivals for the latter phase comes up on Friday, December 11. The competition days for phase 2 will be held from December 12 – 16, 2020.
The closing ceremony takes place on Thursday, December 17, 2020 while the closure of the Games Village will be done on December 18, 2020.
