Rejection of New Sports Festival Dates: Edo State Government Accuse PTF Of Hypocrisy
The Edo State government has accused the The Presidential Task Force (PTF) on Covid-19 of double-standard following the latter’s rejection of the new dates proposed for the National Council on Sports for the commencement of the 2020 National Sports Council, Bestchoicesports.com.ng can report
The Deputy governor the state, Phillip Shuaibu who is also the Chairman, Edo 2020 NSF Local Organising Committee made the accusation while reacting to the PTF’s rejection of December 3rd to 18th dates rescheduled for the festival.
On March 17, 2020, President Mohammadu Buhari approved the postponement of the National Sports Festival Edo 2020 as a precautionary move against COVID-19 spread. The NSF tagged ‘Edo 2020’ was initially scheduled to hold from March 20th to April 1, 2020
With restrictions on sporting activities relaxed last month, the National Council on Sports in early November held a three-day meeting in Asaba, Delta state where the council proposed new dates for the festival to be from 3rd to 18th December, 2020.
However, the PTF has rejected these dates and called for a shift.
While speaking with newsmen in Edo state, the LOC Chairman said challenged PTF’s decision “How can PTF who approved that we can now start contact sports, the same PTF approves opening of NYSC camps across the country. The same PTF approves that we can all go to churches and mosques. All the market places are opened and you say we can not hold National Sports Festival?
“Now, this is sports where we can control the crowd that comes to the stadium
“We have a facility where a stadium that can take 15, 000 crowd, we can say, let’s hold 3, 000 and they will be spaced,” he said.
With this new development, the much-awaited National Sports Festival will no longer hold this year. This will bring up many issues as many States in Nigeria had commenced close camping of their athletes before the announcement on Tuesday.
