The Main Organizing Committee (MOC) of the Lagos 2012 National Sports Festival (NSF) led by its Chairman, Dr Patrick Ekeji is confident that with the facilities put in place, Lagos State is ready to host the festival.

Ekeji who is also the Director General of the National Sports Commission (NSC) Tuesday led members of the MOC, while the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) headed by the Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Adejoke Orelope-Adefulere alongside the Commissioner for Youth, Sports and Social Development, Wahid Enitan-Oshodi were also part of the team that inspected the facilities.

A happy Ekeji said he was impressed with the facilities but charge the state to put finishing touches to some of them.

“I think we are impressed with what we have seen and we believe the state is ready to host the festival. We are confidence that being a state of Excellent, Lagos will give its best in terms of organisation of the festival. For now, I think we will give them 85 per cent hoping that the remaining marks will be awarded when we come for the final inspection before the festival in November,” he said.

The DG added that it was time the festival was internationalised for other countries to participate.

“I want to say that the festival is not a local event any more. We believe it can be internationalised so that other countries in Africa can also learn from us. Lagos being a tourist state can live up to expectation with this year’s festival. For now, we are hoping that renovation on the facilities will be concluded before the final inspection. But for us at MOC, we are satisfied with what we have seen so far,” Ekeji said.

The delegation inspected facilities at the Mobolaji Johnson Sports Centre in Rowe Park, University of Lagos, Federal College of Education (Technical), Yaba College of Technology (YABATECH), the National Stadium and Teslim Balogun Stadium.

Orelope-Adefulere said that the inspection being a preliminary tour would help the MOC to look at the facilities and also advised.

She, however, assured the MOC that all the facilities would be ready before the final inspection.

Meanwhile, international bodies like the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa (ANOCA) would be invited to be part of the festival.

Also Wednesday, the MOC team will examine the festival logo, which would be ratified before it could be used by the LOC. The meeting will also deliberate on the festival time-line, which will be harmonized by the MOC and the LOC, while members of the LOC sub-committees would be named today.



culled from www.thisdaylive.com