The the Local Organizing Committee and the Main Organizing Committee failed to design a good plan to protect and save the lives of all travelers for the 20th National Sports Festival.

Officials are treated like prisoners. When a state arrives, they are subjected to different series of frustration. Despite the tiredness due to long journey, the hungry and tired-looking team faces stress of queuing to be tested for Covid-19. And after successful results, states’ contingents slept either in the parked bus filled with mosquitoes while some slept in the open space near dirty gutter.

As if that’s is enough, despite payment of Fifteen thousand naira (N15,000) per day for each athlete, eight persons are given one unkept room without a fan as accommodation for 12 days they’re to spend during the tournament.

The powerlifters which consists of some medallists in the just-concluded Parapowerlifting World Cup in Manchester slept in the open dirty environment where mosquitoes came visiting every minute to suck discharge and come back for more.

In the daytime, their hopes of getting accommodation were dashed when they were given the eight-man to a room 4th floor in the University of Benin campus. This made them to settle down in a reading room which has no door and nets on the windows. They struggled to remove chairs and tables to create space for themselves.

The organizers also failed to orchestrate plan to save the lives of athletes at the Meal Center. At the center, it is survival of the fittest as they were seen scrambling and fighting to have food for himself. Unlike what I witnessed in Ilorin during the National Youth Games where each state is given a particular cook to serve them throughout the competition period.

  Athletes, Benin, Edo State, Ministry of Sports and Youth Development, Mr Sunday Dare, National Sports Festival, NSF