By Dele Ade
A new date has been confirmed for the 20th edition of the National Sports Festival to kick-off.
The Ministers of Youths and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, on Friday confirmed April 2nd to April 14th as the new date.
The Sports Minister made the announcement during a visit to the Edo State Government House in Benin City, the Edo State capital.
He also announced that Edo State will be used for the National Camp in preparation for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games taking place later this year.
Dare said further that the Federal Government is determined to go ahead with the Unity Games which is the sequel to participation at the Tokyo Games.
However, he noted that due to logistics under the circumstances occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of athletes has been reduced from 14,000 to 8,000 athletes.
Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki in response assured that the state is ready to host the games.
He appealed to the Federal Government to make funds available to enable the state to take good care of visiting athletes and officials at the sports festival.
He explained that the series of postponements have taken its toll on the state government and that the country is winning the war against the COVID-19 pandemic, which makes the games safe enough to go ahead as scheduled
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Festival had witnessed series of postponement after the initial date of March 18th to April 1st, 2020 date was fixed.